Yahweh the Sadomasochist?

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Well considering the Roman Empire did its best to destroy Christianity and couldn't root it out, would appear to indicate that it would have still grown on its own.

Actually, for the times the Romans were remarkably tolerant.

That is because the only insane people you know are humans and humans cannot bring anyone back from the dead. They can save lives in great danger of being lost, but once a person is dead, he/she is dead and gone.

ruveyn

God knew, and man has learned, that we are not morally strong enough to resist bad things that we would be better off not knowing in the first place, just ask a heroin addict who would love to return to the time of his innocence.

God told Adam and Eve that if they rejected his authority and took it upon themselves to chose for themselves between good and bad, by eating from the fruit, that in that day they would positively die.

Now Adam and Eve ate from the tree before they had any children, therefore if God had carried out his sentance there and then, none of us would have been born, that is why we are said to be "born under sin", in effect, we shouldnt even be here.

"Death and sin came through one man", that man being Adam, the New Adam is Jesus, a corresponding ransom, a man for a man, if Jesus had been our Father instead of Adam, none of this would have happened, so in effect, we are all invited to swap Adam as our Father, for Jesus, each one of us having our lives paid for by Jesus death, by the death of all the perfect and sin free children he could have had.

This isnt some sado-masochistic act of God, but an act of Love, the sort of heroic action like a soldier getting himself shot because he was trying to save his friend, or like you where sentenced to death but your brother took your place and died instead of you because he loved you, in return you love him back and forever.

You take perhaps the most beautifull of self sacrificing events in mankinds history, and turn it into something ugly.

By the way, God didnt self incarnate as a man, God's son Jesus volunteered to be a sacrifice, because he loved man and he loved his Father and wants to restore his creation for him, this act was pre-figuered in Abraham being willing to sacrifice, not himself, but his favourite son Issac, Gods angel stopped him, but God did for man what a man, Abraham, had been willing to do for God, thats why the promise came through Abraham.

And further to my above post, and by way of an illustration as to why God gave perfect man the means to disobey and learn sin, the tree of knowledge.

Did you ever have a dog?, one that you loved?, and you wanted it to love you back?

What would give you more pleasure, if you stake the dogs lead to the ground, and tell it to stay, and it does, because its got no choice, do you delight in its faithfullness and obedience to you?, or would you take more pleasure if the dog wasnt staked down, was free to do what it pleased, but still stayed when you told it, proving it loved you?

Or you take it for a walk and dont even have to have it on a leash, because the dog loves you so much, it proves by its actions it wants to walk next to you, the dog teathered to a leash has no oppurtunity to demonstrate such loyality.

Man was given the choice to demonstate his love and devotion by obeying God, this demonstration wouldnt have been possible if man had no other choice.
Unfortunatley man was the dog that ran away, causing its master heartbreak, because the master, God, loved his dog so much, he did such a wonderfull thing, that his reward will be that the dog, man, comes running back in gratitude to his master, never to want to run away again, and realsing his own desobedience gave his master an oppurtunity to demonstrate his own great love for his dog.

Why not just remove Adam and make another people, one that wouldn't have fallen? I mean... in this kind of abstraction, I don't see why a sinful me is better than a sinless other person, and certainly I'd probably think that the sinless other person is a better possibility, and one that God could actualize.


The problem is just that the death seems very pointless. As Master_Pedant put it forward, the issue is that it seems contrived in all the efforts to make it necessary.


Standard Christian theology holds that God was incarnated as a man.

The problem is that the very construction of choice loses a lot of coherence with a notion of God who could have picked the perfect dog who would never run away. I mean, if God knows the possibilities, then the very occurrence of the fall, if it could possibly not happen, pretty much could have not happened then, without God chaining anything down.

Even further, this kind of notion does rely upon the idea of libertarian free will, which doesn't make much sense of the workings of the brain, even some arguing that it has inherent flaws.

Self-flagellation is a fine example of the sadomasochistic god.






^All done in the name of Jesus Christ so it's okay to post it because it's a Christian ritual.

Master_Pedant; the argument you have put forward presupposes too much in order for it to be of any real value to engage it. Suffice to say; I don't think you have put forward a convincing argument.

We might question the interpretation of the Garden of Eden, but I'd think the rest is straightforward. He is criticizing beliefs such as penal sub, and the existence of Original Sin seeing it as being in God's power to avoid such issues.

You will have to show me the scripture where it gives the commandment to self-flagellate, its not a Christian ritual at all, if I went around biting off babies heads and said it was a Christian ritual, does that then make it a Christian ritual that God told me to do, or did I make it up myself?