Jesus died for our sins: what does this mean?

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A sincere question: is anyone here able to explain the theology surrounding the claim that "Jesus died for our sins"? How did / does this work?

― James Vona, Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:04 (twenty years ago)

You sin, he dies.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:09 (twenty years ago)

so i sinned several times over the weekend did he die over and over?

― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

Oh, blimey... my mum to thread (not sure if Yale Divinity School even cover this any more but I'll have a go).

Ever since the Garden of Eden, mankind has been stained with ORIGINAL SIN - basically meaning because Eve was bad and ate of the Tree of Knowledge, we are all damned and going to hell.

Jesus died to redeem our sins meant - he became a human, died like a human, went down to hell and unlocked the doors to let everybody into heaven.

Then came back (just to prove he was really god) and told us all about it.

I mean, he had to have been doing *something* during those 3 days he was dead, didn't he? The Harrowing Of Hell or whatever it's called. (Or am I getting it mixed up with the Ravening of the North after the Norman Conquest?)

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

This is my last post on this thread.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

Just at that moment, John stood up. "Now wait here a minute, Big Yin. We like you. We've ALWAYS liked you. And we know that you chipped in mair for this carry-oot than anybody else. But see when you get some of those cheap lagers inside you - your patter's ROTTEN!"

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:14 (twenty years ago)

I think the Harrowing of Hell was part of Catholic theology until Vatican II, but I think they've now dropped it on the grounds that there's no Biblical source for it (i.e. it was just made up by the Church at some point).

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:18 (twenty years ago)

Protestant Interpretations May Differ

http://www.rdrop.com/users/stmary/fbk342.jpg

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:19 (twenty years ago)

wasn't everything?

― dahlin (dahlin), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:19 (twenty years ago)

They never taught us what Jesus did for those 3 days so I'd wondered about this long ago too.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:20 (twenty years ago)

Even with or without the (ancient and Medieval actually) Harrowing Of Hell, this is why it's important:

IV. IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION

Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons:

-It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death (Phil., ii, 8-9).
-The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin (Rom., iv, 25).
-By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own resurrection (I Cor., xv, 21; Phil., iii, 20-21), and as the model and the support of our new life of grace (Rom., vi, 4-6; 9-11).

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

not sure if Yale Divinity School even cover this any more but I'll have a go

yes, what kate says is how i remember it from a childhood that contained more nuns than was strictly necessary.

― a devout atheist (grimlord), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

They never explained why God would a put a tree bearing forbidden fruit in the Garden Of Eden either. You'd think IT WAS ALL MADE UP AND NOT REALLY THOUGHT THROUGH ENOUGH or something.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

its called substiutionary theology, i have a friend who did their thesis on it, want a reeading list?

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

Because how can you have free will without choice?

God was clearly TESTING us. Or trying to teach us a lesson about curiousity. Or cause he clearly HATES WOMEN. Or something. I have not idea, I'm not the priest, my mum is.

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)

there is a big o Orthodox opinon that god intended for us to be thrown from the garden, that the knowledge that came with the fruit let us to suffer, but only thru suffering comes growth, and it gave us lots of other stuff, like the surrival of the human speices.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)

Because GOD wants us to fail. The twat.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:24 (twenty years ago)

Yes, agreed, Anthony - after all, I think that curiosity and knowledge were good things to learn.

But why we had to be damned with Original Sin for it seems a bit unfair.

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:24 (twenty years ago)

If Eve hadn't eaten the fruit, would god have continued to test her and Adam? Or was this a one-off, and humanity has been cursed ever since cos she got hungry?

it seems a little unfair, especially since there hadn't been any people before and Adam and Eve were just picking up the being human thing as they went along.

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

I think it means that the West Midlands Police Force also had a branch in Judea.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

I mean, he had to have been doing *something* during those 3 days he was dead, didn't he? The Harrowing Of Hell or whatever it's called.

-- MIS Information (masonicboo...) (webmail), June 30th, 2005 6:12 AM. (kate) (later)

if it were me id spend the three days in the cave stewing and then go save everyone just to throw it back in their faces, but ive been known to be a little p-a.

― sunny successor (when the lunch bell rings why dont you eat me) (katharine), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

If Eve hadn't eaten the fruit, would god have continued to test her and Adam?

Yeah, she should have held out for the pizza!

― NickB (NickB), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

(Or am I getting it mixed up with the Ravening of the North after the Norman Conquest?)

