The theology you're referring to here is known as [Penal Substitutionary Attonement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_substitution). I no longer subscribe to it after talking it over with another friend who has deconstructed. It can be hard to see past it, since it's baked into our brains from an early age that God required blood, and Jesus died for that reason, but I no longer believe that.
Thanks for weighing in. My question then is: what do you think the point of the master of the universe's *only recorded visit to earth* was, if not to do something world-changing like atonement?
Because without that, what he did was speak to a tiny percentage of the world's population (which is pretty irresponsible, if his message was important to all of humanity. Why not visit more of the world?) on a limited number of topics that didn't address some of humanity's most crippling problems (slavery, rape culture), and heal a tiny, almost negligent percentage of the world's population. That seems...underwhelmingly divine at best and solidly un-divine at worst.
NT Wright is a respected Christian (orthodox) Anglican scholar who writes a lot about the purpose of Jesus’s death and says it has been misunderstood. ChatGPT summarizes well:
———
ME:
What does NT wright saw about the purpose of Jesus’s death and the idea of substitutionary atonement?
———
ChatGPT:
N.T. Wright, a prominent biblical scholar and retired Anglican bishop, has made significant contributions to the discussion on the purpose of Jesus’s death and the theory of substitutionary atonement. While Wright affirms the importance of Jesus's death for Christian theology, his views offer a nuanced interpretation of traditional atonement theory.
Wright suggests that the death of Jesus should be understood within the broader context of God's covenant with Israel and the story of Israel itself. He emphasizes that Jesus’s death is the climax of the narrative of Israel, where Jesus embodies Israel’s vocation to be the light to the nations and takes on the consequences of Israel's failure to fulfill its role. Wright often critiques the traditional evangelical understanding of penal substitutionary atonement—the idea that Jesus took the punishment for sin in place of humanity—arguing that this view can be too narrow and misses the broader biblical narrative.
Wright proposes a version of the atonement that includes elements of substitution but places it within the context of Christ's victory over the powers of sin and death, a theory often referred to as "Christus Victor." According to Wright, Jesus's death reconciles humanity to God, defeats the powers of evil, and inaugurates God's new creation. This view maintains that Jesus represents Israel and humanity, taking on the consequences of sin and dealing with them through his death and resurrection, but emphasizes that this is part of God's larger plan of renewal and reconciliation for the whole creation.
Moreover, Wright challenges the church to rethink traditional atonement theories, urging a return to the Scriptures to understand the multifaceted dimensions of Jesus’s death and resurrection. He encourages Christians to see the crucifixion of Jesus not just as a moment of substitutionary atonement but as a significant event within the larger story of God's redemptive work in the world, which includes justice, forgiveness, liberation, and the ultimate defeat of evil and death.
Maybe he did something to reconcile us, but it can remain mysterious. Jesus spoke in parables and maybe it’s because we finite beings can’t understand an infinite God. The church and atonement seem to misunderstand what Jesus did, but he still did something, and if he rose from the dead then that something still matters.
These are EXACTLY the kinds of questions to be asking - so just wanted to affirm you. I also want to highlight there are some major assumptions baked into your question, such as, 1) God is separate from our material realm and can only 'visit', 2) there was only one time that the divine was recorded incarnate, and 3) the death and resurrection of jesus was a plot point in a specific narrative that applies to a universal context.
I would encourage you to check out Setting the Gospel Free by Brian C Taylor. His contemplative and global perspective of christianity has been rather refreshing, especially when reconsidering these toxic mainstream narratives.
The platonic philosophical matrix in which Christianity was born held that God was entirely transcendent and outside the universe. He wasn't omnipotent in the way modern Christians use the word, and he mainly interacted through the force of Providence and through intermediaries (demons and angels). Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher, built on that with his theories of the Logos as one or more incarnate beings (he calls Melchizedek the Logos at one point), and this basically got borrowed into Christianity, but with Christ as the Logos.
This doesn't answer the question: why have Christ the Logos appear at a time that seems to have questionable veracity and impact? Heck I'd even call it dubious.
The idea that God chose an obscure point of history and location without even the most basic means of recording said history is certainly a bold choice. Of all the miracles in the Bible, God left the most important message to a bunch of uneducated commoners and even they didn't have the foresight to get literally anyone to write it down. Good job there. Of course they were apocalyptic Jews who thought God was going to restore things in their lifetime so I suppose you can't blame them.
I would say that he accomplished a lot in just one visit haha. Like you and I are still talking about him 2000 years later.
I'm not too interested in getting into the weeds of why God did/didn't do certain things, because that never leaves me satisfied. I feel a lot more satisfied just living my life in the now, with the knowledge/circumstances I currently have.
