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Why did Jesus have to die?

Seanan

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Sorry... I could not stay with it. When anything flys in the face of my experience, I quit listening. (well, unless its something new I haven't heard before and already tested) As soon as he said "God punishes" I quit. I, simply, have not found this to be true. I punish whenever I step out of His will for me. I find Him always trying to, lovingly, protect me from that.... as do most parents (creators) I might add. I may not always agree with nor want to do His will and have suffered the consequeces every time I've rebelled. When I come back to Him, He is always waiting with open arms. No... I'm not religious.. that's man's law.
 

Totenkindly

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I think you may be putting your own spin onto the OP because it didn't seem hostile to me at all. She seemed confused and wanted a sense of understanding. Nothing wrong with that.

I didn't really see any of this as hostile either. It's not hostile to disagree with someone, and the tone has been very civil, more civil than most conversations of this nature... especially compared to what would have happened on INTPc.

The questions need to be raised by some people, because their "faith" is going to have large weaknesses in it otherwise. Some people need less evidence from others for support for their faith; there's no sense in disparaging people for wanting more explanation.

I appreciated Liquid Laser's explanation; essentially, it is the answer to the question, "Why does God permit evil/suffering?" by saying God has chosen to pay the ultimate price for human sin, rather than just sticking us with the bag o' crap that he himself permitted. That's another valid way to look at the sacrifice of Jesus.

...When anything flys in the face of my experience, I quit listening. (well, unless its something new I haven't heard before and already tested) As soon as he said "God punishes" I quit. I, simply, have not found this to be true. I punish whenever I step out of His will for me. I find Him always trying to, lovingly, protect me from that.... as do most parents (creators) I might add. I may not always agree with nor want to do His will and have suffered the consequeces every time I've rebelled. When I come back to Him, He is always waiting with open arms...

That is the part I am struggling with too. The largest analogies made in the NT don't make God out to be a traffic cop and executioner, he is continually described as a parent... and having now been a parent, my attitude towards what God is like has changed as well.

Some people are happy having faith in a book that might or might be accurate. I can't do that. I experience life and I piece together my experiences, and I cannot follow someone's idea of faith if it fails to be consistent with the Big Picture of how life really seems to work. I think a lot of people are unhappy because they keep trying to reconcile a particular view of God with a world that it cannot be reconciled with... no wonder there is such self-judgment and friction and tension.
 

miss fortune

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Jesus died because he was considered a threat to the Roman government- quite simple- he was considered rather seditious since he was a popular leader among the problematically rebellious Jewish community, which made the Roman leaders nervous. He was executed in common manner of execution for traitors at the time! :)

or we could say this ;)

"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine..." Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, Heroin
 

zarc

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The questions need to be raised by some people, because their "faith" is going to have large weaknesses in it otherwise. Some people need less evidence from others for support for their faith; there's no sense in disparaging people for wanting more explanation.

I appreciated Liquid Laser's explanation; essentially, it is the answer to the question, "Why does God permit evil/suffering?" by saying God has chosen to pay the ultimate price for human sin, rather than just sticking us with the bag o' crap that he himself permitted. That's another valid way to look at the sacrifice of Jesus.

Why is it God who must take the blame? (I like the analogy b/w God and parents btw) Aren't we supposed to learn not to blame our parents (unless it's reasonable. i.e abuse) but learn from them of both their good points and bad points and all in b/w, so we can become better? If we just kept blaming them, we wouldn't become self-aware of our rightful mistakes. We find it easier to blame other's too and not take rightful blame, if rightfully so. So simple misunderstanding is one cause to just easily blame a person or even ourselves through guilt! It's the same as blaming God for not helping us or not listening or claiming god's now listening to punish (like a parent) b/c Hurricane Katrina is a reminder of our sins (misbehaving) or Asian Tsunami's too (bad bad children!) or any other natural event or unnatural event (We have to learn from it, God's Testing us). It used to be "God made it rain! God won't make it rain!" We now know otherwise, so why not ditch the rest? The scapegoat of Jesus dying for 'our collective sins'. Why not a new son? (WHY all males?! Males dominate society, especially during the times of "Jesus" etc). Sin was BEGUN by a FEMALE (Eve) in order to justify that it's women who must be kept under control so as not to be tempted or to tempt men into corruption (or seduction) It's largely convenient to keep it for people. That isn't to say good things haven't come from religion. But I wouldn't say it's from religion, it's from the people who've become better by learning from other's and just use religion rather like modesty ("God has made me stronger. I passed the/His Test"). If we have Free Will, wouldn't it be that through our Free Will we've become stronger w/o God pulling the strings of our "fate"? I love it when people claim not to believe in fate yet believe in religion and their God/s' 'direction' of them b/c it implies their fate is controlled by this deity, albiet to help them grow from the 'crises' in their lives.

