Comments on: Possibly Acceptable Child Sacrifice http://conversationalatheist.com/2009/07/possibly-acceptable-child-sacrifice/ Atheists need to make more of an effort to be heard in their daily life. Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:24:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: I Am The Blog http://conversationalatheist.com/2009/07/possibly-acceptable-child-sacrifice/comment-page-1/#comment-767 I Am The Blog Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:20:38 +0000 http://conversationalatheist.com/?p=1099#comment-767 You may be on to something, Jaume. To which I could counter, "It's very convenient that Jesus rose from the dead only once, while he was supposedly buried behind some huge boulder, with no witnesses there at the time and Jesus gone by the time anyone got there. At least modern magicians do their tricks in front of people." I'm sure they would reply that we just need to have "faith" that he was resurrected. Believers try to have it both ways: "there's proof Jesus rose from the dead!" Then when you dispute the proof, they say "You have to have faith." Which is it??? <div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('767','I Am The Blog'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('767','I Am The Blog','You may be on to something, Jaume. To which I could counter, "It's very convenient that Jesus rose from the dead only once, while he was supposedly buried behind some huge boulder, with no witnesses there at the time and Jesus gone by the time anyone got there. At least modern magicians do their tricks in front of people." \n \nI'm sure they would reply that we just need to have "faith" that he was resurrected. Believers try to have it both ways: "there's proof Jesus rose from the dead!" Then when you dispute the proof, they say "You have to have faith." Which is it??? '); return false;">Quote</a></div> You may be on to something, Jaume. To which I could counter, "It's very convenient that Jesus rose from the dead only once, while he was supposedly buried behind some huge boulder, with no witnesses there at the time and Jesus gone by the time anyone got there. At least modern magicians do their tricks in front of people."

I'm sure they would reply that we just need to have "faith" that he was resurrected. Believers try to have it both ways: "there's proof Jesus rose from the dead!" Then when you dispute the proof, they say "You have to have faith." Which is it???

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]]> By: Jaume http://conversationalatheist.com/2009/07/possibly-acceptable-child-sacrifice/comment-page-1/#comment-37354 Jaume Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:25:01 +0000 http://conversationalatheist.com/?p=1099#comment-37354 "I'd be very interested what believers would say to this." I can imagine it: "It's hard enough for you heathens to admit Jesus rose from the dead once. God knows it would even be harder for you to admit it occurred multiple times. But God loves you sooooo much, He doesn't your path to salvation to be nigh impossible to follow". <div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('37354','Jaume'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('37354','Jaume','"I'd be very interested what believers would say to this." \n \nI can imagine it: "It's hard enough for you heathens to admit Jesus rose from the dead once. God knows it would even be harder for you to admit it occurred multiple times. But God loves you sooooo much, He doesn't your path to salvation to be nigh impossible to follow". '); return false;">Quote</a></div> "I'd be very interested what believers would say to this."

I can imagine it: "It's hard enough for you heathens to admit Jesus rose from the dead once. God knows it would even be harder for you to admit it occurred multiple times. But God loves you sooooo much, He doesn't your path to salvation to be nigh impossible to follow".