It was the Scarring of the Shire, I think you'll find.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:33 (twenty years ago)

That's Scouring of the Shire. [/Tolkeingeek]

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:35 (twenty years ago)

By the way, the tree in the garden of eden was the tree of "the knowledge of good and evil" , not just the tree of knowledge... meaning, mankind is not supposed to judge what is good and what is evil, or we'll never find inner peace... Of course, it's inevitable that we will, and that's why "God" put the tree there in the metaphor.

So the Jesus - he works hard, so you don't have tooooooo ..... All that shit in Leviticus is now moot, I think is the point.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

isnt the christ-the-redeemer mytholgy largely Saul/Paul's doing?

― latebloomer: now with 20% less cetacean content (latebloomer), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:42 (twenty years ago)

except "thou shalt not put pineapple chunks on pizza", i think that wz OTM

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:43 (twenty years ago)

I was going to say, that "the Old Law is abolished" thing is loaded with controversy. No Biblical source for it again, I believe.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:43 (twenty years ago)

Jesus died to redeem our sins meant - he became a human, died like a human, went down to hell and unlocked the doors to let everybody into heaven.

More accurately (yeah, I know, 'accurately', but still..) he descended into Limbo, where the souls of the just who had died up until then had been hanging around listening to elevator music for ~~millions~~thousands of years. This is not to be confused with the Limbo that unbaptized infant deaths go to, or of course Purgatory.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

Yes, agreed, Anthony - after all, I think that curiosity and knowledge were good things to learn.

But why we had to be damned with Original Sin for it seems a bit unfair.

Yes but they never explained God's rationale properly is what I meant, leading us to conclude that 'dude must've been pretty bored on his own and this little game would keep him busy for a bit'.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

Thread to vanish in a mushroom cloud of logic in T minus 3...2...1...

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:52 (twenty years ago)

Yes but they never explained God's rationale properly is what I meant

But they did (or should have) explained that they had no intention of doing so, and had spent quite a bit of time exterminating those that would second-guess God.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:55 (twenty years ago)

i wonder if the gaff is still stocked. i guess recycling is out of the question.

― sunny successor (when the lunch bell rings why dont you eat me) (katharine), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:55 (twenty years ago)

He actually died for mocasins. Breahed very strict Roman rules about anachronistic footwear, you see.

The confusion arose due to a mistake with the spellcheck on an early draft of the bible.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

Jesus did not die for my sins. He has never helped me in any way.

If I'd murded someone and he'd put his hands up and said I did it and so got killed instead of me, then he'd have died for my sins. But that didn't happen (and I'm not just denying it so's I continue to evade justice).

It's all just a bunch of nonsense isn't it?

― mei (mei), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

Because GOD wants us to fail. The twat.
All he wants to do is fuck things up, the dicklicker! He's King Shit of Fuck Mountain, so why would you fuck with him?

If Jesus really did die for all our sins, then he's really as much of a pompous twat as Scott Stapp.

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

"He's King Shit of Fuck Mountain, so why would you fuck with him?"

In an even earler draft of the bible, and due to an even more catastrophic spellcheck error, this passage actually appears as spoken by Adam when Eve tries to convince him to eat the Apple.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:21 (twenty years ago)

This guy thought he was Jesus, and now he has to die for his sins

― dahlin (dahlin), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:56 (twenty years ago)

Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:10 (twenty years ago)

Why can't we just discuss arcane bits of Christian theology in peace? Sigh.

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

someone mentioned it upthread - subsitutional theology, but didnt quite explain. basically the whole sacrifice of jesus is based on the sacrificial scapegoat ceremony described in leviticus. on yom kippur back in the day, one of the ceremonies was to take a goat and throw it off a cliff to atone for the nation's sins. since everyone sinned, they all had to own up to that once a year on Yom Kippur. Because it would be silly for everyone to die, God, in his infinite mercy, let them subsitute a goat. Jesus is the once and for all scapegoat. he died so that you go unpunished.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:22 (twenty years ago)

Who is this Jesus?

― Raston Warrior Robot (alix), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:26 (twenty years ago)

Because the struggle to spread Christianity has often proved very bloody! xxpost

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:26 (twenty years ago)

whats this?

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:30 (twenty years ago)

He died long before I committed any of my sins, so fool on him!

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah, right, it's supposed to be for all time, once and for all.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:46 (twenty years ago)

it means we are all PWNT FOR3V3R.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:48 (twenty years ago)

People who buy all this must think that we're just part of God's big train set.

― peepee (peepee), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

....and then I guess we're in trouble if God has any Gomez Addams leanings.

― peepee (peepee), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

How would Adam and Eve know better than to eat the fruit without the knowledge contained within?

― THE JAMES DEAN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (ex machina), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

Don't think about it too much.

And while you're at it, don't think too much about the Tortoise and the Hare, either.