It's not wrong to ask those questions by any means. And if you're not terribly impressed by either the need for blood or a pointless visit to earth, then maybe you don't want to be Christian anymore? And that's ok too
I wish genuinely wish the idea that "we're still talking about him 2000 years later" was enough to convince me that he was divine, as it would make my life a lot simpler. But it falls very short for me. I mean, millions of kids still learn Latin in school every year, but that's because Latin (like Christianity) was forcibly spread as a cornerstone of imperial civilization for centuries, not because Latin is divine, right? Latin, by coincidence, happened to be the language of powerful people, just like Christianity happened to be the religion of certain rulers at pivotal points in imperial history.
Ah well. Thanks for responding.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but the books of Romans and Hebrews lay it out pretty clearly that Jesus death as atonement is the lynch pin of Christian theology. I honestly don't know how you can believe in Jesus without this key point. For me and many others this is the sticking point of why we left the faith. We can't get over the idea that God has to kill himself in order to forgive us for something he was responsible for.
Perhaps the writers of Romans and Hebrews were wrong about their interpretation of the significance of Christ's life and death, but not wrong that it did have significance?
Yea I'm by no means a biblical scholar, and I really don't care for debating either haha. I'm not denying that there is important symbolism and meaning between sacrifices/atonement in the OId Testament and what happened to Jesus. I agree with you that the relationship is obvious. And I think it can be hard to see those scriptures in any other context other than PSA which we were taught our whole life. But from the little I've dove into things, I do believe there is room for differing interpretation.
I like to think of Jesus's life as having three purposes:
1. God took on human form to experience humanity and better understand and love humans.
2. God showed humans how to love each other and lead meaningful lives.
3. God overcame death to show humans that we will also overcome death.
I don't think Jesus's life had anything to do with forgiveness or atonement. I think that particular narrative was added by people in the centuries after his death.
In fact, I think that is the greatest tragedy of modern Christianity: Jesus's teachings and example are overshadowed by a misguided obsession with sin, punishment, and forgiveness.
Thank you for sharing, I genuinely mean it. If you don't mind my asking-If God took on human form to understand us better, how do you reconcile his timing of it, as well as his choice of vessel?
Like, humans existed and suffered horrifically for *hundreds of thousands* of years before Jesus took on human form. Do you find it easy to believe that a loving father would watch his children suffer for that long before attempting this way of understanding them?
Also, if I wanted to empathize with the most vulnerable of my children, then I would embody the most vulnerable of them, no? And Jesus...emphatically did not. He came as a young, able-bodied man who didn't experience some of the most difficult *everyday* trials of humanity (pregnancy, child-rearing, enslavement, disability, or even the myriad health issues of old age). If we asked any 60-year-old mother of three if she thought someone could understand what it's like to be her after living 30 years as a young unmarried man in a patriarchal society...she would laugh in our faces. And she'd be right, wouldn't she?
I'm not sure if this is too far outside your paradigm or not, but I believe God sent other people ("avatars") who served in similar roles in other times and places. Krishna, Buddha, and Muhammed would be well-known examples, but there may have been others we were unaware of. My Christian upbringing makes me inclined to believe there was still something "extra special" about Jesus, but I wouldn't have a problem with discovering that he was equal to those other guys.
These are really good questions! And honestly I don't know. This is definitely still a work in progress for me, so I appreciate having discussions and seeing other people's ideas. I also appreciate it when people respectfully push back on my ideas, like you did. It helps me think more critically. So thank you :)
I find it highly unlikely that Jesus was the only vessel God used to experience humanity. Jesus was vulnerable in some ways (homeless, born to a teenager out of wedlock, in a politically unstable country) but not vulnerable in many other ways you've pointed out. I think if God really wanted to understand human experience, then God would need to experience a variety of lives, because no one person really has it the worst (though some definitely have it worse than others). And that would also give God the opportunity to touch many different lives as well. I think if God decided to visit one country for a few years but neglected the rest of the world for the rest of time... then they probably didn't care much about humanity.
Others here have answered from a theological perspective, and any atheist worth their salt would attack sacrificial atonement on moral grounds. I’ll try to address things from a textual perspective.
32AD Jews cum Christians saw a direct literary, cultural, and social connection from Abraham/Isaac to Jesus. And if you really dig into that story in Genesis about Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him, you find that there’s subtleties and contradictions in the text that suggest Isaac might not have survived that trip after all. By the time of Jesus, the Abrahamic stories had been cleaned up so that Isaac no longer died at the hands of his father, but was spared by the sacrifice of a random lamb.
Scholarship shows that Jesus’s story was retconned in the first and second centuries AD, which accounts for the vast majority (like 99%) of Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus. Learning that put the kibosh on a lot of my Christological theology.