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]]> By: I Am The Blog http://conversationalatheist.com/2009/07/possibly-acceptable-child-sacrifice/comment-page-1/#comment-37349 I Am The Blog Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:14:36 +0000 http://conversationalatheist.com/?p=1099#comment-37349 Very thought-provoking article. Last Christmas, I listened to a sermon about the Massacre of the Innocents, which infuriated me in part because it was given by a family member who will be ordained soon (this summer) and in part because it made no sense and was trying to excuse one of the worst incidents in the New Testament by making the congregants feel guilty about the death of all those children. I wrote at length on my blog (<a href="" rel="nofollow">here</a> if you're interested) about what I thought was wrong about the sermon. I couldn't believe my relative could preach about God letting thousands of toddlers die as if it was a good thing, and that a number of my family members would really think it was a wonderful sermon. I didn't think about the fact that there is no explanation as to why Jesus dying at the age of 2 wouldn't have counted as a suitable sacrifice for our alleged sins. Certainly Jesus could have died, gone to hell, and come back and preached for as long as he wanted, as you suggest in your article. This is definitely food for thought. I suppose a believer could argue that there are some temptations (related to sex, for example) that baby Jesus would not have resisted/conquered while in human flesh had he died before adulthood, and therefore his sacrifice would not have been valid. But this would be baseless: as you point out in the other article you link to, this supposed sacrifice of Jesus is completely unlike any other in the Bible and doesn't follow OT rules. So God is setting new ground rules anyway for Jesus. If God existed and was really intent on someone dying as a sacrifice, certainly he could have just as easily have counted the sacrifice of his 2-year-old son, thus sparing the lives of thousands of toddlers. Besides the one possible argument I mentioned (which I could see someone proposing, but which is indefensible), I'd be very interested what believers would say to this. <div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('37349','I Am The Blog'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('37349','I Am The Blog','Very thought-provoking article. Last Christmas, I listened to a sermon about the Massacre of the Innocents, which infuriated me in part because it was given by a family member who will be ordained soon (this summer) and in part because it made no sense and was trying to excuse one of the worst incidents in the New Testament by making the congregants feel guilty about the death of all those children. I wrote at length on my blog (<a href=\"\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a> if you're interested) about what I thought was wrong about the sermon. I couldn't believe my relative could preach about God letting thousands of toddlers die as if it was a good thing, and that a number of my family members would really think it was a wonderful sermon. \n \nI didn't think about the fact that there is no explanation as to why Jesus dying at the age of 2 wouldn't have counted as a suitable sacrifice for our alleged sins. Certainly Jesus could have died, gone to hell, and come back and preached for as long as he wanted, as you suggest in your article. This is definitely food for thought. \n \nI suppose a believer could argue that there are some temptations (related to sex, for example) that baby Jesus would not have resisted\/conquered while in human flesh had he died before adulthood, and therefore his sacrifice would not have been valid. But this would be baseless: as you point out in the other article you link to, this supposed sacrifice of Jesus is completely unlike any other in the Bible and doesn't follow OT rules. \n \nSo God is setting new ground rules anyway for Jesus. If God existed and was really intent on someone dying as a sacrifice, certainly he could have just as easily have counted the sacrifice of his 2-year-old son, thus sparing the lives of thousands of toddlers. Besides the one possible argument I mentioned (which I could see someone proposing, but which is indefensible), I'd be very interested what believers would say to this. '); return false;">Quote</a></div> Very thought-provoking article. Last Christmas, I listened to a sermon about the Massacre of the Innocents, which infuriated me in part because it was given by a family member who will be ordained soon (this summer) and in part because it made no sense and was trying to excuse one of the worst incidents in the New Testament by making the congregants feel guilty about the death of all those children. I wrote at length on my blog (here if you're interested) about what I thought was wrong about the sermon. I couldn't believe my relative could preach about God letting thousands of toddlers die as if it was a good thing, and that a number of my family members would really think it was a wonderful sermon.

I didn't think about the fact that there is no explanation as to why Jesus dying at the age of 2 wouldn't have counted as a suitable sacrifice for our alleged sins. Certainly Jesus could have died, gone to hell, and come back and preached for as long as he wanted, as you suggest in your article. This is definitely food for thought.

I suppose a believer could argue that there are some temptations (related to sex, for example) that baby Jesus would not have resisted/conquered while in human flesh had he died before adulthood, and therefore his sacrifice would not have been valid. But this would be baseless: as you point out in the other article you link to, this supposed sacrifice of Jesus is completely unlike any other in the Bible and doesn't follow OT rules.

So God is setting new ground rules anyway for Jesus. If God existed and was really intent on someone dying as a sacrifice, certainly he could have just as easily have counted the sacrifice of his 2-year-old son, thus sparing the lives of thousands of toddlers. Besides the one possible argument I mentioned (which I could see someone proposing, but which is indefensible), I'd be very interested what believers would say to this.

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]]> By: Jim http://conversationalatheist.com/2009/07/possibly-acceptable-child-sacrifice/comment-page-1/#comment-37346 Jim Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:25:42 +0000 http://conversationalatheist.com/?p=1099#comment-37346 Shhh. Asking awkward questions makes baby Jebus cry. <div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('37346','Jim'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('37346','Jim','Shhh. Asking awkward questions makes baby Jebus cry. '); return false;">Quote</a></div> Shhh. Asking awkward questions makes baby Jebus cry.
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