― peepee (peepee), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

"on yom kippur back in the day, one of the ceremonies was to take a goat and throw it off a cliff to atone for the nation's sins."

That's pretty much the STUPIDEST THING I've ever heard.

How stupid would you have to be to believe that throwing a goat of a cliff would do anything like that? These people were FUCKING IDIOTS.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:02 (twenty years ago)

T/S: Killing a goat once a year vs. killing THE SON OF MANG!!!!

― THE JAMES DEAN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (ex machina), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

I refer the thread to my original theory re: God's twattishness.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:06 (twenty years ago)

Excuse me, but this is a thread for discussing theology. Can we PLEASE not turn it into yet another thread for atheists to rant about the shortcomings of religions?

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:07 (twenty years ago)

I'm with you, Kate. I really would like it if we could talk about this kind of thing sometime. It's all really pretty fascinating to me.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

my take: he gives our own sufferings meaning. he places them within a narrative of redemption/resurrection.

God becomes man and dies--thus enacting a dissolution of Being/Permanence/Etc into death/change/suffering. god dignifies our existence by enduring it himself.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

How stupid would you have to be to believe that throwing a goat of a cliff would do anything like that? These people were FUCKING IDIOTS

how is this inherently different from jesus on the cross? i mean, yeah, it's a man suffering, but its still substitutional. anyone?

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

I wasn't being (too) flippant about the train set idea, though. I think it's a a good analogy for how some people feel that their God is an interventionist god. Like the whole test thing, and making a list, checking it twice....

― peepee (peepee), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

Those are two problematic extremes tho, the Interventionist and the Powerless God. If God can't Intervene when he wants to, he's not omnipotent? If he can Intervene when he wants to, why allow suffering? So the Free Will theory is introduced to solve this, and it looks elegant enough at a glance, but it's reductive in that you can always ask "why does Free Will entail suffering?" because an omnipotent power did not have to make it so.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

ATTENTION MEI:

Fuck off.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

AaronK, it's no different at all. Well, it's quite a lot more like something Homer would do on the Simpsons, but other than that no different.

Okay, point taken, I'll stop the rating.

Theology is about tring to analyse religion rationally right? And about the ideas of religious truth? Clearly the idea of throwing a goat of a cliff to apologise for you sins is untrue and equally clearly the people doing it are behaving irrationally?

― mei (mei), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

Okay, sorry for disrupting the discussion and I'm going now, but the goat thing _is_ incredibly stupid, and anyone who believed it must have been stupid (or manipulated into some kind of mental aberation?)

(I'm not totally anti religion, some of religious ideas are quite sensible, but not this one).

― mei (mei), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

suffering allows us to grow. it's arguable that if we didn't suffer, there'd be nothing beautiful in the world. beauty, art, and innovation are often our ways to transcend suffering and by extention, mortality.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

Theology is not about analysing religion rationally. It's more in the line of providing apparently rational analysis of beliefs and practices that sprang up pre-rationally. That's not intended to be troll-esque.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

xpost to scrovula

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

I know what the Free Will argument is, Aaron. What I'm saying is, why did God create a Universe in which suffering is necessary for growth?

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

Religion is not a question of true/untrue. It is a question of belief. Those beliefs may seem irrational to you, but it does not change the fact that they have meaning and power for the people holding them.

I'd rather examine the beliefs, what they consist of, and what people get out of them, rather than just ranting and blanketly calling anyone "stupid".

Within your culture and your understanding of the world, throwing a goat off a cliff may seem "stupid". Within the beliefs of a tribal herdman 10,000 years ago, the idea of pulling out a lump of metal and plastic, punching some buttons and chatting away on it probably seems very stupid indeed.

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i always saw theology sort of rational, given an acceptance of certain axioms.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:33 (twenty years ago)

scrovula - why not? we dont have to be the only universe.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

OK always wondered about that one. While were at it:

Being good or believing in god - which is more important?

Jesus is lord - Jesus is the son of god - The father the son and the holy ghost. 1-2-3! Who believes what? And what's the difference?

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

Mobile phones work. You can prove this quite simply. But we're not continuing this line of discussion here, right?

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:35 (twenty years ago)

Because Goodness and Omnipotence are necessary predicates of the Judaeo-Christian God, Aaron.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:35 (twenty years ago)

xpost - according to christianity i think it's believing in god, because we can never really be good.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

scrovula - not sure how my statement and yours are exclusive.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

also, i was never good at the problem of evil. i am biting off more than i can chew :)

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:37 (twenty years ago)

x post joe

Most Christian sects would argue that being Good is useless without believing in God.

