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Comment by good8675309 | Hacker News Reader

Raised Christian, became an atheist, then evaluated a bunch of religions for myself. Found Christianity to be the most historically and spiritually compelling but still didn’t believe. After feeling hollow and aimless for years I re-evaluated things, read about Jesus love for me. Really meditated on His perfect life, sacrifice on the cross, and resurrection. He died for me, in my place. It became personal. When I realized that it changed my life. I’ve never felt love like that. It transformed me and freed me. I’ve been following Jesus, praying, and reading the Bible, the inspired and sufficient word of God, ever since.

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I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants. And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death? If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation?

It seems to me that Jesus allowing himself to be crucified is poetic but ultimately an empty gesture.

Jesus was God in flesh. So God the father is separate but connected. ( I'm a little under qualified to describe the exact nature of the Holy Trinity)

So God the father has always been looking over creation. After Jesus ascended to heaven the Holy Spirit was sent to help the church in place of Jesus her on earth.

Jesus was God in flesh so he purposely limited himself to experience all that we experience, to suffer all that we suffer. There is nothing that He can't empathize with.

There was also the spiritual law that had to be satisfied. The price of sin is death. Under the Mosaic covenant there were sacrificial animals used to pay that price. Jesus payed that price for all who are willing to take up their cross and follow him.

> Jesus was God in flesh so he purposely limited himself to experience all that we experience, to suffer all that we suffer. There is nothing that He can't empathize with.

This implies that God is incapable of fully knowing the experience of humans without becoming human, hence God is not omniscient; since now his omniscience is contingent on becoming contingent.

You don't even need to get that far to reach the conclusion that God is not omniscient. This is Genesis 8-10: 8) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9) But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”. 10) He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”.

Adam and Eve hid behind some trees and God didn't know where they were. It makes no sense for an omniscient being to ask anyone "where are you".

While I get your point, that seems to me to be obviously a rhetorical question posed to give Adam and his wife an opportunity to explain what they're up to.

It's not a particularly unarguable idea that the Abrahamic God may not be omniscient (at least, not at all points in time. There is a related idea that God changes over time).

The parent to your comment gave one example because it's the first. But there are many. Here's another one, again from an early point in time, that shows regret.

Genesis 6:5-9

> And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

> And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Immediately after this, God first decides to end humanity, but later changes his mind again after focusing his attention selectively on Noah.

> And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created [...] for it repenteth me that I have made them.

> But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

> These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

---

Truthfully, the bible is full of tensions and contradictions. You can't explain them without developing an opinion/interpreting the book holistically.

The God of the Old Testament is physical, emotional, and generally more demanding and hands-on with humanity; the language clearly implies that he possesses a locus of attention that he directs where he chooses. He interacts physically with humans, and not-infrequently changes his mind.

The God of the New Testament, is more ethereal, transcendent, and more consistent in the emphasis of grace and mercy.

That the debate on subjects like these, even among fellow Christians, has literally been ongoing since Christ's death, is probably evidence that all these ideas cannot be reconciled. They are merely there for us to contemplate and interpret.

No. God already understood the human experience. He became human to prove to us, beyond all doubt, that He does understand.

"Beyond all doubt" is doubtful since, taking your assertions for granted, he only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity.

I'm not sure I follow your argument. So because he only manifested himself to a relatively small number of people, he can't prove that he understands us?

We have his teachings in writing. Do you only believe in knowledge that is personally manifested to you? If so, then you wouldn't believe in any history.

> I'm not sure I follow your argument. So because he only manifested himself to a relatively small number of people, he can't prove that he understands us?

I'm referring to the miracles attributed to him, which are used as the conclusive evidence that he was God in the flesh.

> We have his teachings in writing.

How do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have his teachings? You do not even know the historical identities of the authors of the gospels. Nor do you have his teachings in the original language that he spoke.

> How do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have his teachings?

