From The Essentials of Eternal Life:
Believe in Jesus Christ
When we repent of our sins, we realize that we cannot save ourselves and that we are in need of a Savior. That is why Jesus Christ came and died for our sins and took the punishment for sins that we deserved on the cross. We must believe, from our hearts (not just our minds) that Jesus died for our sins and that He rose again three days later to show His power over death.
How is this moral? Let's forget, for a moment, that we certainly do not deserve to be crucified for any of our deeds, let alone our thoughts. Where, in any human circumstance, is it moral for one person to take the punishment for another?
Certainly some, in America, at least, have been put to death for the crimes of someone else, because of bad council, or mistaken identity. This is a tragedy. It's possible that some do not care if the wrong person was accused, and died, for a murder, as long as someone "paid." This is also immoral. The killer has not "paid" for his crime, and may go on killing. If the loved ones are satisfied by someone, anyone, dying for the crime, this is due to insanity, not morality.
Do you watch police shows, or action movies? Have you ever heard the line, "don't hurt the girl. Take me, instead." The noble sacrifice of the hero. Is this a good analogy for Jesus' so-called "sacrifice?" Well, who is doing the hurting? An all-good, all-moral God, or a desperate and evil kidnapper? The criminal wants a victim to hold hostage in order to get something from whomever he wants to hurt. Is this the kind of individual we worship? Is God satisfied, as long as someone dies? Is this moral?
Patty Smith sang, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." This is like the idea that Jesus was maybe real, but not a divine savior. He was a victim, but maybe he nobly sacrificed his body, maybe he took the punishment for someone, but generational curses don't exist. Gloria is a free spirit. But the group CRASS made a much more accurate statement in Asylum:
Jesus Died for his own sins, not mine.
Many Christians like to point out that with Jesus' sacrifice, came the end of sacrificial religion. Before Jesus' sacrifice, we had to slaughter a lamb or something valuable that had lots of blood in order to pay respect to God. How primitive, but how great of God to send himself, his son, to bring light into the world. Therefore
Jesus died for his own sins, not mine.
In this interpretation, God diverts attention from the fact that His commands were so primitive and ugly by pulling a Penn-and-Tellerlike fake suicide stunt. This is a more "evil tricks to play on your friends" routine that followed the little parlour tricks he played, like turning water into wine. This would be the big, showstopping trick, full fo blood and emotion, a trick for the more sophisticated, jaded, modern mind. He appears as a human sacrificial lamb, pure, and sinless like the unicorn. Then--get this, he allows himself to be humiliated and beaten, and left hanging in the sun to dry and die, for eight-Blain-a-riffic days, only to magically emerge from the sealed cave, clean and white, evewn allowing someone from the audience to examine his wounds! You'd think that this would be THE finale--but wait! The Amazing Jesus then flies over the audience and disappears into the clouds! Wow! (Applause)
Jesus didn't die for our sins. He died for our entertainment.
Sorry for heading off into an unexpected tangent. Hope you enjoyed it, anyway.
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4 comments:
"When we repent of our sins, we realize that we cannot save ourselves and that we are in need of a Savior."
Boy, that's a great message for Christianity to send...
We can't take care of ourselves; we need somebody else to save us. That's just promoting dependency, be it dependency on a non-existent deity or dependency on the government.
We are all responsible for ourselves. If we need to be saved, we should save ourselves. Looking to the sky, in prayer or hope, is simply wasted energy. Better one should spend one’s time picking daffodils.
Right. When they say we need a savior, they mean because we are lost, or bad, in peril, etc. But they don't really think about who we need saving from. We need God to save us from himself. That's where Satan the scapegoat comes in. But of course, who set up the rules? Certainly not a satan character. It's a big game.
Francois has been looking at that site lately--it has a lot of stuff with Gene Ray from Time Cube on it.
"When we repent of our sins, we realize that we cannot save ourselves and that we are in need of a Savior."
"And I'm JUST the guy ta show ya how to get one! Step right this way folks..."
Of course, if we could do it for ourselves, what would motivate us to go to church, sit through the rebrainwaswhing/brainwashing reinforcement rituals and put money in the plate? What kind of self-serving message would that be for a religion to dispense?
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