Wouldn't it be more likely that, by anthropromorphising this + other 'deities', humans needed the excuse that they have a Grand Parent watching out for them but that allows them to make mistakes b/c they need to make them? I recall from Noah's Arc (+ similarities in most cultural holy texts + myths) that God wiped OUT everyone due to an abundance of Sin. Wouldn't it seem likely God would remove Free Will? Wouldn't we as a more advanced technological society, who probably has destroyed more and is more 'corrupted', than other societies from the past be better off destroyed than allowed to live?

What is 'sin'? Who/what is to be condemned? Whomever/whatever is defined by the majorities' of peoples during points in society against the minorities' around them. Just as "Jesus" was an invented minority scapegoat "against the majority of corrupted Jews" (who have paid ever since). We do it to others. If anything, the Jesus story should help other's to embrace differences (He did touched lepers, prostitutes, the outcast!). If he existed, I can imagine him hugging a homosexual not b/c this person is sick and needs his salvation but b/c this person needs his love and acceptance. We all want and need love. We're all different. We all rage against the machines of ignorance when not understood. Some enjoy being misunderstood (having been failed), I'd think most would want to be understood.

Terms become put in place for both majority and minority when people fear the "new" thing. Gay and Fag's etymological roots are happy/carefree and 'the end of a cigrette'. Then it was derogatory. Then used for fun "That's like so gay! lolol!" It's now largely embraced by LGBT people. They made it positive for themselves, took power of the word from their oppressors. Same with other minority groups. Straight? Implies 'right' on the 'straight and narrow path'. Black/White/Yellow/Brown people? Never existed before modern times. Why would West/North Africans kidnapped and placed in other countries call themselves "Black" when they had their own names of their ethnitices? Europeans were French, English, Dutch, whathaveyou. Look at the roots of what those words were used for. Black = Bad/Evil White = Good/Purity Yellow can be happy but also SALLOW/sickly complexion. I've stepped outside the bounds of God and religion but it's to point that "God", if existening as an entity, would likely embrace all of its creation (Why create them if otherwise? EVEN LGBT!) and not condemn them. Religion correlates to all facets of ugly and beautiful society. Interconnected. Religion influences the masses and is influenced by the masses when the people choose to 'change' to now suit their needs. So, when someone says its' PEOPLE who do the condeming and twist the words of "God/s" then why isn't it thought that perhaps all the documented texts of all religons which were created BY people FOR people of their eras were distorted to suit their needs due to lack of understanding.

It's justifying for what we, the majority, want and expect and wish for w/o a lot of care for the minority. We see this in poltics. We do this personally in our lives with our families and friends w/o a lot of care for strangers.

People don't surface with religion when thrust out the womb, they're parents put a religion onto them. Cyclical pattern. Until one breaks away. Adopts new religion, becomes atheist or something else enitrely.

If the modern religions didn't rush to claim territories or convert people into their religion (b/c it's the "right" one compared with the others'), we wouldn't largely be Christian or Mulsim. They wouldn't be well known. Imagine Buddhists trying to convert through mainly forceful means, we'd likely be Buddhists at this point. If no one pushed for religion, we wouldn't have it in modern times. If one can accept the Theory of Evolution and disrepute the Thoery of Creationism, they have ultimately rejected the power of their Deity as the holy texts made BY the people of the past FOR the people of the past to explain how they came to be.

