Was Jesus, a victim of self aggrandizing suicide.

Greatest I am

Greatest I am

Valued Senior Member
Was Jesus a victim of self aggrandizing suicide?

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/expedition-week/4290/Overview#tab-Videos/07451_00

My position is simple.
To offer or be a scapegoat for others who will not step up to their own responsibilities and consequences for their action is immoral and self aggrandizing. I see mythical Jesus as doing just that.

To accept the sacrifice of a scapegoat Jesus and to try to profit from his death is also immoral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQpRZJl18&feature=related

Scripture indicates, Trinitarians aside, that God the Father sent his son to die for mankind to fulfill a need that God himself created. That of a blood sacrifice to forgive sin when he has the power to forgive sin without it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoHP-f-_F9U

As above so below.
For us to believe that God would plan for and send his son to die, we would have to think it normal and good for a father to bury his son. Any good man would reject such an example of good conduct as definitely not good, natural or moral. Any God the father, or earthly father, worth his title, would step up himself for such a task yet Bible God takes the cowardly route and sends his son. What a pathetic God. What pathetic followers he also has who would think that this is the way things should be.

Eze 18;20
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Psa 49;7
None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:

Do you recognize the immorality of believers using Jesus as a scapegoat and of them trying to profit from his murder?

If his death was a suicide, which is the way I see it, is it moral for believers to try to profit from his pathetic self aggrandizing sacrifice?

Regards
DL
 
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I am aware of the theory on which Jesus goes to his death willingly, and he even provokes it knowingly. This is a solid theory, it is based on much information and common sense.
The only question is why?
Christians are clueless, they said “Jesus died for us”, not even knowing what they are saying; you probably would call this answer as the “scapegoat approach”.
You are saying that Jesus knew that his death was going to be interpreted that way, and that is the reason why he actually did it. But that makes no sense to me either

My understanding is this:
Jesus accepting and provoking his own torture and death was Jesus accepting, and living his own karma. You may call this “going with the flow”, this is the Zen approach: surrender to what existence brings no matter if it leads to your death.
Just as Socrates accepted his own death by poison, even given the possibility of running away out of Athens (he was offered exile); he refused, this was the alleged Socrates response:
“And if I say exile, I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that. When you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, living in ever-changing exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that into whatever place I go, as here so also there, the young men will come to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their desire: and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes. “
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You can say that these men committed suicide; that is what you and many others may perceive. But really, I only think that these men were not clinging to life (the survival instinct had no longer a grip on them).
Jesus rather stood his ground in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people; the people who raised him and saw him grow old (up until 33 off course), the people he loved and wanted to heal; than going (out of fear of death) away to an unknown land where he was more likely to be accepted.
Socrates rather stood his ground in Athens, the capital of the Greeks, his people; than running away to exile clinging to life.
These men did not commit suicide, they gave their executors a chance, and they told them: I only speak the truth, and if you want to kill me I am not going to run away. I am here on this world for you.
 
If he rose from the dead, then he didn't die for our sins or any other reason, he just didn't die.
 
spidergoat said:
If he rose from the dead, then he didn't die for our sins or any other reason, he just didn't die.
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Hi man, If you are referring to the possibility that he didn’t die at the cross, it’s obvious that is the most likely scenario; but does that really means it somehow the act requires any lesser balls?

And the part of "he died for our sins" does not mean we don't have to "carry our own cross".
 
From time to time some spiritual being is supposed to sacrifice his/her life to keep humanity from sufferings. It is about taking over the sins of people over himself to relieve them from endless miseries. That is what Jesus did for his followers. To get it(sacrifice thing) in proper sense one needs to attain a particular level mental state of mind and wisdom.
 
gia,

it amazes me that you can look at humanity and look at your own self and not realize that there is something tragically wrong with you that you can not fix yourself. wow.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
Hi man, If you are referring to the possibility that he didn’t die at the cross, it’s obvious that is the most likely scenario; but does that really means it somehow the act requires any lesser balls?

And the part of "he died for our sins" does not mean we don't have to "carry our own cross".
Click to expand...

Thousands of people died the same way, maybe tens of thousands. But the legend is that he didn't actually die. So no sacrifice was really made, he knew he would survive it.
 
murdoch said:
From time to time some spiritual being is supposed to sacrifice his/her life to keep humanity from sufferings. It is about taking over the sins of people over himself to relieve them from endless miseries. That is what Jesus did for his followers. To get it(sacrifice thing) in proper sense one needs to attain a particular level mental state of mind and wisdom.
Click to expand...

I agree. He imagined himself as the long-awaited Judaic savior. I believe he intended to become known as that by liberating the Hebrew tribes from Roman occupation. His plan was to start a riot in the Temple that would lead to a general uprising. The situation was not yet ripe for that, however, and he failed. (It took some seventy years more to become "ripe.")

His action can be referred to as "a sacrifice" in the sense that he surely knew the risks and the consequences of failure. One the other hand, he probably believed that "God" had sent him to save "his chosen people" and would not, therefore, fail. The fact that the Temple riot he caused did not lead to the revolution he expected seems to account for his asking "why have you forsaken me?"

Brough,
civilization-overview dot com
 
Humanity has had at least 40,000 years of religion.

Gimbutas is another good scource.

Please tell us how the meme theory explains something about the age, function, and future of religion. I'm all ears . . . :confused:

brough
civilization-overview dot com
 
spidergoat said:
Thousands of people died the same way, maybe tens of thousands. But the legend is that he didn't actually die. So no sacrifice was really made, he knew he would survive it.
Click to expand...