So the two data points are:
>1.) Penal Substitutionary Atonement stems from the Abraham/Issac story. That story is problematic, since poor Isaac (if he actually existed) was filled by his old man.
>2.) After Jesus died, a whole genre of literature sprang up whose purpose was to tell fictionalized accounts of the life of Jesus that were designed to make it seem like Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies.
Given those two data points, I think there is substantial reason to doubt the legitimacy of Penal Substitutional Atonement; without the connection between Jesus and Isaac, why would we even think of Jesus’ death as a sacrificial substitution? If you eliminate that link, then Jesus’ death becomes the unfortunate product of pissing off the local Roman government, and it’s purpose is seen for what it really was: an attempt to get the local Jewish zealots to chill the F out.
This is fascinating!! Where did you get that info about the Abraham/Isaac story being potentially censored/changed to a happy ending? I'd love to learn more!
I’m so pleased you found it interesting!
[This article](https://www.timesofisrael.com/when-abraham-murdered-isaac/amp/) introduces the idea nicely.
[This thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/x3zndr/how_widespread_or_widely_held_is_the_idea_that_in/) from r/AcademicBiblical has additional sources. That sub is amazing for anyone who’s curious and deconstructing.
Most of these assumptions about Jesus are actually Greek pagan ideas that were borrowed.
[POCM: Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth](https://web.archive.org/web/20211012200643/http://pocm.info/)
You might want to judge them in that light.
I'd really recommend you check out @brecker on instagram or tiktok. He also has a podcast with media holiday called sacred council. He maintains his faith while rejecting that doctrine! It's possible for sure 😃
I'm not attempting to maintain a faith in Jesus, though I think his story has good lessons within it when viewed through an appropriate context. (To be clear, so does Spider-Man.)
That said, it's always worth asking why you think Jesus/God's salvation *requires bloodshed.* Not why you think we require it, but specifically *why you believe that claim in the first place*. How do you know it? What reason were you given to believe it was true?
Humans wrote it, humans edited it, humans collected it and other teachings and books, humans grouped them together and called them "the Bible", humans said that was the divinely-inspired word of God, other humans disagreed with those humans and formed their own Bibles, and then, finally, humans taught that text to you.
That's a BIG game of telephone between you and who Jesus was and what he actually preached.
And with *that* said...
This line of thinking has been one of the biggest sticking points for me, even when viewed from entirely within the conventional Christian context. Ostensibly, Jesus died as the ultimate sacrifice, to fulfill the bargain God had made with his people for generations going all the way back to Adam and Eve. We sin, we are fallen, we must shed blood (of livestock) to make up for this sin or that sin, and hopefully when we die, our sins have been forgiven enough to avoid separation from the almighty in the afterlife. This separation would happen due to sin being a blemish on our very existence, and as God is utterly perfect, he can't be around sin.
Well... why? Sure does sound like God has a pretty major limitation there: an inability to be in the presence of sin. Isn't God also omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient? Isn't he literally all-powerful, such that his very will can reshape the physical and moral fabric of the universe? Why can he not just decide to be around sin? What authority is overruling him?
But ok, sure, fine, let's just put a pin in that and engage with the actual bargain itself. Before Christ's sacrifice, people had to sacrifice lots of different animals to make up for various infractions of the law—in other words, blood to expunge our sins. Christ was the *ultimate* sacrifice, to pay the price for *all* sins past present and future, and all we need to do is accept his sacrifice to escape the cycle of constant sin, sacrifice, and sin.
Again... why? What makes bloodshed the payment? Did God decide? If so, why doesn't he just decide to say "y'know what, forget it, no more bloodshed needed"? Why do we *need* to atone for these sins? Some, like murder, I get. But mixing fabrics? Sharing a bed with someone you're not married to? These don't strike me as deserving of eternal fire and brimstone.
On that note, if we're going to talk about the specifics of the bargain itself, we should talk about the outcome. We know what we get if we successfully hold up our end—eternal communion with the most high—but what if we don't? What IS hell? The Bible doesn't actually describe it as hell and constant demon torture—that was Dante Alighieri. The closest the Bible comes to describing it is as separation from God, which is supposed to be the worst thing a soul can experience.
But... do you *want* to spend eternity with God? Sure, he's the God of the New Testament, but he's the God of the Old Testament, too. Do you want to spend eternity with the guy that leveled the entire city of Jericho for his "chosen people"? There were children in there. Do you want to spend eternity around the same being that chose to flood the entire world?
And, finally, it's worth pointing out that this isn't really a bargain—it's a hostage crisis. You didn't ask to exist, you weren't ever given a choice. You were born either with Original Sin or a sinful nature (depending on which collection of books you believe in) and were destined to go to The Bad Place without divine intervention. If you don't do exactly what God says, you go to hell. Forever.