The invention of Jesus, made conscientious and pure, didn't have to die but people needed him to suit their needs, w/e they may be and for whom. Nietzsche proclaimed "God is Dead." (people's morals are dead) I'd think it's also along the lines of "God is dead within Us" (our morals are dead). We grow with the "God within us" if allowed to flourish w/o corruption/not accepting others and connect with the "Gods within other's" when we accept differences and the (conscientious souls/minds of) "Jesuses" outside whom cross our paths in life, directly or inadvertently, help us connect with our Inner God again. :D

Edit: And we can become Jesus too and help others! We even have our very own local one on the forums, right? Who says he has to be the only one?!
 

Totenkindly

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Why is it God who must take the blame? (I like the analogy b/w God and parents btw) Aren't we supposed to learn not to blame our parents (unless it's reasonable. i.e abuse) but learn from them of both their good points and bad points and all in b/w, so we can become better?

A lot to respond to and I will need to read more later.

But I'm not blaming God. What LL is saying is that God is taking responsibility all on his own for the state the world is in. And after all, if he is truly God, and he is supremely in control of it, isn't that his right as well as his responsibility?

He created the world to be what it is, if you believe him to be the creator. He could have made it any way he liked... but he chose THIS. He set the rules. He made people what they are. He set the parameters of our moral choices. Therefore he is responsible. (And that's not me blaming him, it's himself taking responsibility.) And so one could view Jesus in terms of this -- as God saying, "I made this, I set down the ground rules this way, and to be fair, I will take any of the bad things that happen on my own head via Jesus."

If anything, God is choosing to accept responsibility on his own for what he has created. People don't need to blame him for anything at all. We also lose the right to bitch and blame God, to be honest... because God could say, "Look, what more can I do? I gave you free will AND I'm suffering along with you. What else could I do for you? "
 

Seanan

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Jesus died because he was considered a threat to the Roman government- quite simple- he was considered rather seditious since he was a popular leader among the problematically rebellious Jewish community, which made the Roman leaders nervous. He was executed in common manner of execution for traitors at the time! :)

or we could say this ;)

"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine..." Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, Heroin

And he arrived at precisely the right time for that to happen... as prophesied.
 

zarc

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A lot to respond to and I will need to read more later.

But I'm not blaming God. What LL is saying is that God is taking responsibility all on his own for the state the world is in. And after all, if he is truly God, and he is supremely in control of it, isn't that his right as well as his responsibility?

He created the world to be what it is, if you believe him to be the creator. He could have made it any way he liked... but he chose THIS. He set the rules. He made people what they are. He set the parameters of our moral choices. Therefore he is responsible. (And that's not me blaming him, it's himself taking responsibility.) And so one could view Jesus in terms of this -- as God saying, "I made this, I set down the ground rules this way, and to be fair, I will take any of the bad things that happen on my own head via Jesus."

If anything, God is choosing to accept responsibility on his own for what he has created. People don't need to blame him for anything at all. We also lose the right to bitch and blame God, to be honest... because God could say, "Look, what more can I do? I gave you free will AND I'm suffering along with you. What else could I do for you? "

I wasn't blaming you as I said I liked your parental analogy. I would have told you directly "Jennifer, why do you blame God?" ;) I just wanted to run on your point to push it further that other's may learn to put blame on God and those are the people not taking responsibility for their actions. Just relying on this 'parent's' neverending responsibilty for their actions and welfare and not learning to be responsible themselves and with their actions, for themselves and against/for other's. Citing it was their parent's who made them this way, good or bad, through "tough love" or "gentle love".
 

wedekit

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A lot to respond to and I will need to read more later.

But I'm not blaming God. What LL is saying is that God is taking responsibility all on his own for the state the world is in. And after all, if he is truly God, and he is supremely in control of it, isn't that his right as well as his responsibility?

He created the world to be what it is, if you believe him to be the creator. He could have made it any way he liked... but he chose THIS. Therefore he is responsible. (And that's not me blaming him, it's himself taking responsibility.) And so one could view Jesus in terms of this -- as God saying, "I made this, I set down the ground rules this way, and to be fair, I will take any of the bad things that happen on my own head via Jesus."

