Did you just… ask me the exact same question I asked you? What was the point of that?
My answer is that it wasn’t a real sacrifice at all, obviously.
I’m asking if you sacrifice your life to live as God would have you live, and are resurrected, what is the sacrifice?
From where I sit, that’s a non-sequitur. To be clear, I am asserting that the resurrection of Jesus voids the supposed sacrifice, as nothing was irretrievably lost.
Can you restate the question differently?
The sacrifice was in part the taking upon his pure self the sins and guilt of his fallen creation.
Need to ask you this while you are actually on a cross…
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Methinks the energy of this topic, as expressed by its title, has been disrupted.
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Ah, you are feeling a little cross…
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Quoting Dave, and continuing with this line of thinking:
I totally trust God-the-Father. And Jesus too.
Do I trust the Powerful One who ran that loyalty test on Abraham? And ordered Saul to genocide the Amalek - including babies, camels, donkeys, and sheep?
Faith is earned. Jesus turned the other cheek, healed the sick, raised the dead. That gives off a very loving vibe, and it has earned my faith and trust. In contrast, that specific Powerful One in the OT ordered the genocide of the Amalek - as well as the fake (torturous) child sacrifice, and ordered death penalties for a bunch of “sins”, including being a “medium.”
By contrast, Jesus said: “go and sin no more.” They couldn’t be more different.
… I know I’m a total outlier…
However, there may be some in the middle who might feel the same as I do. That’s whom I’m really talking to right now.
It is my opinion that a massive step-up in psychospiritual development happened between the the writers of the Amalek policy and the coming of Jesus.
To me personally, scripture is not a guide to TRUTH, but more a statement of how HUMANS UNDERSTOOD TRUTH at the time of the writing.
Christianity can be “done” from the RED/BLUE developmental level. In the RED/BLUE level, there are lots of demands from God to kill enemies, punish those who disobey, turning to pillars of salt, struck by lightning, getting flooded for “wickedness” or “disobedience” etc. IMO, this is an ugly world view. The neocon’s and Israel’s approach to the world brings us a close look at how RED/BLUE works in the current day. A “low trust” social organization.
And Christianity can be “done” from the Second Tier developmental levels, the stages after “love and respect” have dawned in human experience. And the stage where the practical benefits of “love and respect” have been directly seen and are now valuedas practical ways of working with others. People become trustworthy, able to cooperate in the Second Tier ways of thinking. Children are valuable. “Kindness” itself becomes a major motivating life force.
The imagery of a lamb that must be killed and burnt before God is not meaningful to me. Or of a “son of God” who is sacrificed to redeem the sins of others.
Much more meaningful is the story of Jesus at the well, who talks with a woman, understands her, loves her, and is able to gently and respectfully nudge her out of the destructive life she finds herself in.
And I understand that this is NOT the approach of many and will not feel “right” to those NOT in this mind-space.
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Actually, just pointing out a little inconsistency. Non-religious interruptions to a topic are often shunted off to become their own topic. Religious interruptions don’t seem to be.
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God and the Baby Jesus are in every topic at all times. And in all of us and our hearts. Including yours, Russ, if you’d just let them in.
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A sweet conversation with God (Morgan Freeman)
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Really, I never understood this part. You are sinful and guilty just because you were born? WTF? You didn’t ask to be born. And, he “takes it upon himself” how, exactly? How does this transfer of sin and guilt work? Seems very handwavy and unconvincing to me. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I tried, but I can’t force myself to make an exception to my principles in this one case and just take it on faith.
Sorry for being so wildly offtopic, all.
Well, Spock, you seem to be very emotionally toned for someone who claims to be fact and logic based. What about all this causes such angst?
Why not allow us lower beings to have our superstitions and crutches, in peace, 
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If you’re genuinely interested and want some answers without clogging up this thread I sent you a DM here at the site so we can discuss it privately.
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You’re not engaged in “suspected food production” are you?
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Absolutely not! I’m also not tired tonight from finishing stacking the last of 4 cords of firewood bought early and tucked away in the wood shed so we’re not cold next winter either.
I’m still trying to figure out how TPTB can possibly spin gardening as “bad.” When we have too much production, the excess goes to neighbors, a church food distribution, or a “grow a row for the hungry” collection site at the local library. How such anti-social behavior can be tolerated is beyond me!
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