How is just that God punishes an innocent 3rd party for your

[Wootah]

Q: How is just that God punishes an innocent 3rd party for your sins?

A: This is manifestly unjust and an insurmountable problem for religions that believe Jesus died for our sins but Jesus is not God.

Clearly God would not be so unjust and therefore God is Jesus, man in human form.

You know as well God didn't have to do it. Justice was satisfied by our punishment. God did it out of love and mercy. It's outrageous that God would care so much for us and sacrifice so much by chosing to live as a man. My response is awe and gratitude.

[Justin108]

This is manifestly unjust and an insurmountable problem for religions that believe Jesus died for our sins but Jesus is not God.

Clearly God would not be so unjust and therefore God is Jesus, man in human form.

You know as well God didn't have to do it. Justice was satisfied by our punishment. God did it out of love and mercy.

So God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself...? Please explain how God having himself get crucified is an expression of "love and mercy"? It's like a parent whipping himself because you were naughty. Is this parent loving and merciful? Or is this parent an insane masochist?

It's outrageous that God would care so much for us and sacrifice so much by chosing to live as a man.

What exactly did God becoming a man achieve? There's a difference between sacrifice and pointless, self-induced suffering. If I worked 12 hours a day to provide for my family, then this is a sacrifice. It serves a purpose. But if I spend 12 hours a day pushing a giant bolder around for no reason whatsoever, then this is not a sacrifice... it's pointless, self-induced suffering.

[Danmark]

Q: How is just that God punishes an innocent 3rd party for your sins?

A: This is manifestly unjust and an insurmountable problem for religions that believe Jesus died for our sins but Jesus is not God.

Clearly God would not be so unjust and therefore God is Jesus, man in human form.

You know as well God didn't have to do it.

Correct. Assuming an all powerful, omniscient, creating god has existed forever, it certainly did not have to kill an innocent 3d party, nor did it have to come to Earth as man and torture 'himself.' In fact 'he'* never had to set up eternal damnation or any other automatic punishment for 'sin.' He could have set up no punishment, other than the logical consequences that naturally follow folly. Or, he could have set up reasonable punishments; punishments that were proportionate to the error. This Biblical god could have been reasonable in the first place.

He did not have create man and the crawling animals, call them good, then call them corrupt, decide to kill them all, then change 'his' mind again and let one family per species survive.

What all of this silliness derives from is the failure of some readers of the Bible [including Saul/Paul] to understand the allegorical nature of these stories. 'Paul's' theology is based on this fundamental error: taking the Biblical stories literally.

If there really is a God the Bible is trying to point to, to understand, then this God is so much greater, wiser, kinder, and imaginative than to come up with this sin/sacrifice nonsense and it could have found a much better solution to the 'problem.' The issue comes from the fact the Bible is from finite men with their limited, very unGodlike imagination. What they did was to create an image of a god patterned after their own frail natures.


________________
*This primitive thinking of god as a super-human entity is even reflected in the pronouns we use. "It" comes closer than "he," but there is no fitting pronoun for a true God. A true God would be beyond naming and beyond understanding, yet we have thousands of books attempting to do just that.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by Wootah]

It's outrageous that God would care so much for us and sacrifice so much by chosing to live as a man

Please identify that which God lost. I am unaware of anything he lost, or that God is capable of losing anything.
I guess you might say that Jesus died, but even then, this can't count as a sacrifice in my book, because he gets his life back three days later. So it's a 'bounced cheque', so to speak. Even then, you identified Jesus WITH God, so it'd be a case of God giving up his temporary mortal life...to himself.

Imagine if I asked you to praise me, because an object that my left hand was holding has been sacrificed/given up to my right hand. The left hand now no longer holds that object. The right hand does. Does this mean the left hand is now object-less, has sacrificed something? How can it, when both hands are part and parcel of the same person? I've merely transferred an object from one hand to another. I didn't lose anything at all.
Or to use a computer analogy - I might trade a Steam game between two accounts that I own. The game is no longer listed under Account A, is now under Account B...but I, the person who controls both accounts, never lost anything.

[1213]

Q: How is just that God punishes an innocent 3rd party for your sins?
....