If anything, God is choosing to accept responsibility on his own for what he has created. People don't need to blame him for anything at all.

I've never thought of it this way before. :) Very interesting.

I remember asking myself this same question ("Why did Jesus have to die?") a couple of years ago. I didn't come up with anything fancy, only that if Jesus would have remained alive we wouldn't have free will. This is because we honestly would have no choice but to do what we were told by Jesus (aka God), since he (at least supposedly) had mystical proof of his identity. Instead, Jesus ended up as a divine exemplar, becoming more of an option instead of a demand. Those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus will find themselves at the gates of Heaven.

That was my interpretation of it at least, though I am now reconsidering it. Guess I'll do a little research now... :)
 

INTJMom

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I think you may be putting your own spin onto the OP because it didn't seem hostile to me at all. She seemed confused and wanted a sense of understanding. Nothing wrong with that.

I didn't really see any of this as hostile either. It's not hostile to disagree with someone, and the tone has been very civil, more civil than most conversations of this nature... especially compared to what would have happened on INTPc.....

I hope everyone will please forgive me for misunderstanding the intent and tone of the OP.
 

nottaprettygal

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I hope everyone will please forgive me for misunderstanding the intent and tone of the OP.

Hey now. How come you only agreed with me after Jennifer's post?

Anyway, I didn't say that you misunderstood to be critical. Really, I just thought it was interesting how two people can interpret a post in totally different ways due to their beliefs (me=agnostic you=christian).
 

antireconciler

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Your OP assumed the guy was wrong and you wanted to disabuse him of his thinking.
With such a hostile stance, you would never be satisfied until the entire thing was explained from beginning to end.
And as I said, though you refuse to agree, faith is how we comprehend God, not logic.
God did it that way on purpose "to confound the wise" as the scripture says.
If you refuse to engage your heart in addition to your head, you will never know God.

I do, after all, understand your reasons and am one with you in your sentiment. The fancy sophistry of the prideful doesn't itself bring anyone closer to God. I understand. And we could never appreciate God without engaging our hearts and, in a way, allowing ourselves to come into understanding rather than trying to make understanding for ourselves. Yes, I agree, and none of our reasoning means anything without faith.

And I do, after all, have faith. I have a faith in the gift of life and love that God has given me. I need nothing else. My cup is filled to overflowing, and I feel no need to add to it or take away from it.

Nonetheless, my faith lies with existence. All of existence is bound by causation. Everything bound by causation is created from its cause. Thus all things have cause. Thus all things have reason for being, and all things are reasonable. My faith is in the reasonableness of everything. My faith is in reason. Reason is governed by logic. My faith is in logic. If you do not have faith in logic, you have faith in what does not exist; you have faith in nothing. That is the result.

Wouldn't it be more likely that, by anthropromorphising this + other 'deities', humans needed the excuse that they have a Grand Parent watching out for them but that allows them to make mistakes b/c they need to make them? I recall from Noah's Arc (+ similarities in most cultural holy texts + myths) that God wiped OUT everyone due to an abundance of Sin. Wouldn't it seem likely God would remove Free Will? Wouldn't we as a more advanced technological society, who probably has destroyed more and is more 'corrupted', than other societies from the past be better off destroyed than allowed to live?

What is 'sin'? Who/what is to be condemned? Whomever/whatever is defined by the majorities' of peoples during points in society against the minorities' around them. Just as "Jesus" was an invented minority scapegoat "against the majority of corrupted Jews" (who have paid ever since). We do it to others. If anything, the Jesus story should help other's to embrace differences (He did touched lepers, prostitutes, the outcast!). If he existed, I can imagine him hugging a homosexual not b/c this person is sick and needs his salvation but b/c this person needs his love and acceptance. We all want and need love. We're all different. We all rage against the machines of ignorance when not understood. Some enjoy being misunderstood (having been failed), I'd think most would want to be understood.

[...] People don't surface with religion when thrust out the womb, they're parents put a religion onto them. Cyclical pattern. Until one breaks away. Adopts new religion, becomes atheist or something else enitrely.