The order and relative power of the Holy Trinity was the major source of inter-faith war for most of the early history of Christianity. Orthodoxy says they are separate but part of the same substance, I think.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Some of the people who dismiss religion as ludicrous (and I'm not addressing Mei here, actually) fall into the same trap as some of the ludicrously stupid people who follow religion do: Believing in the literal interpretation of the Bible... And believing that the bible says that God is a human with a really big train set ...

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Mobile phones work. You can prove this quite simply.

Prove this to a pre-rational tribesman who has never seen a mobile phone, never even conceived of the concept of a phone, in fact has no concept of science whatsoever - your explanations of how/why it works will be as mysterious and quasi-magical to him as the urge to create literal scapegoats is to you.

― MIS Information (kate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Aaron, sorry I see what you mean. What I was saying was that if God creates a Universe where suffering is necessary for growth, he forfeits the right to be purely Good, so he stops being God. This is why the Gnostics had these crazy multiplications of Divinities, it was their attempt to solve the Problem of Evil.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:40 (twenty years ago)

I'm not trying to create scapegoats, Kate. I'm saying that there's no analogy between the tribesman's not understanding how technology works, and believing that something that doesn't work does work. Because there's no obvious reason why he should believe the scapegoat thing works in the first place. Whatever his stage of technological development, it's the assumptions he's made about how the Universe works that's interesting, because they're not inevitable.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

Kate has a good point, and I think she's not even giving the tribesman enough credit.. I've really become intrigued by the Old Testament recently, and I'm finding that it's way more complicated than it seems.

xposts...

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

It's like the old story about Wittgenstein asking his students why early peoples thought the Sun went around the Earth, and a student says "because it looks like that" and Ludwig says "and how would it look if the Earth went round the Sun?"

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:45 (twenty years ago)

God the Father --> Creator
Holy Spirit --> Animator
Jesus, Son of God --> Redeemer

Three distinct roles of a single divinity. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the trinity as a trifecta of separate divinities, but the idea is not so alien if you consider many pre-Christian gods were given distinct names for different patronages or powers.

― elmo (allocryptic), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

Yes Kate, but noodle isn't saying that you can explain to a tribesman how they work, he's saying that you can prove they work.

This is actually how mobiles are different from dying for our sins, but the same as scapegoats: Scapegoats and similar primitive rituals start start from a necessity to make things better/keep them good. Next year's harvest is supposed to be safe because of religion. The switch to "this will improve your life... in the next world!" is possibly the point where religion really 'took off'.

Tedious analogy: putting all our fears into one goat vs putting all our hopes into one head of state.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

throwing the Head Of State off a cliff wouldn't really improve things either I suppose.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

I can think of several cases where it would.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

is it the whole cliff thing that bothers people? i mean, that's just symbolic - all the other animal sacrifices were burnt on an altar, no difference really, and they were supposed to have supernatural effects.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

It's not the cliff thing, it's the Why thing that's interesting. Okay, there's an eclipse, everybody panics, kills a Goat, the eclipse finishes, "hey, it worked", every eclipse afterwards they do a goat and they think they're propitiating the Sun. Reasonably logical. Where the idea that doing a goat would make the Sun happy in the first place is the hard part.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

why is it? you give god what you've got. that's what cain and abel did. if you're a shepherd, and the bible folk in the OT often were, a goat's what you give!

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

"The Bear Tax is working like a charm!"

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

and there were different grades for different economic levels. for the poor it was flour/dough, next was fowl, then sheep/goats, then cows - all with the same believed power, just scaled to your income.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

But it's a leap, Aaron. Excuse the pun. It doesn't have the same logic as "this worked last time, let's keep doing it". Why would the Sun want a goat?

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

But why was that "tradition" invented? There was no god who actually said to sacrifice a goat - that was a human idea .. where did it come from?

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

well, we're not talking about the sun, we're talking about a conscious god, and i think what's important there is the individual's will to dedicate themselves to that god. and the scaling of sacrifices in the OT demonstrates that. it's not what, i guess, it's why.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

livestock as currency, thus destroying currency a demonstration of one's devoteeism to God over money?

The KLF did this a few years back, on account of unbearable guilt over having worked with Gary Glitter.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

It seems a bit contrary, as it's wasteful.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

xpost - who knows about the actual history, but i think it still makes sense that that's where it came from - giving from what you have, the fruit of your labor. in the bible the first example is cain and abel, they set the precedent.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

Might it have anything to do with Semites? Herders -vs- agriculturalists?

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:13 (twenty years ago)

it's not quite the same. crumpling up a hundred dollar bill is not the same as igniting a pile of 100 $1 dollar bills, is not the same as burning a fuckin cow.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:13 (twenty years ago)

that is, it's symbolic. fire is quite a powerful force.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

sacrifice, by physically negating the practical, creates in the mind an understanding that there is a spiritual realm beyond physical needs and requirements.