The problem with that is, I don’t think God punished Jesus. And what Jesus sacrificed was his life on this earth. He used his life for us and so sacrificed it for us, by using it for our benefit, by speaking what God had commanded him to speak.

[ttruscott]

In fact 'he'* never had to set up eternal damnation or any other automatic punishment for 'sin.' He could have set up no punishment, other than the logical consequences that naturally follow folly.

Most churches accept that the natural, logical consequence of choosing sin, ie, choosing to become a sinner, was to become enslaved to the addictive quality of sinfulness from which a man cannot save himself (much like a computer ridden with a virus cannot fix itself as all its efforts are contaminated). Therefore the natural consequence of rejecting GOD's offer of salvation from the consequences of becoming a sinner is to become eternally sinful.

If the adage is true that a little leaven/sin, leavens/corrupts the whole loaf/person, country, reality then their desire to indulge in sin will grow until they are perfectly sinful. IF these people were also created as eternal, that is, with a never ending living self awareness and therefore can't be annihilated, then banishment to the outer darkness is an absolute necessity even if it feels like a lake of fire.

Logical consequences following their folly naturally...

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 2 by Justin108]

What you're missing is that God didn't have to do anything. He remains good, righteous and holy regardless of our fate because we are justly being punished.

On that premise the coming of Jesus was a volitional act and if so it is a merciful one.

Parents whipping themselves ....

I was watching a movie the other day and the main character was involved in a horrible car crash and while they were lying in hospital in agony the father turned up. And he simply whispered that he would give anything to trade places with his child.

Most parents would if they could whip themselves if it would spare their child.

[Danmark]

In fact 'he'* never had to set up eternal damnation or any other automatic punishment for 'sin.' He could have set up no punishment, other than the logical consequences that naturally follow folly.

Most churches accept that the natural, logical consequence of choosing sin, ie, choosing to become a sinner, was to become enslaved to the addictive quality of sinfulness from which a man cannot save himself (much like a computer ridden with a virus cannot fix itself as all its efforts are contaminated). Therefore the natural consequence of rejecting GOD's offer of salvation from the consequences of becoming a sinner is to become eternally sinful.

If the adage is true that a little leaven/sin, leavens/corrupts the whole loaf/person, country, reality then their desire to indulge in sin will grow until they are perfectly sinful. IF these people were also created as eternal, that is, with a never ending living self awareness and therefore can't be annihilated, then banishment to the outer darkness is an absolute necessity even if it feels like a lake of fire.

Logical consequences following their folly naturally...

Yes, but none of this deals with the claim that God was somehow FORCED or required to come to Earth in the form of a human and torture and kill himself which is the issue posed in this thread

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 2 by Justin108]

What you're missing is that God didn't have to do anything. He remains good, righteous and holy regardless of our fate because we are justly being punished.

On that premise the coming of Jesus was a volitional act and if so it is a merciful one.

The issue is not whether it was volitional, but whether it was necessary. For an omnipotent God, it was not even close to necessary; therefore, it was gratuitously inflicted agony and death... OR this biblical god is not omnipotent.

This entire 'Jesus must die to save us' theology is absolutely ridiculous. It gets even more absurd when combined with the absurd trinity doctrine which results in God killing himself. God supposedly tortures and kills himself to save the people he calls corrupt and has previously all but eradicated in the great flood. I cannot understand how sane, rational people can believe such obvious nonsense.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 7 by Wootah]

What you're missing is that God didn't have to do anything. He remains good, righteous and holy

This is strange, because I was taught by my parents that it is our actions that define us. That no-one is born 'good', we do good things.
So let's say God does nothing. He takes no action at all, in relation to anything. How is it then that God is good or righteous?

And he simply whispered that he would give anything to trade places with his child.

Most parents would if they could whip themselves if it would spare their child.

This is an expression that they would do anything, even go to extremes, if it means saving their child. If it turns out that the child could be saved or healed quite easily and simply...why bother expressing a willingness to be injured themselves?
The father's willingness to suffer his child's pain only makes sense if healing the child is difficult. If you intend to use this as an analogy for God and humans...how is it difficult for God to heal humans?