[...] The invention of Jesus, made conscientious and pure, didn't have to die but people needed him to suit their needs, w/e they may be and for whom. Nietzsche proclaimed "God is Dead." (people's morals are dead) I'd think it's also along the lines of "God is dead within Us" (our morals are dead). We grow with the "God within us" if allowed to flourish w/o corruption/not accepting others and connect with the "Gods within other's" when we accept differences and the (conscientious souls/minds of) "Jesuses" outside whom cross our paths in life, directly or inadvertently, help us connect with our Inner God again. :D

Edit: And we can become Jesus too and help others! We even have our very own local one on the forums, right? Who says he has to be the only one?!

:D You betrayed your Nietzschean influence long before you came clean about it. ;) I like it. Well said.


I punish whenever I step out of His will for me. I find Him always trying to, lovingly, protect me from that.... as do most parents (creators) I might add. I may not always agree with nor want to do His will and have suffered the consequeces every time I've rebelled. When I come back to Him, He is always waiting with open arms. No... I'm not religious.. that's man's law.

This is my experience as well. The one who feels guilty is me. The one who accuses is me. I am both executed and executioner. And I fail. (I can't kill myself any more than God can microwave a burrito so hot that not even He can eat it. It's contradictory.) I try to kill myself in this way, and I fail. In a way, this is my own kind of victory over death. I try to condemn myself to death, yet I will not die. I stand, alive, defying the voice of "justice". I let me attack me, and I do not attack back, and I am moved to mercy, like Teto who bites Nausicaa, and encountering no resistance, is moved to mercy.

But this is me taking responsibility. I am taking responsibility for my attitude toward myself. I am un-projecting my dictates to reality. Where they were imposed on me by others, I now absorb them into myself. I say "no, I am responsible for what I am seeing. It is I who am giving everything I see all the meaning it has." This is the Holy Instant, Atonement, or forgiveness. This is the breaking of the spell, the awakening from the dream.

God does not need to punish my trespasses. I am responsible for the entire dynamic wholesale. I made it. I am the one empowering it. It is an artifact of my mind, my mind in its dream of its separateness from God, but I can turn away from it if I can stop believing in it and stop feeding it and turn away from it (yes, again, like Lot from Sodom).

But, then again, if we can allow everything to be God's responsibility, in a way, we are relinquished from the need to affirm our separation, and the result is the same. If we give up on our self-defense and have faith that God will save us, then in a way, the result is the same.

I feel closer to being able to answer my own question with what I've learned from the many excellent replies here.
 

LaFeeVerte

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Sorry... I could not stay with it. When anything flys in the face of my experience, I quit listening. (well, unless its something new I haven't heard before and already tested) As soon as he said "God punishes" I quit. I, simply, have not found this to be true. I punish whenever I step out of His will for me. I find Him always trying to, lovingly, protect me from that.... as do most parents (creators) I might add. I may not always agree with nor want to do His will and have suffered the consequeces every time I've rebelled. When I come back to Him, He is always waiting with open arms. No... I'm not religious.. that's man's law.

Wow, very well said!
 

Journey

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I confess I couldn't read all of this, and I have dial up so I couldn't listen to the tape, but I got the gist of it.

You covered the first Adam's sin and Jesus came as the second Adam to set things right with God. Jesus died in our place to set us in a right relationship with God, period.

2 Cor 5:19
God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.
NIV

2 Cor 5:20-21
We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
NIV

If mankind could have reached God any other way, Jesus would not have had to be the sacrificial Lamb of God for the sins of mankind. He would not have had to die. As it is He is the only way to God. No other religion has a way to reconcile the sin we all know lies in our hearts to the Creator God and reconciles us to Him. No other religion is true. Jesus came back from the dead. He's alive and intercedes with the Father for those who believe in Him. He not only died but triumphed over the grave. There is ample evidence for this for those who believe in Him. First, though you have to seek Him in order to become aware of this evidence.

Jer 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
NIV
 
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Eileen

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I haven't gotten to read the link in the OP; I will read it later. I'm going to post my meditation from this year's stations of the cross (I did station 11--Jesus is nailed to the cross).