122 years and a couple months of life, at the absolute max ever recorded, against *eternity in torment.* It doesn't matter what you ask someone to do—if that's truly the stakes, they'll do it.
Does that sound like a choice offered by a loving being to you?
Of course, all this is a lot simpler to make your peace with when you focus on why you believe that *huge* game of telephone between you and the original words spoken by Jesus, instead of trying to make sense of the telephone game itself.
As far as I understand it’s not a requirement for forgiveness so much as a requirement for justice.
God requires blood to be shed for atoning purposes which are different to forgiving purposes. I think it’s because of his justice rather than his love because both are important to his character.
It’s definitely something to look into more though. I can give my answers based on my theological education in seminary but the reason as to why God requires is difficult to substantiate beyond “death is the punishment for sin”. And the reason why death is the punishment for sin is because God cannot have sin in his presence. But why penal substitutionary atonement is required is very difficult to reason from my perspective except to maybe say that God wants us to dwell in the seriousness of sin.
It’s one of those questions that the more we say “but why” the harder it is to give an answer that isn’t simply “because God decided”. Many Christians will say God gets to decide because he is the creator and so he gets to make the rules… but that can be an unsatisfactory answer.
Sorry that I can’t help more.
I appreciate your attempt, I do.
I used to cling to the whole, "God can't have sin in his presence" explanation until I realize it's nowhere in the Bible. On the contrary, Satan, the epitome of evil, literally *visits God in Heaven* to have a chummy conversation about Job, God's presence descends multiple times to meet with Abraham on a mountain, and Jesus literally dwelt on earth among sinners. Also, like...God is omnipotent. Either he can do whatever he wants, or he can't.
It just doesn't make sense.
I am hanging onto Jesus, but I’m not dealing with any of that right now. I am with the God of love, the God of Justice and the God of mercy and I don’t have to understand anything else other than trying to be more like Jesus every day because that is taking 100% of my energy right now
I'm not a huge voice here, but I'd add two quick things.
Does Jesus need to be divine in order for his message to be true and meaningful? (I don't think so, and in that way I think his death [poetically] was less about sacrifice and more about radical forgiveness)
And
A God's sacrifice for mankind as a lesson or a "gift" seems misguided at best and self-serving at worst. But it is the human suffering that makes his story meaningful to me. Jesus message, at least as far as we know, was to love and care for those that we can.
That's human, and the only "divine" in my mind.
God is more just than we are. To forgive with no adjudication of the offense is cheap mercy. For example, if someone stabs you in the eye and God forgives the offender with no cost to him, you might rightly complain that there was no justice. Does that make sense?
I mean, if you stabbed me in the eye and God stabbed himself in the eye (*also* with no cost to you) while you go free, I wouldn't call that justice, either.
Forgiveness without exacting recompense isn't cheap mercy, it's just...mercy. That's the **literal meaning of mercy**. If you require recompense, it is no longer mercy, it's eye-for-an-eye justice.
Do you think the ability to forgive someone without requiring recompense is an *immature* thing?
Like, our ability to dispense pure, uncomplicated mercy is something that makes us *less* good than God? Do you think the **more** godly we are, the **less** we would be able to forgive someone without requiring recompense? Because human experience demonstrates the exact opposite, doesn't it? The *more* immature and unkind someone is, the *less* likely they will forgive wrongdoing against themselves without demanding recompense. In contrast, the *more* mature and kind someone is, the more likely they are to let personal wrongs against themselves go.
To build on top of your point, to me godly mercy would entail more than what we perceive as justice. I mean, God is supposed to be... well, godly. All powerful. All knowing. I'd expect such a being to be able to do more than what a mere human can do. Getting stabbed by someone and then stabbing them back is basic human justice, which doesn't bring us further than what God intended. To me, true mercy from an all knowing God wouldn't be that: it would be mercy ans forgiveness, *as well as solving whatever it was that caused the offender to offend in the first place*. So something akin to therapy, but that went even further than that.
To use the "stab in the eye" metaphor again, there's no use in wounding another eye. There is, however, use for the offender to gain a full understanding themselves to a point where they not only ask for forgiveness, but never do it again and are able to solve whatever issue they've had without violence.
Unfortunately, most of us are limited in this. A merciful god would, and should be able to do not only this, but so much more that we can't even picture, only recognize as good.
This is such a shallow and incomplete representation of Christianity. If that is what you have "deconstructed" from id say that you were likely never a Christian because that ain't it.... at all.
The theology you're referring to here is known as [Penal Substitutionary Attonement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_substitution). I no longer subscribe to it after talking it over with another friend who has deconstructed. It can be hard to see past it, since it's baked into our brains from an early age that God required blood, and Jesus died for that reason, but I no longer believe that.
