Poorly Argued Case for Forgiveness

Submitted by Alexander (United States), Aug 12, 2010 at 17:59

The case for God needing a blood sacrifice in order to be able to forgive us our sins is, I feel, poorly argued. The case presented rests far too much on the anthropological and cultural significance of the early Hebraic peoples belief's.

Take the Old Testament precedent for blood sacrifice out of the argument for a brief moment - and where is the basis for a God needing His 'Son' to die in order that we, somehow, may 'receive' His forgiveness. I'm afraid it's poor theology extrapolated from bad history, which is never going to be a good mix.

Ok - so let's put the OT extrapolations back in now. And we can clearly see that in the NT Jesus on a number of occasions likened and specifically linked himself to the Jewish sacrificial practices. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, for Christian apologists it's obviously good - it's Jesus saying "look all that gory OT stuff is true and still of value, and by the way, I'm the super-duper version of the sacrificial animal" - but for those of us who live in the real world it just makes clear that Jesus' own theology was built on the insubstantial sands of primitive and ignorant behaviour. No way would a God who created this vast Cosmos be so dumb as to insist that our errors could only be erased by the death of some poor animal - no! The only person who could think up that kind of ignorant pathology would be a primitive man! And then all it takes is a shed-load of other folk to come along afterwards and say "that's what God says".

If God is 'God' - then of course there is no need for a 'sacrifice' - in fact maintaining the need for sacrifice in order to forgive sin means de facto that he would have created mankind knowing that we would commit sin - and therefore within the act of creation would not only have condemned countless millions of animals to needless slaughter but also signed his own death warrant.

'what I desire is mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledegment of God and not burnt offerings' Hosea 6:6

God is a God of Compassion and Mercy, Justice and Righteousness - but he is NOT a blood-thirsty deity with a complicated 'rescue plan' that depends upon believing the unbelievable and accepting the unacceptable!

Now...what about the resurrection? You see, that was never any part of the OT sacrificial lamb deal. The problem is we can't have 'God' dying can we? No, so it appears that we then have to find a way of bringing Him back to life again. But that's a bit of a poor deal isn't it? I mean, it's not much of a 'sacrifice' - dying but knowing you'll rise again in less than 2 days? Even I would be prepared to do that - and I really don't like dying! The effect of the resurrection is in fact to make the sacrifice a less-than complete propitiation. Yet this particular sacrifice is the one sacrifice that is promulgated around the globe as being the ONLY way of gaining God's forgiveness!

Why can you not see the complete and utter bunkum you are talking Lactantius Jr?

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