"The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work of literature..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

"Most historical critics agree that a historical figure named Jesus taught throughout the Galilean countryside c. 30 CE, was believed by his followers to have performed supernatural acts, and was sentenced to death by the Romans, possibly for insurrection.[108]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible#Histo...

To your point about the miracles attributed to him, again, because he didn't manifest those miracles to everyone ever, they didn't happen?

More readings on this topic:

https://www.bethinking.org/is-the-bible-reliable/the-histori...

https://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-...

> To your point about the miracles attributed to him, again, because he didn't manifest those miracles to everyone ever, they didn't happen?

Recall that I responded to a GP that said all this is "beyond doubt." You're arguing a strawman with me. (On a personal note, I do believe in many of the miracles attested to Jesus, but that isn't evidence to me that he was God in the flesh.)

As for your links, I counter suggest you read the works of Dr. Bart Ehrman.

Your assertion was that GP's statement is not beyond all doubt because Jesus only manifested to a small group of people. [1]

I don't think your reason for your assertion is valid. Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything.

You might have other reasons for doubting His divinity, but I don't think the one you've professed is a good one.

[1] "Beyond all doubt" is doubtful since, taking your assertions for granted, he only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity.

You've responded with an ipse dixit and didn't provide any substantiation.

> Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything.

Of course it does. You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people (who you do not even know the identities of), rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.

As I clearly indicated in parenthesis, my use of the word small was relative to all of humanity. Jesus appeared to many people, over five hundred after his death and resurrection and we do know the identities of many including of course the original 12 disciples. [1]

> You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people

So according to you, Jesus would have to manifest to many more people to pass your belief test. How many more would do? More than 500? 1000? Your requirement seems arbitrary to me.

> rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.

Again, if that's your requirement, then you should discount all of history.

[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_...

Again... you're still arguing a strawman against me. My response to the GP was that there is still doubt (and major, massive doubt when you read Ehrman's work) in this when you are relying on he said, she said; as opposed to witnessing Jesus directly himself.

This is the third time I will be answering to your point of relying on witness testimony vs first person testimony. If that's your standard to believe something, that it has to first person, then you need to discount most of history recorded in history books. In a court of law, witness testimony is valid evidence (unless proven to be a lie). You seem to discount this kind of testimony. That doesn't seem reasonable to me.

> major, massive doubt when you read Ehrman's work

If I rely on Ehrman's work, aren't I relying on he said/she said?

And you seem to be moving goal posts here. First you said that there is doubt because of the small number of witnesses "only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity" Now you're casting doubt based on the type of witness (eye witness vs self witness)

You've brought up the term strawman twice now without explanation. Care to explain exactly how I'm arguing a strawman?

You are arguing a strawman because I replied to the claim that it is beyond doubt that God came in the flesh.

It is NOT beyond doubt. You haven't proven how there is absolutely NO DOUBT to these claims.

> And you seem to be moving goal posts here.

How am I moving goalposts? The two types of witnessing have been there in my reasoning since the beginning. There is doubt since you didn't eyewitness him yourself, and then there is doubt that the hearsay that reached you regarding him is true. One follows the other since you have to rely on the one you have access to.

Again it's a strawman because I never said I discount witness testimony. You're making the case that just because witness testimony can be true, therefore witness testimony in the case of Jesus, must be true. That doesn't follow.

Thanks.

> You haven't proven how there is absolutely NO DOUBT to these claims.

That hasn't been my aim all along though. I would never argue or try to prove there is no doubt to these claims. I fully accept there is a large element of faith to religious claims. And I readily admit as believer, my faith is not perfect and I have doubts. But my ratio of faith to doubt is high enough to get me over the fence to belief. As an aside, I always argue that everyone everywhere live their lives by faith. [1]

My assertion has been your reason for your doubt, namely that Jesus only manifested to a relatively small group of people, is not valid. But I think we can agree to disagree at this point.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29710355

> My assertion has been your reason for your doubt, namely that Jesus only manifested to a relatively small group of people, is not valid.

That's an odd thing for you to say. In the absence of certainty, there is always doubt. No matter how infinitesimal.

The doubt is removed for those who believe Jesus was God.

How they came to believe this is another matter.

I don't think I've seen the word Omniscient used in the Bible.

> Psalm 147:5 - Great is our Lord and abundant in strength;His understanding is infinite.

> For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3:20).

> Known to God from eternity are all his works (Acts 15:18).

> The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).

I agree with all of that but none of those verses use the term omniscient.

The idea of omniscience leads to paradoxes like the one above. Can you know what it is to be non omniscient and be omniscient.

I think God can choose to understand and know what He wants to know. If he chooses to forget sin, He can. Meaning the strict definition of omniscience would not apply.

I'm no theologian or philosopher so there is a good chance I'm simply missing something or don't understand these words.

> I agree with all of that but none of those verses use the term omniscient.

If the axis of your response is going to be this, then I suggest we only continue speaking about the Bible on the level of Koine Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew for the Old.

Since you want to be maximally true to the words. As do I.

Have any evidence for these claims? Why do you believe them?

Warning, I'm not a specialist in this. My only qualifications is that Christianity has made me happy and I have read and listened a lot.

> I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form.

All the more agony. (See also below.)

> He could have left at any time.

Yep, but as far as I understand then it wouldn't have been valid. As far as I understand it seems he knew he had one chance.

My best explanation is he went to create a way for us and it wouldn't have been much worth if he did it in "cheat mode"?

> He can return any time he wants.

See above.

> And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death?

True God and true human. According to the sources we have he suffered badly.

> If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation?

According to the common translations Jesus prayed to God and speaks of himself as something else than God.

I'm not very knowledgeable in theoretical theology but this isn't controversial at all to most people who consider themselves Christian I think.

Also death is just the death of the body.

I'd like to add some things:

There are some that suggest Jesus did A LOT during the 3 days he "was dead".

He went to hell. The phrase "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" suggests he was spiritually separate from God the father - a fate worse than physical death.

He delivered previously dead Jews to heaven

He poured His blood out on a replica temple in heaven as THE lamb sacrifice for everyone who accepted His sacrifice. This is a LITERAL sacrifice - separate from "being human for 30 years sacrifice". Keep in mind that Jesus is the High Priest, he is THE person to make sacrifice for sins, and he is also THE object that was killed for those sins.

I always found this whole bit farcical.

Firstly, if God is the one who exercises judgement in the first place in the form of who goes to heaven and who does not, then (as is written elsewhere in the Bible) what God says is good, is good, and what God says is bad, is bad, for no intrinsic reason other than God says it is so. When I do the good, I want to do it because I have some stock in the moral value or principle being maximized, not because some deity arbitrarily commanded it.

Secondly, if God is the source of all moral judgement, then he could just arbitrarily decree that repentance is now a thing instead of making Jesus suffer for our sins. In the same breath Christians assert that moral values come from God (if God says it is good, it is good, if God says it is bad, it is bad), but that Jesus had to suffer, to what, to make God decide to be more lenient with how he interprets our sins? How is that supposed to be inspiring? Makes God seem sadistic more than anything. But then when God contradicts his own moral values (i.e. murder in some of the old parables) Christians of course once again say no, this isn't immoral because God says it is not. Which is it? Either morality is whatever God says it is, and Jesus dying on the cross served absolutely no purpose, or God is a sinner and cannot/should not contradict his own moral tenants (but does because there is no one there to "judge" him), in which case Jesus dying on the cross makes some sense because morality is some force above and more powerful than god.

> but that Jesus had to suffer, to what, to make God decide to be more lenient with how he interprets our sins?

Justice requires accountability for wrongs committed. When we break God's moral law, justice requires that we be held accountable.

Jesus suffered for us to take the punishment that our sins require. Jesus took the penalty for us. That allows God to be a merciful judge, yet still fulfill all justice.

Put another way, at least how my understanding of Catholic tradition goes, atoning for sin (which was present from the Original Sin of Adam to every little or big sin we commit from time to time) demands sacrifice, and no sacrifice is sufficient to atone for all of it except for a sacrifice of God Himself. Various religions tried grain sacrifices, animals, even the ultimate sacrifice of humans, the one creature made in God's image (which was then discouraged with the story of Abraham and Isaac), but only Jesus, who was both fully God and fully human, could be the perfect sacrifice, which as a re-exercise of everything from the Last Supper through the crucifixion and resurrection, is done as the Eucharistic Rite at Mass. Jesus is seen as the perfection of the imperfect Adam, and his mother Mary (believed to have been conceived without sin, so as to be the mother of Christ) is seen as the perfection of the imperfect Eve.

Right, and the puzzling implication is even God isn't powerful enough to simply write off sin without there being some sort of sacrifice. IMHO this combined with the fact that God regularly violates his own moral codes in the bible tells me that really according to Christian doctrine, God is neither perfect, nor the most powerful being/force in the universe -- instead whatever this abstract force that requires sacrifice to negate sins --- that force is more powerful than God.

All hogwash of course, but just shows you how poorly thought out it all is.

To punish one for the sins of another does not sound like justice to me, not does it hold the sinner accountable. A judge who kills his own son so that he could pardon the people that come before him is clearly insane. Doubly so if the judge is the same one who wrote the laws.

Jesus took the punishment out of His own volition.

A man is convicted of a crime and the penalty is $1 million. Another man steps up and says he will pay the penalty.

In a way, you are right about it not being just. The convict deserves the punishment, but gets mercy instead. This is the nature of mercy and justice. They are opposed. Jesus paying for our penalty intertwines the two.

You obviously don't believe any of this is true or right. I don't make it my aim to convince you or anyone else. I'd be kidding myself if I thought I could do that. Just presenting Christian doctrine as accurately as I can.

That example only works for fines. If the punishment is 1 year in prison, then you can't get someone else to volunteer for you, even if they wanted to. And it would be quite ridiculous if suicidal (or terminally ill) people could volunteer to die so that a murderer (that they perhaps like or admire, for whatever reason) convicted to death would be pardoned.

It's true that I don't believe it all of this, but let's assume for a moment that the following is true (quoting your previous post):

> Justice requires accountability for wrongs committed. When we break God's moral law, justice requires that we be held accountable.

To me another man suddenly showing up paying the penalty is completely contradicting and undermining this accountability.

When making the rules, a god could just say "I forbid these things, and there will be consequences for breaking the rules, but in the end I will forgive, because eternity is a long time and I'm so kind and loving". Instead, the Christian rules demand that somebody (who may or may not be the one who violated the rules) is hurt. So the Christian god orchestrated the killing of either himself or his son (or maybe a bit of both? So it's suicide and/or filicide. The holy trinity is confusing), because he kind of wants to forgive people, but the rules (that he himself made, and presumably could change, being all-powerful) demand that someone is hurt. Oh, and most interpretations hold this god to be omniscient, so in that case it's not like he didn't see this mess coming when he made the rules in the first place.

If you are completely in control of a situation and voluntarily set it up in such a way that in the future you have to hurt yourself (or have you children hurt themselves) to get things to work out, is it really self-sacrifice? Having Jesus die for our sins makes the Christian god seems like a heroic firefighter who is also the arsonist.

You are trying apply a rational argument to faith, which is inherently irrational.

I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that faith is inherently irrational, but I will say this:

All people everywhere live by faith.

This is because no one can know the future. You get in your car and drive to work. You are going by faith that you won't get killed in a car crash. Why do I know this? Because if you knew you would be killed, you wouldn't get in the car. You don't know. But you get in your car anyways, hoping by faith (probably subconsciously) you won't get killed.

By faith, I look at the evidence and believe God exists. By faith, someone else looks at the evidence (or lack thereof) and concludes He doesn't.

I can't know for sure if I'm correct. The other person is in the same position.

When we die, we'll know (technically, if the atheist is correct, we won't know anything at all). Good luck!

> He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants.

Is any of this actually a part of Christian canon? It's not clear to me that by describing Jesus as "God", we're meant to understand that he's omniscient (is Yahweh/"The Father" God even omniscient in Christian canon?) or omnipotent with respect to his human form.

>He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants.

The first Messianic prophy is in Genesis. "Eve's seed (Jesus) would crush the snake (satan)'s head. The snake would crush His heel (Jesus on the cross)"

He could have left at anytime is evidenced when Jesus is in the garden in Gethsemane right before He was arrested - he had a legion of angels at His command.

I'm not sure about "He can return anytime He wants." I'm going to chalk this one up to "He is God of the universe and do what He wants"

> is Yahweh/"The Father" God even omniscient in Christian canon?

I think it is canon in all abrahamic religions, based on the fact that there's a ton of literature around how omniscience relates to free will (Boetius, Aquinas, Calvin etc).

God created Time and does not experience it as we do. There is a school of thought that says that, for God, all times are _now_ -- there is no difference between past, present or future. All are equally "present" to Him.

In this frame, the Crucifixion is happening _now_. Jesus, as a man, is suffering and dying at this very moment. As humans experience time, He always will be.

It seems to me that, for any entity, this eternal experience is a very significant sacrifice.

An entity that experiences all of time at the same time would be pretty used to suffering, as all suffering that has ever and will ever occur is experienced by this entity all the time, so hardly a sacrifice. Jesus's suffering is a small drop in an ocean of suffering experienced at all times by such an entity.

If I could choose a single word to characterize all of Christian theology it would have to be “underwhelming.”

I'm curious; do you believe that your subjective experience of God's love to be objective evidence for the existence of God, and thus you made a scientific observation that God must exist and therefore believe in him? Or is it more that your experience touching the divine had such a positive effect on your life that you simply decided to continue cultivating that experience? Or maybe a bit of both?

Personally I've not met anyone who believes in God because of scientific evidence for Gods existence. However I think Lee Strobale makes a claim of that nature in "The case for Christ".

Alvin Plantinga argues that you can have warranted belief without scientific proof in "warranted christian".

Me personally I believe that God revealed himself through revelation. That is, He convinced me internally to believe in Him. I know most would discount this as a source of truth but it's enough for me.

I think that anyone who believed in Santa Clause as a kid should automatically discredit any “intuition” they have about things. How much more evidence do you need that you’ll just believe in kooky nice sounding things?

Maybe you didn’t believe in The Red Guy, but I did, and in retrospect I must be a complete retard.

I agree that people believe stupid things. I also believe that this is evidence that you can't trust your intuition. I think I believed in Santa but I can't remember. I do remember struggling with my intuition of physics thanks to Hollywood movies.

I can say this feels different to that sort of belief. Not that I expect that would do anything to convince you of it's validity.

In what way does it feel different and why does this difference suggest a higher probability of truth?

Oh it doesn't

How can he die for you before you are even born? Would you truly be ok for the sin of Adam and Eve to be blamed on you from the day of your birth, simply because they were your ancestors, had Jesus not come along?

How is his being put to death a good thing, earning humans salvation all around, when two people eating an apple is bad enough to damn countless generations?

Many (historical) people have died for others, you do not need any mysticism for that.

Interesting. I’m curious though, how many of them claimed to be God? How many of them fulfilled over 300 prophesies written hundreds of years before their birth? And how many claimed to have died for the sins of the world?

I'm actually more moved by the sacrifice of a mere mortal who is trying to improve things by sacrificing himself/herself, than by someone who believes his sacrifice will not really be the end; And I have a really hard time to see things the other way around, in fact.

Actually, I never managed to understand this: if one believes souls are eternal and virtue is rewarded in the after-life, then any kind of sacrifice seems cheaper and virtuous behaviors get closer to self-interest. How to reconcile morality with such beliefs?

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