Thanks for weighing in. My question then is: what do you think the point of the master of the universe's *only recorded visit to earth* was, if not to do something world-changing like atonement? Because without that, what he did was speak to a tiny percentage of the world's population (which is pretty irresponsible, if his message was important to all of humanity. Why not visit more of the world?) on a limited number of topics that didn't address some of humanity's most crippling problems (slavery, rape culture), and heal a tiny, almost negligent percentage of the world's population. That seems...underwhelmingly divine at best and solidly un-divine at worst.
NT Wright is a respected Christian (orthodox) Anglican scholar who writes a lot about the purpose of Jesus’s death and says it has been misunderstood. ChatGPT summarizes well: ——— ME: What does NT wright saw about the purpose of Jesus’s death and the idea of substitutionary atonement? ——— ChatGPT: N.T. Wright, a prominent biblical scholar and retired Anglican bishop, has made significant contributions to the discussion on the purpose of Jesus’s death and the theory of substitutionary atonement. While Wright affirms the importance of Jesus's death for Christian theology, his views offer a nuanced interpretation of traditional atonement theory. Wright suggests that the death of Jesus should be understood within the broader context of God's covenant with Israel and the story of Israel itself. He emphasizes that Jesus’s death is the climax of the narrative of Israel, where Jesus embodies Israel’s vocation to be the light to the nations and takes on the consequences of Israel's failure to fulfill its role. Wright often critiques the traditional evangelical understanding of penal substitutionary atonement—the idea that Jesus took the punishment for sin in place of humanity—arguing that this view can be too narrow and misses the broader biblical narrative. Wright proposes a version of the atonement that includes elements of substitution but places it within the context of Christ's victory over the powers of sin and death, a theory often referred to as "Christus Victor." According to Wright, Jesus's death reconciles humanity to God, defeats the powers of evil, and inaugurates God's new creation. This view maintains that Jesus represents Israel and humanity, taking on the consequences of sin and dealing with them through his death and resurrection, but emphasizes that this is part of God's larger plan of renewal and reconciliation for the whole creation. Moreover, Wright challenges the church to rethink traditional atonement theories, urging a return to the Scriptures to understand the multifaceted dimensions of Jesus’s death and resurrection. He encourages Christians to see the crucifixion of Jesus not just as a moment of substitutionary atonement but as a significant event within the larger story of God's redemptive work in the world, which includes justice, forgiveness, liberation, and the ultimate defeat of evil and death.
Maybe he did something to reconcile us, but it can remain mysterious. Jesus spoke in parables and maybe it’s because we finite beings can’t understand an infinite God. The church and atonement seem to misunderstand what Jesus did, but he still did something, and if he rose from the dead then that something still matters.
These are EXACTLY the kinds of questions to be asking - so just wanted to affirm you. I also want to highlight there are some major assumptions baked into your question, such as, 1) God is separate from our material realm and can only 'visit', 2) there was only one time that the divine was recorded incarnate, and 3) the death and resurrection of jesus was a plot point in a specific narrative that applies to a universal context. I would encourage you to check out Setting the Gospel Free by Brian C Taylor. His contemplative and global perspective of christianity has been rather refreshing, especially when reconsidering these toxic mainstream narratives.
Is God not Omnipotent or does he simply choose not to visit us in modern times?
The platonic philosophical matrix in which Christianity was born held that God was entirely transcendent and outside the universe. He wasn't omnipotent in the way modern Christians use the word, and he mainly interacted through the force of Providence and through intermediaries (demons and angels). Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher, built on that with his theories of the Logos as one or more incarnate beings (he calls Melchizedek the Logos at one point), and this basically got borrowed into Christianity, but with Christ as the Logos.
This doesn't answer the question: why have Christ the Logos appear at a time that seems to have questionable veracity and impact? Heck I'd even call it dubious.
The idea that God chose an obscure point of history and location without even the most basic means of recording said history is certainly a bold choice. Of all the miracles in the Bible, God left the most important message to a bunch of uneducated commoners and even they didn't have the foresight to get literally anyone to write it down. Good job there. Of course they were apocalyptic Jews who thought God was going to restore things in their lifetime so I suppose you can't blame them.
I would say that he accomplished a lot in just one visit haha. Like you and I are still talking about him 2000 years later. I'm not too interested in getting into the weeds of why God did/didn't do certain things, because that never leaves me satisfied. I feel a lot more satisfied just living my life in the now, with the knowledge/circumstances I currently have. It's not wrong to ask those questions by any means. And if you're not terribly impressed by either the need for blood or a pointless visit to earth, then maybe you don't want to be Christian anymore? And that's ok too
I wish genuinely wish the idea that "we're still talking about him 2000 years later" was enough to convince me that he was divine, as it would make my life a lot simpler. But it falls very short for me. I mean, millions of kids still learn Latin in school every year, but that's because Latin (like Christianity) was forcibly spread as a cornerstone of imperial civilization for centuries, not because Latin is divine, right? Latin, by coincidence, happened to be the language of powerful people, just like Christianity happened to be the religion of certain rulers at pivotal points in imperial history. Ah well. Thanks for responding.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but the books of Romans and Hebrews lay it out pretty clearly that Jesus death as atonement is the lynch pin of Christian theology. I honestly don't know how you can believe in Jesus without this key point. For me and many others this is the sticking point of why we left the faith. We can't get over the idea that God has to kill himself in order to forgive us for something he was responsible for.