I totally agree with you on the part where, if there was a Jesus, he didn't die at the cross; there are plenty of clues about this even in the NT cannon. And there are scriptures from Tibet stating the legend of a saint that came from the West (Issa), and with wounds of crucifixion in his hands and feet; he lived many years and died of old age in Kashmir, India.

But what I’m saying is, the fact that it was all a plot, and not as an actual martyr, doesn’t mean it doesn’t take courage to do this. I mean is crucifixion!! I bet some will argue that is it better to die than to be tortured and then crucified for some 6 hours. This is another clue that Jesus survived the crucifixion, because normally it takes a few days for a human being to die from this torture; besides the fact that after the crucifixion his women followers were accompanying him with medicinal plants and elixirs (not at all used for dead bodies, but to heal an alive body).
 
If there was really a Jesus (this is my non-supernatural view), then he certainly did die on the cross if not before, and the stories of his resurrection were either fabrications, hallucinations, metaphorical, or perhaps his body was stolen for some reason.

It probably did take some courage to face torture deliberately, or it might not have actually been deliberate, or Jesus might have been mentally ill (in which case it can't be called courageous).
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
Hi man, If you are referring to the possibility that he didn’t die at the cross, it’s obvious that is the most likely scenario; but does that really means it somehow the act requires any lesser balls?

And the part of "he died for our sins" does not mean we don't have to "carry our own cross".
Click to expand...

A debt does not get paid twice.

Regards
DL
 
murdoch said:
From time to time some spiritual being is supposed to sacrifice his/her life to keep humanity from sufferings. It is about taking over the sins of people over himself to relieve them from endless miseries. That is what Jesus did for his followers. To get it(sacrifice thing) in proper sense one needs to attain a particular level mental state of mind and wisdom.
Click to expand...

And Jesus did not get to that immoral plateau.

Much of what Jesus said was simplistic rhetoric that does not work in real life.
Turn the other cheek.
I can see the logic of that somewhat if we are talking about treating the thief as a charity case but if you try to apply that saying to rape for instance, what is one to do?
Offer the wife after the daughter has been raped?
See. It does not work the same way as much of Jesus' rhetoric does not work.

Take Jesus in another instance. He promoted that for divorce, let no man put asunder should be the norm, yet today, it seems like the majority of so called Christians are divorced.
Most have good reason for it and Jesus was wrong to promote that unhappy people should refrain from trying to find happiness with a better mate.

Whose law do you follow? Secular law or religious laws?

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Do you recognize the immorality of believers using Jesus as a scapegoat and of them trying to profit from his murder?

If his death was a suicide, which is the way I see it, is it moral for believers to try to profit from his pathetic self aggrandizing sacrifice?
Click to expand...

Jesus was the fufillment of the Old Testament's line of a Prophet coming along to fufill the promises of God by example- and Jesus was willing to toe that line.

Problem is, Jesus self-ressurected and with that, proof of His Divinity.

Forget when it happened or why- IT HAPPENED. We are the witnesses of it. We either accept it or deny it.
 
I think the original poster makes a very insightful point and observation.

That whole sacrifice thing comes from a time when the Hagars of the world anthropomorphized just about everything, and they just did for the weather (or whatever) what they would do for anyone they honored, give them a gift of food.

It wasn't about the killing. It was just frick'n food. What else would a thing want? That's certainly all Hagar thought about all damn day. Giving a good kill away was a SACRIFICE.

So incorporating that silly, backward theme into your metaphysics (something that your average first grader is too sophisticated to do at present) is pretty backward, dare I say, Neanderthal. I just can't identify with the whole procedure when it involves your children, but the bible has that as a recurrent theme.
 
jmpet said:
Jesus was the fufillment of the Old Testament's line of a Prophet coming along to fufill the promises of God by example- and Jesus was willing to toe that line.

Problem is, Jesus self-ressurected and with that, proof of His Divinity.

Forget when it happened or why- IT HAPPENED. We are the witnesses of it. We either accept it or deny it.
Click to expand...

If he proved his divinity when he reportedly died and resurrected then on e has to wonder why it took 300 odd years for Christianity to make him divine and part of the Trinity concept that Constantine basically forced down Christian throats with a vote that was split down the middle.

Regards
DL
 
Regular0ldguy said:
I think the original poster makes a very insightful point and observation.

That whole sacrifice thing comes from a time when the Hagars of the world anthropomorphized just about everything, and they just did for the weather (or whatever) what they would do for anyone they honored, give them a gift of food.

It wasn't about the killing. It was just frick'n food. What else would a thing want? That's certainly all Hagar thought about all damn day. Giving a good kill away was a SACRIFICE.

So incorporating that silly, backward theme into your metaphysics (something that your average first grader is too sophisticated to do at present) is pretty backward, dare I say, Neanderthal. I just can't identify with the whole procedure when it involves your children, but the bible has that as a recurrent theme.
Click to expand...

And exactly why it should be ignored as a holy book.

Thanks for the kudos.
Always good to find a good mind.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
If he proved his divinity when he reportedly died and resurrected then on e has to wonder why it took 300 odd years for Christianity to make him divine and part of the Trinity concept that Constantine basically forced down Christian throats with a vote that was split down the middle.

Regards
DL
Click to expand...

Bureaucracy. :D
 
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