Why did Jesus have to die?

[benkahuna]

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I understand that you do not accept the authority of scripture. I do and I accept that it is accurate in all that it says about God and his creation.

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Exactly and you put that before anything including god's omnipotence.

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No, I believe that what God says about himself is perfectly true and I also believe equally that God is omnipotent.

And yes, it does seem that we are going around in circles.

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I agree. G-d could be omnipotent and require a blood sacrifice. However, one of two situations must be fulfilled for this to be the case:

1. G-d initiated the necessity of a blood sacrifice.
2. G-d did nothing to end the previously extent necessity of a blood sacrifice.

I believe your religious beliefs are getting in the way of you accepting reasonable arguments here. I believe you do not wish to slight your god. You shouldn't of course and I'm glad for your sake that you don't. However, you can't take away His resposibility for making a blood sacrifice necessary for the release from sin.

And while I really appreciate you making the first serious response to the original poster, you haven't accepted the (correct) assumptions in the OP's question.

A simple "I don't know" would have been the most honest and ideal response to his question. You can't slight your god, but at the same time he has placed an importance on making a trade of blood (life) for forgiveness (which is somehow inherited).


I'll tell you what I think.

Humans understand life and death extremely well.
Blood's importance gives it the (somewhat accurate) appearance of life force and it becomes associated with life and death.
Shedding of blood therefore becomes an appropriate metaphor to use in a book by a people in desperate need of something in which to believe to make up for their miserable lives (those people would be the Israelites). Much like the appearance of the Kabalists, religious zealotry gave a people hope and their lives meaning with promises of a less miserable time after their biological lives. The Torah scroll became a convenient means of transporting and proliferating that particular gospel.

Humans have shown a tremendous ability to adapt to a wide variety of situations. I would categorize the advent of religion as such an adaptation. It's a means of creating a fantasy to deal with material reality and it also satisfies the problem humans faced once we could conceptualize the notion that perhaps there is no point to our existence--that of something to believe in, of purpose.

That's what makes a lot of sense to me. I believe as an explanation is possesses internal consistency. I also believe as an explanation it is consistent with human history as it's largely understood.


I also see a problem with judging G-d from a human ethos. Sure, my ethos involves avoiding hurting others and causing them pain and making apparently unrelated sacrifices, but I don't think it's really fair to judge G-d from that perspective.


I will grant that this type of a situation certainly does make G-d appear to be an arbitrary and scary omnipotent entity, no different really than the omnipotent Billy Mumy character in the "It's a Good Life" episode of the Twilight Zone. It's all do what he wants, or else.