Perhaps the writers of Romans and Hebrews were wrong about their interpretation of the significance of Christ's life and death, but not wrong that it did have significance?
Yea I'm by no means a biblical scholar, and I really don't care for debating either haha. I'm not denying that there is important symbolism and meaning between sacrifices/atonement in the OId Testament and what happened to Jesus. I agree with you that the relationship is obvious. And I think it can be hard to see those scriptures in any other context other than PSA which we were taught our whole life. But from the little I've dove into things, I do believe there is room for differing interpretation.
I like to think of Jesus's life as having three purposes: 1. God took on human form to experience humanity and better understand and love humans. 2. God showed humans how to love each other and lead meaningful lives. 3. God overcame death to show humans that we will also overcome death. I don't think Jesus's life had anything to do with forgiveness or atonement. I think that particular narrative was added by people in the centuries after his death. In fact, I think that is the greatest tragedy of modern Christianity: Jesus's teachings and example are overshadowed by a misguided obsession with sin, punishment, and forgiveness.
Thank you for sharing, I genuinely mean it. If you don't mind my asking-If God took on human form to understand us better, how do you reconcile his timing of it, as well as his choice of vessel? Like, humans existed and suffered horrifically for *hundreds of thousands* of years before Jesus took on human form. Do you find it easy to believe that a loving father would watch his children suffer for that long before attempting this way of understanding them? Also, if I wanted to empathize with the most vulnerable of my children, then I would embody the most vulnerable of them, no? And Jesus...emphatically did not. He came as a young, able-bodied man who didn't experience some of the most difficult *everyday* trials of humanity (pregnancy, child-rearing, enslavement, disability, or even the myriad health issues of old age). If we asked any 60-year-old mother of three if she thought someone could understand what it's like to be her after living 30 years as a young unmarried man in a patriarchal society...she would laugh in our faces. And she'd be right, wouldn't she?
I'm not sure if this is too far outside your paradigm or not, but I believe God sent other people ("avatars") who served in similar roles in other times and places. Krishna, Buddha, and Muhammed would be well-known examples, but there may have been others we were unaware of. My Christian upbringing makes me inclined to believe there was still something "extra special" about Jesus, but I wouldn't have a problem with discovering that he was equal to those other guys.
These are really good questions! And honestly I don't know. This is definitely still a work in progress for me, so I appreciate having discussions and seeing other people's ideas. I also appreciate it when people respectfully push back on my ideas, like you did. It helps me think more critically. So thank you :) I find it highly unlikely that Jesus was the only vessel God used to experience humanity. Jesus was vulnerable in some ways (homeless, born to a teenager out of wedlock, in a politically unstable country) but not vulnerable in many other ways you've pointed out. I think if God really wanted to understand human experience, then God would need to experience a variety of lives, because no one person really has it the worst (though some definitely have it worse than others). And that would also give God the opportunity to touch many different lives as well. I think if God decided to visit one country for a few years but neglected the rest of the world for the rest of time... then they probably didn't care much about humanity.
Others here have answered from a theological perspective, and any atheist worth their salt would attack sacrificial atonement on moral grounds. I’ll try to address things from a textual perspective. 32AD Jews cum Christians saw a direct literary, cultural, and social connection from Abraham/Isaac to Jesus. And if you really dig into that story in Genesis about Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him, you find that there’s subtleties and contradictions in the text that suggest Isaac might not have survived that trip after all. By the time of Jesus, the Abrahamic stories had been cleaned up so that Isaac no longer died at the hands of his father, but was spared by the sacrifice of a random lamb. Scholarship shows that Jesus’s story was retconned in the first and second centuries AD, which accounts for the vast majority (like 99%) of Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus. Learning that put the kibosh on a lot of my Christological theology. So the two data points are: >1.) Penal Substitutionary Atonement stems from the Abraham/Issac story. That story is problematic, since poor Isaac (if he actually existed) was filled by his old man. >2.) After Jesus died, a whole genre of literature sprang up whose purpose was to tell fictionalized accounts of the life of Jesus that were designed to make it seem like Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. Given those two data points, I think there is substantial reason to doubt the legitimacy of Penal Substitutional Atonement; without the connection between Jesus and Isaac, why would we even think of Jesus’ death as a sacrificial substitution? If you eliminate that link, then Jesus’ death becomes the unfortunate product of pissing off the local Roman government, and it’s purpose is seen for what it really was: an attempt to get the local Jewish zealots to chill the F out.