Some notes:

-I always talk about religion in terms of stories rather than facts because that's what I believe you CAN do... these stories likely have no or little factual basis, and fact isn't the point of religion. I don't think we should debate this particular point here, though, because it will derail the thread. HERE is a thread where you can talk about that.


-This year, I have really started to confront my issues with atonement theology. I think it's an awful, terrible, harmful theology--one that is probably based in scripture. But sometimes scripture yields bad theology, plain and simple. It yields a variety of theologies, too, so I feel pretty okay with picking and rejecting my poisons with regard to what scripture says.


Here are my thoughts on the "necessity" of Christ's violent death...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus is nailed to the cross.

They whipped him, they jeered at him, they made him carry his own lethal weapon, they humiliated him, stripped him of his clothes and his dignity, and now—after all that violence—they nail him down to his cross. They drive spikes into his flesh and fasten his wrists and feet to the wood, and this is where we recognize him best. This is where he is most commonly envisioned.

It is here where Christ, like a perfectly preserved butterfly pinned to cardboard, is scrutinized and marveled over for his exquisite beauty. The delicate effigies of his suffering, the handcrafted pendants, adorn our necks. Is this where we know him best—in his ultimate tableau of horror and humiliation, rather than in his gentle and powerful, life-giving and peg-lowering ministry? Why do we gaze on such awful, senseless violence in moments of devotion?

Christianity is inundated with the absurd and the excessive. The foil to the terrible and needless pinning-down of our brother is the preposterously prolific grace of God. It as if we say about grace – there must be a price here, and the price is this horror. To receive boundless, free love, we must first be assaulted—crucified with Christ. When we view the crucifixion moment as a necessary sacrifice, this relationship with God necessarily becomes an abusive love, and a costly, conditional one.

Surely this is not the love to which we aspire.

The world is full of violence—senseless, excessive, heartbreaking violence. Sometimes it is the violence of action: hurtful jeering, schoolyard fights, domestic abuse, deep sexual violations, beatings-in and sexings-in, pistol whippings, suicide bombings and ethnic cleansings, missile launchings, civil wars, military occupations, lynchings, razings of fields, deforestation, willful thefts of opportunity, hate speech and hate crimes, lethal injections, hangings, crucifixions. Sometimes it is the violence of inaction: walking past, not giving what we have to give, letting our brothers and sisters go hungry, saying nothing, looking away, denying that those who become victims are part of us. How necessary is this violence?

Love has no need for violence. It is the wounds we pound into each other that cry in need for love.
---------------------------------------------------

Atonement theology is really a problem for me, because I really don't believe that a "good" God would require tit-for-tat like that.

A really interesting theology (in my opinion) comes from Athanasius (3rd century). It explores why Christ had to become human and subsequently why he had to die. In this explanation, the manner of death doesn't really matter because plain old death and decay is identified as the problem that Christ was solving. But I don't have time to get into this. I am slacking off during my planning period and that's going to make for a painful night.
 

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I won't debate it, but without the fact of the resurrection there is little reason for Christianity:

1 Cor 15:17-19
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
NIV
 
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Totenkindly

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Just because you believe that Christianity is not based in fact (if I understood you) is no reason to think that someone cannot answer a thread based on the belief that Christianity is based on fact without "derailing it." Your point of view is not that prevalent.

Who are you responding to? I didn't see Eileen say anything about derailing, so I am a little confused.

(And actually, there are many Christian views out there beside American evangelicalism. You'd be surprised.)
 

mooninight

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Same reasons as all the other christians back then because they where just a under ground cult back then, but atfer a bit the cult got bigger and soon took rome over
 

Journey

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Who are you responding to? I didn't see Eileen say anything about derailing, so I am a little confused.

(And actually, there are many Christian views out there beside American evangelicalism. You'd be surprised.)

Eileen did speak of derailing the thread, you must have overlooked it. I deleted this post at the same time you posted! I misunderstood Eileen. :doh: My apologies to Eileen. :yes:

I'm VERY aware that there are many Christian views out there. Some of them are represented in this very thread. :hi:
 

Eileen

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Sorry, guys. I just didn't want the thread to degenerate into bickering about one of my caveat lectors; I think it's an issue well worth discussing, but not in somebody else's thread on another topic.
 
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