― Another Allnighter (sexyDancer), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

Is it not more the case that the God that Created Everything isn't that big a deal, because you didn't see it happen? But there's crazy shit happening all over the place, where sheep spit out lambs, and the sun makes crops grow up, except sometimes they don't, so you kickback a percent of the proceeds to the entity/entities that makes these things happen, saying "You did this! Nice one!".

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

You know, Thanksgiving?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

also, money is an abstraction and a step removed form the actual labor. if it's a goat, you've presumably seen this goat born, and have raised it more or less by hand. it's much more tangible.

obv this too becomes an abstraction for the wealthy, and people coming to a temple from far away who buy a goat in-house, but that's beside the point.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

it's easier for camel to enter the eye of a needle than a rich to enter the kindom of GOD.

and our some out for the fallen homies

― Another Allnighter (sexyDancer), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

allnighter, right, that's it. i was trying to get to that, but couldnt find it. thanks!

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

er, xpost.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

yeah, but you explained the reasoning behind the aphorism
thanks to you!

― Another Allnighter (sexyDancer), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

It means you should get out and sin lest his death be in vain.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:52 (twenty years ago)

here's some half-remembered Milton: God's first creation was the angels (the "heavenly host" mentioned somewhere) who were exactly tuned in to the will of god - they had "angelic intuition" meaning they didn't really know anything, but they didn't need to, cos everything they guessed turned out to be right. but they did have some self-knowledge, so the one angel who was the best thought he could do it all, so god made a lake of fire and chucked him in it along with a third of the Host who threw in with him. and then he started going by his punk name, Satan.

god tried again and made another creature that was a bit more like an animal (had a gender, etc). The Fall, when it happened (thanks to Satan chatting up the woman) (and iirc Milton is unsympathetic to Adam blaming it all on the woman [surely one of genesis' unrecognized dark jokes]) was a Fall OUT OF that angelic intuition and INTO...language! We don't "just know" anything anymore, but we have "knowledge" which is more valuable in the long run (language = knowledge = choice = possibility of love) (angels don't love anything).

Milton concieves the creation story as an explanation for human nature: the necessity and limitations of human connectivity and autonomy (big Prot values). redemption thru the son = return to that angelic state plus the add on bonus of all the knowledge gained in the interim. human experience is what it is bcz God took a gamble: he made an autonomous creature (even after the 1st round went a third bad) and put them on earth and said "ok, let's see what happens." the father's gamble is a test OF GOD, since he need to find out if a free creature would figure out how to love him, if he was worth it.

iirc (and it's been years since i've read PL) the Son (who is with the Father the whole time up there) is sort of impatient to get down there and do the Redeeming but God sez "hang back a bit" a lot.

― g e o f f (gcannon), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

"on yom kippur back in the day, one of the ceremonies was to take a goat and throw it off a cliff to atone for the nation's sins."
That's pretty much the STUPIDEST THING I've ever heard.

How stupid would you have to be to believe that throwing a goat of a cliff would do anything like that? These people were FUCKING IDIOTS.

Is it sinful to throw goats from a cliff? In all seriousness, is it?

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

"Damn, we did a goat-load of sinning this year! Well, anyway, say 'hi' to God, Billy."

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

how hard is this to figure out? goat = something of a value. pitching it off a cliff = getting none of that value = hurts = showing that yr serious. if you want a humanist explanation of this, it's a public demonstration of the value of goats!

― g e o f f (gcannon), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

i think the real uncrossable divide here is that goats are funny and then they weren't

― g e o f f (gcannon), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:15 (twenty years ago)

except "thou shalt not put pineapple chunks on pizza", i think that wz OTM

Heretic.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

Easter the Bunny --> Chocolate bringer
Santa Claus --> Present giver
Tooth Fairy --> $$$ fo toofahs lady

Three distinct roles of a single divinity ie the holy trinity of me gettin stuff.

― sunny successor (when the lunch bell rings why dont you eat me) (katharine), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

OTM

― latebloomer: now with 20% less cetacean content (latebloomer), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

i hate to do this: but Derrida's The Gift of Death has some really interesting things to say about sacrifice, but mainly in connection to abraham and isaac.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

i could have a goat pizza, greek style with spinach and feta and olives. i would eat its succulence, my hands glistening with goat.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

doesn't the goat represent Satan? your hands are glistening with evil, bro.

― matlewis, Thursday, 30 June 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

nah, the scapegoat represents us dude.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 June 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

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