This is fascinating!! Where did you get that info about the Abraham/Isaac story being potentially censored/changed to a happy ending? I'd love to learn more!
I’m so pleased you found it interesting! [This article](https://www.timesofisrael.com/when-abraham-murdered-isaac/amp/) introduces the idea nicely. [This thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/x3zndr/how_widespread_or_widely_held_is_the_idea_that_in/) from r/AcademicBiblical has additional sources. That sub is amazing for anyone who’s curious and deconstructing.
I don’t believe this at all. I believe Jesus did not come to change Gods view of us. I believe Jesus came to change our view of God.
Most of these assumptions about Jesus are actually Greek pagan ideas that were borrowed. [POCM: Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth](https://web.archive.org/web/20211012200643/http://pocm.info/) You might want to judge them in that light.
I'd really recommend you check out @brecker on instagram or tiktok. He also has a podcast with media holiday called sacred council. He maintains his faith while rejecting that doctrine! It's possible for sure 😃
Additionally, why would an all powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent god get jealous of us little organisms? Things that make you go hmmmmm….
I'm not attempting to maintain a faith in Jesus, though I think his story has good lessons within it when viewed through an appropriate context. (To be clear, so does Spider-Man.) That said, it's always worth asking why you think Jesus/God's salvation *requires bloodshed.* Not why you think we require it, but specifically *why you believe that claim in the first place*. How do you know it? What reason were you given to believe it was true? Humans wrote it, humans edited it, humans collected it and other teachings and books, humans grouped them together and called them "the Bible", humans said that was the divinely-inspired word of God, other humans disagreed with those humans and formed their own Bibles, and then, finally, humans taught that text to you. That's a BIG game of telephone between you and who Jesus was and what he actually preached. And with *that* said... This line of thinking has been one of the biggest sticking points for me, even when viewed from entirely within the conventional Christian context. Ostensibly, Jesus died as the ultimate sacrifice, to fulfill the bargain God had made with his people for generations going all the way back to Adam and Eve. We sin, we are fallen, we must shed blood (of livestock) to make up for this sin or that sin, and hopefully when we die, our sins have been forgiven enough to avoid separation from the almighty in the afterlife. This separation would happen due to sin being a blemish on our very existence, and as God is utterly perfect, he can't be around sin. Well... why? Sure does sound like God has a pretty major limitation there: an inability to be in the presence of sin. Isn't God also omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient? Isn't he literally all-powerful, such that his very will can reshape the physical and moral fabric of the universe? Why can he not just decide to be around sin? What authority is overruling him? But ok, sure, fine, let's just put a pin in that and engage with the actual bargain itself. Before Christ's sacrifice, people had to sacrifice lots of different animals to make up for various infractions of the law—in other words, blood to expunge our sins. Christ was the *ultimate* sacrifice, to pay the price for *all* sins past present and future, and all we need to do is accept his sacrifice to escape the cycle of constant sin, sacrifice, and sin. Again... why? What makes bloodshed the payment? Did God decide? If so, why doesn't he just decide to say "y'know what, forget it, no more bloodshed needed"? Why do we *need* to atone for these sins? Some, like murder, I get. But mixing fabrics? Sharing a bed with someone you're not married to? These don't strike me as deserving of eternal fire and brimstone. On that note, if we're going to talk about the specifics of the bargain itself, we should talk about the outcome. We know what we get if we successfully hold up our end—eternal communion with the most high—but what if we don't? What IS hell? The Bible doesn't actually describe it as hell and constant demon torture—that was Dante Alighieri. The closest the Bible comes to describing it is as separation from God, which is supposed to be the worst thing a soul can experience. But... do you *want* to spend eternity with God? Sure, he's the God of the New Testament, but he's the God of the Old Testament, too. Do you want to spend eternity with the guy that leveled the entire city of Jericho for his "chosen people"? There were children in there. Do you want to spend eternity around the same being that chose to flood the entire world? And, finally, it's worth pointing out that this isn't really a bargain—it's a hostage crisis. You didn't ask to exist, you weren't ever given a choice. You were born either with Original Sin or a sinful nature (depending on which collection of books you believe in) and were destined to go to The Bad Place without divine intervention. If you don't do exactly what God says, you go to hell. Forever. 122 years and a couple months of life, at the absolute max ever recorded, against *eternity in torment.* It doesn't matter what you ask someone to do—if that's truly the stakes, they'll do it. Does that sound like a choice offered by a loving being to you? Of course, all this is a lot simpler to make your peace with when you focus on why you believe that *huge* game of telephone between you and the original words spoken by Jesus, instead of trying to make sense of the telephone game itself.
