Raithere,
In which case we're back to God's killing of children being immoral. You can't have it both ways. Either we are all deserving of death and should all be killed or Jesus's sacrifice can save us. You can't tell me that it's an act of mercy for the children of one group of sinners to be killed and the children of another group should have a chance at life. Or rather you can but then don't tell me that God's ethics make any logical sense.
Oh, the discrepancies only appear if we say that all there is to existence is earthly life. Christianity says there is more to it.
What may be the main source of troubling is this: How come some people live long, happy, rich lives, while others have to die in misery as children. This is not fair. And even if we add eternal life and mercy, it's still not fair.
And it is not fair because of the problem of identity. In Christianity, one should not identify with the things of the world, as they are all perishable, not lasting.
If you believe that your possessions, your education, your looks, your family, your friends etc. intrinsically define who you are, and if you believe that you would be nothing without all that, then you can hardly come to heaven.
God's ethics only make sense if you admit that it is only without Him, that you are nothing. If you admit that all worldly possessions can be taken away from you, and you still retain your identity because it is safe with God, then you will enter the kingdom of heaven.
This view has traditionally deranged into gnosticism ("matter bad, spirit good"), but I don't believe this is how it was meant to be.
Valuing the spiritual does not automatically mean devaluing the material. God made the world and it was good, matter is very good. It is just not good to depend on it to define your identity by it, because that way, you are bound to matter, and perish with it.
Like people who kill themselves or give up on themselves after they have lost their spouse, job, home, ... They think they are nothing without those people or things. Life becomes unbearable for them.
Yes, I get it that Jesus became the scapegoat. My problem is with God's need for a sacrifice in the first place. I find it ethically repugnant. How does something that horrific rectify anything? This is bloodthirsty vengeance, not justice, and certainly not mercy, compassion or love.
No no no. The sacrifice was there for the people to see, people needed it. God didn't need it for Himself.
I believe God interacts with people always in a manner they can understand. But if people are brutal, God has to use brutal ways to make Himself understood to them (He could use other ways, but that would mean infringing on people's freedom). It is the people who are bloodthirsty and full of vengeance. Only the worst appeases them.
(You can also observe this in the popular idea that "a person truly loves you only if they are willing to die for you", or better yet "a person has truly loved you only if they died for you". This is how little faith people have in love. It's a shame.)
Then I would tell the realists that only insane people can ever create something. Before the first chair was ever built, it didn't exist. The same goes for everything humans ever made. Therefore, all progress is attributable to insanity and the sane accomplish nothing.
Exactly.
And faith (and I mean faith in general) is also such a thing, a means to accomplish something, a vision of what could be. One must first have a vision, before one can make something in reality.
Actually, I kinda like that for some perverse reason.
Hehe.
If humans would be consequent realists, we'd still be in the savannah.
or was that just the translator/translation? :m: