49 replies to this topic

[C1E/\/\E/\/+]

I recently saw a movie where this kid mocked the bible and said Judas was actually a good guy. He said that if he didn't betray Jesus then Christianity may not actually have been created. He also said that if he didn't betray Jesus then the cross would have just been considered an evil execution device. I thought about this and the kid might have been right. If Judas did not betray Jesus and inadvertently allowed Jesus to die for our sins, Christianity may not be as strong as it is now. Christianity could have turned into something like the pagan beliefs of ancient Europe. The cross would not be a religious symbol if Judas did not betray Jesus to his death through crucifiction. The cross would not have rallied and inspired the Crusader troops, and this may have allowed Islam to spread into Europe (not that there's anything wrong with it). Judas may have inadvertently created and strenghtened Christianity. So can Judas truly be considered evil?

[Ash]

People still worshipped God and therefore Jesus before Judas came on the scene.


But then, it is true that in many plotlines there cannot be a rose without the thorns.

Die for our sins...how the heck can somebody do that? Yea, sure the guy died...but I don't understand how dying for somebody else's sins will a) help, b) cleanse the sins or c) make everything OK. I mean, surely seeing his son die would only enrage God? Especially given what a vengeful bastard he's been all the way through the book thus far. Looked at the Old Testament recently?

[Tom]

Judas isn't "evil." He simply symbolised how humanity gets so drawn into believing this is real and then becoming greedy based on an illusion of life. He betrayed his teacher for a few silver coins and he suffered for his greed. Its symbolism, its all symbolism. Likelihood is he probably never existed.

If judas did not betray jesus then the messiah prophecy would never have been fulfilled. An unfulfilled prophecy is one that worked because it wasn't required. Either way judas symbolises mans betrayal to himself.

[MSpencer]

Jesus died because in the Roman's eyes, he was a heretic, and in the eyes of the Jews, he was not only a heretic but a threat to their religious security. He didn't die for anyone or their sins, and he was probably off his rocker thinking he could talk to god.
Then again, Stonewall Jackson had conversations with God, he wasn't a total raving lunatic.

[Allied General]

Comrade Jerkov do not use your own simple views towards God unless you understand the bible fully.

You are being subjective like those misguided people at god hates fags who if they had read the bible properly would realised they have completely misinterpreted him.

The whole death of Christ is rather complex and is based upon this concept of faith which simply means trust which eludes a lot of people today.

Sin leads to death, in the old testament they sacrifice animals to appease God and it is a simple for the purity the 1st borne, the lambs etc.

Jesus had to die as the ultimate sacrifice, he restores the relationship between Man and God his selfless action completely contradicts Judas sinful and betrayful nature.

After his death the Holy Spirit worked in people and was spread around the world to Jews and Gentiles alike.

Now your asking why doesn't everyone believe in God then? Well this again relates to faith which is trust. If you believe in God out of your own will and follow him with all you will by ditching your old mindset about I am superior, I can do everything I want (which I've seen on many posts i.e. we are God's now as Blodo typed in some energy topic)

Also even before Judas betray the Son of God he was being a bastard taking money out of the poor box.

Judas is a symbol for ultimate betrayal to many people.

Also Christ and the Apostles warn about false leaders and people who claim to be God. Hence why I completely disagree with Catholics as there teaching is equivalent to the old testament priests who persecuted thousands of Christians.

The Crusade was simply a manipulation of a good text which main message is peace and love.

You omit knowledge from the people to gain full control of the people

If you don't read the bible entirely and understanding the other meanings behind the word then don't banter about it. Cos by swearing, using coarse language and sterotyping you just demean your own arguements.

Knowledge is power.

I am normally not serious in many of these topics, because most people banter on in a biased fashion e.g. they only project there arguement which people then bandwagon onto.

Balance is needed for any good discussion.

Evil is a constant active force. As Paul said evil is by his side every time he did a good action. It is the same in this life still, we make conscious decisions on what is right and wrong.

But if you have no guidance on what is right or wrong then how can you make a correct decision.

Also remember the words of God are in ancient hebrew and thus can have alternative translations for instance slave can also be interpertated as servant.

[Mastermind]

So if I get this, Jesus sacrificed his life? I thought christianity considered suicide an evil thing? And yet they worship one of theirs for doing it?

There's a difference between self sacrifice and suicide.

[Allied General]

and yet again people wonder why I talk about misinterpretation.

Suicide is when you choose to die to escape your own worries, its an act which focuses upon the individual.

Self-sacrfice is when you die to save the lives of others who are important to you.

If humans can only do that for very close people or during an extreme situation such as war then you realise how much compassion Christ had towards people on this planet.

Also he couldn't have commited suicide, he was an innocent man condenmed to death by zealots and a crowd.

And if you are a Christian then you believe in his resurrection and being brought back to the life and hence fufil the old testament prophecy.

The opposite of death is birth but there is no opposite of life.

His revival itself is the ultimate freedom from sin which leads to death.

What I've realised in life is that people are damn grateful of there existence until rubbish messes up there lives.

Sometimes I think society should just be in permanent war and sorrow its the ultimate byproduct of living in this corrupt, egostical world.

[C1E/\/\E/\/+]

If you think Jesus suicided then you don't understand the Bible. Jesus chose self-sacrifice so God may forgive all the sins of man. He never chose to just relieve himself of his life so he wouldn't have to suffer any longer (which is the main reason of suicide these days), but he chose to sacrifice his life so (as stated already) man and God could remain connected. But Jesus questioned this, he asked God if he truly had to die. This shows he was not truly prepared to die so we could be absolved.

[Allied General]

If you think Jesus suicided then you don't understand the Bible. Jesus chose self-sacrifice so God may forgive all the sins of man. He never chose to just relieve himself of his life so he wouldn't have to suffer any longer (which is the main reason of suicide these days), but he chose to sacrifice his life so (as stated already) man and God could remain connected. But Jesus questioned this, he asked God if he truly had to die. This shows he was not truly prepared to die so we could be absolved.

But in the end his duty and his love for us led him to the cross and even though he was the Son of God he didn't use godly powers even if though he could (he says this after one of his apostles cuts a guys ear and he heals him)

People misinterpt and that causes chaos.

Like those muslim cartoons, to us it is funny, to muslims it is yet again western imperialism and mockery of the muslim state.

Also satan's plan was to kill the Son of God but his his influence lead to his downfall and allowed 2nd chance for everyone who will put faith in Christ.

So inadverntly peoples attempt to commit evil for self gain often bites them back in the ass.

Examples can be seen in real life of this.

Edited by Allied General, 16 February 2006 - 08:44 AM.

[MSpencer]

Not to sound like the asshole, but you can't really say much about self-sacrafice so god can forgive sins if you can't prove the existence of god.

[Ash]

Not to raise the point which you didn't answer, AG, but how would Jesus dying save anything?

[xjjohnno]

Well perhaps the press should redefine suicide bombers as self sacrifice bombers.
Anyway if you were to believe the biblical accounts of thye last Supper(me getting top of the class in catechism in Grade 6 makes me an expert) Jesus foretold he was going to be betrayed.
Now whether Judas took a golden handshake or whether he was encouraged via physical means ie torture is open to conjecture,but if the New Testament is to be believed then Christ was already in the know and gave him a peck on the cheek of the facial and not the butt variety at said time.
Perhaps there was even a wee bit of make me a martyr collusion going on between Judas and Jesus as a way of pushing a political cause,we will never know thanks to the potentially not so impartial views of those who chronicled the said events.

[Hostile]

Not to raise the point which you didn't answer, AG, but how would Jesus dying save anything?

Not looking to get in the middle of this stink fest, so I'll answer this question from a secular veiwpoint.

According to the bible, prior to Jesus, it was necessary to sacrifice a lamb in order to be forgiven for ones sins, with the sacrifice of Jesus, he is known as The Lamb. Meaning God freed man from having to sacrifice and shed an animals blood to be free of sin.

So I guess it saved a bunch of lambs and alot of time and mess. Who knows...

That's what the bible says. Whether it's true or not is up to the believer/nonbeliever.

[Ash]

Fair enough. Makes a sort of sense if you take into account previous sacrificial practices. Which obviously I did not

Suppose it's just me from a western atheist point of view. In fact, I'm amazed Christians of this day and age believe it, since many believe sacrificing to be wholly horrendous.


xj (I'm not even going to attempt to write your full screen name ) makes a good point about self-sacrifice bombers. They do like to consider themselves martyrs...dying for some sort of cause.

If Jesus was already in the know about the whole shenanigans, chances are he was indeed in on the whole thing. Therefore it's as much suicide as anything else.

[Mastermind]

Not to sound like the asshole, but you can't really say much about self-sacrafice so god can forgive sins if you can't prove the existence of god.

That's what faith is for.

Fair enough. Makes a sort of sense if you take into account previous sacrificial practices. Which obviously I did not

Suppose it's just me from a western atheist point of view. In fact, I'm amazed Christians of this day and age believe it, since many believe sacrificing to be wholly horrendous.


xj (I'm not even going to attempt to write your full screen name ) makes a good point about self-sacrifice bombers. They do like to consider themselves martyrs...dying for some sort of cause.

If Jesus was already in the know about the whole shenanigans, chances are he was indeed in on the whole thing. Therefore it's as much suicide as anything else.

Is it also suicide if someone sees a grenade roll in by him and his group of buddies and jumps on it? He knows it's going to go off and probably kill him, but he's saving all of his friends. It's definitely self sacrifice, and by your definition, would be suicide as well.

[Hostile]

Definition of suicide

Definition of self-sacrifice

Being totally differant I suppose it's grammatically correct to say "a self-sacrificial suicide" in regards to the person who jumped on a live grenade to save mates.

Suicide is basically the destruction of ones self or self interests. Pretty cut and dried to me.

Now lets define that more, how about a terminally ill suicide.

terminally ill definition

So how can it be illegal for a doctor to assist if the person was gonna die anyway in 12 months based on the definition.

No differant than aborting a baby with serious health issues. Just a doctor solving an issue before nature would do so anyway.

Before I go too off topic, I'll stop there.

[Ash]

I was just about to say, we're bordering on the realms of euthenasia and/or abortion there.

[MSpencer]

Faith is simply a normal human reaction to one's impending mortality. We're all human, we'll all die, most of us will go into a hole in the ground, and we won't come back. Once you're gone, you're gone, and there is nothing anyone can do to help you. It is truly unfortunate there is nothing beyond our meager, short existence, I would much enjoy some type of afterlife. We'd have awesome parties.

[Allied General]

Fair enough. Makes a sort of sense if you take into account previous sacrificial practices. Which obviously I did not

Suppose it's just me from a western atheist point of view. In fact, I'm amazed Christians of this day and age believe it, since many believe sacrificing to be wholly horrendous.


xj (I'm not even going to attempt to write your full screen name ) makes a good point about self-sacrifice bombers. They do like to consider themselves martyrs...dying for some sort of cause.

If Jesus was already in the know about the whole shenanigans, chances are he was indeed in on the whole thing. Therefore it's as much suicide as anything else.

But suicide you know its gonna kill you, there is no continue button. In this existence you believe death is the final answer.

Jesus knew he was gonna be revived according so the old testament law about the messiah being slain in order to save all of mankind and be resurected.

The Jesus way of thinking is that people can save themselves from just dying because his revival means death is not the final barrier but merely the key to a new life.

The bible uses a lot of methaphors too about killing the old self, i.e. the ways of sins and being reborn, etc, etc.

Parts of it are also mentioned in revelation about the lamb opening the seven seals too.

Unlike hindism its not about higher planes of existence, you simply exist or not exist.

In the end its about faith which is trust, it accepts that our life is limited on this planet (this is mentioned several times in bible, there's this great bit in old testament about how finite life is, same in new testament) and thus individuals have a purpose on this planet.

The main point of the bible is that everyone has a purpose in life, regardless of the rubbish they have commited, everyone can be given an 2nd chance to redeem themselF.

But since it is God, you are given the choice to have faith or not.

Thus this is why I don't think God can be explained with just knowledge and logic, the concept of trust is alien to an unbeliever.

Only when you trust can you fully understand the meaning.

If you choose not to follow I am cool with that but I pray that you have some + experience which makes u closer to at least something spirtually.

Also the bible, some things are hard to swallow and must be seen from that time and how it can apply to modern world.

For instance, the no circumision, no nessecary for ritual to me means catholic rituals and one holy chosen one as irrelevant.

Christ is the ultimate communicator and he has done his purpose hence why we need no pope.