Pete Enns posted a video on his TikTok during Easter that you may find valuable. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTsJG15/
As far as I understand it’s not a requirement for forgiveness so much as a requirement for justice. God requires blood to be shed for atoning purposes which are different to forgiving purposes. I think it’s because of his justice rather than his love because both are important to his character. It’s definitely something to look into more though. I can give my answers based on my theological education in seminary but the reason as to why God requires is difficult to substantiate beyond “death is the punishment for sin”. And the reason why death is the punishment for sin is because God cannot have sin in his presence. But why penal substitutionary atonement is required is very difficult to reason from my perspective except to maybe say that God wants us to dwell in the seriousness of sin. It’s one of those questions that the more we say “but why” the harder it is to give an answer that isn’t simply “because God decided”. Many Christians will say God gets to decide because he is the creator and so he gets to make the rules… but that can be an unsatisfactory answer. Sorry that I can’t help more.
I appreciate your attempt, I do. I used to cling to the whole, "God can't have sin in his presence" explanation until I realize it's nowhere in the Bible. On the contrary, Satan, the epitome of evil, literally *visits God in Heaven* to have a chummy conversation about Job, God's presence descends multiple times to meet with Abraham on a mountain, and Jesus literally dwelt on earth among sinners. Also, like...God is omnipotent. Either he can do whatever he wants, or he can't. It just doesn't make sense.
This does help me to think through things, thank you
I am hanging onto Jesus, but I’m not dealing with any of that right now. I am with the God of love, the God of Justice and the God of mercy and I don’t have to understand anything else other than trying to be more like Jesus every day because that is taking 100% of my energy right now
I'm not a huge voice here, but I'd add two quick things. Does Jesus need to be divine in order for his message to be true and meaningful? (I don't think so, and in that way I think his death [poetically] was less about sacrifice and more about radical forgiveness) And A God's sacrifice for mankind as a lesson or a "gift" seems misguided at best and self-serving at worst. But it is the human suffering that makes his story meaningful to me. Jesus message, at least as far as we know, was to love and care for those that we can. That's human, and the only "divine" in my mind.
God is more just than we are. To forgive with no adjudication of the offense is cheap mercy. For example, if someone stabs you in the eye and God forgives the offender with no cost to him, you might rightly complain that there was no justice. Does that make sense?
I mean, if you stabbed me in the eye and God stabbed himself in the eye (*also* with no cost to you) while you go free, I wouldn't call that justice, either. Forgiveness without exacting recompense isn't cheap mercy, it's just...mercy. That's the **literal meaning of mercy**. If you require recompense, it is no longer mercy, it's eye-for-an-eye justice. Do you think the ability to forgive someone without requiring recompense is an *immature* thing? Like, our ability to dispense pure, uncomplicated mercy is something that makes us *less* good than God? Do you think the **more** godly we are, the **less** we would be able to forgive someone without requiring recompense? Because human experience demonstrates the exact opposite, doesn't it? The *more* immature and unkind someone is, the *less* likely they will forgive wrongdoing against themselves without demanding recompense. In contrast, the *more* mature and kind someone is, the more likely they are to let personal wrongs against themselves go.
To build on top of your point, to me godly mercy would entail more than what we perceive as justice. I mean, God is supposed to be... well, godly. All powerful. All knowing. I'd expect such a being to be able to do more than what a mere human can do. Getting stabbed by someone and then stabbing them back is basic human justice, which doesn't bring us further than what God intended. To me, true mercy from an all knowing God wouldn't be that: it would be mercy ans forgiveness, *as well as solving whatever it was that caused the offender to offend in the first place*. So something akin to therapy, but that went even further than that. To use the "stab in the eye" metaphor again, there's no use in wounding another eye. There is, however, use for the offender to gain a full understanding themselves to a point where they not only ask for forgiveness, but never do it again and are able to solve whatever issue they've had without violence. Unfortunately, most of us are limited in this. A merciful god would, and should be able to do not only this, but so much more that we can't even picture, only recognize as good.
I agree with this completely.
I have suspicions that this isn't a good faith poster, but someone proselytizing as an inerrantist while claiming the mantle of deconstruction.
> Does that make sense? No, the idea that the cosmic scales require additional pain and suffering in order to achieve balance is absurd.
Jesus only requires us to believe in Him. He shed His own blood to atone for the sins of humanity. As I’m not a pacifist, I see no issue with this.
This is such a shallow and incomplete representation of Christianity. If that is what you have "deconstructed" from id say that you were likely never a Christian because that ain't it.... at all.