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"Jesus did not die for your sins ... That proclamation is
theological nonsense."
From: "jagbir singh" <adishakti_org@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:34 pm
Subject: "Jesus did not die for your sins ... That
proclamation is theological nonsense."
>
> —- In adishakti_sahaja_yoga@yahoogroups.com, "Violet" <vtubb@b...>
> wrote:
> >
> > Another question i have is, did Jesus ever say He had to
die for
> > forgiveness of sin, or did others say that about Him?
> >
>—- In adishakti_sahaja_yoga@yahoogroups.com, "jagbir singh"
<adishakti_org@y...> wrote:
>
> Dear Violet,
>
> Jesus never said anything about Him dying for humanity's
sins. What
> type of God sends down incarnations to be tortured in the
most
> horrific manner in order to rid others of sin? This is a
Christian
> lie made up over the centuries because questions were
asked: "Why
> were humans able to kill Jesus (despite Him having so much
power)?"
> "Why did a most powerful God not save Him?" "How could God
allow
> His son to languish and be tortured on the cross for
days?"
>
> The most convenient answer is that Jesus had to die so
that the
> sins of humans could be wiped out. And He had to die most
slowly
> and painfully because there was too much sin on Earth. (i
wonder
> how many weeks will it take today?)
>
> Violet, when this theory was put forward the world was
still flat
> and the centre of the universe. And those reading bibles
or
> questioning Church authority met the same fiery fate at
the stake
> as witches flying on brooms. Fiction became fact. This
deeply
> ingrained but baseless Christian conditioning is very
difficult to
> overcome as it is an important aspect of their religious
faith.
>
>
Catholic New Times: Jesus did not die for our sins
Let me state this boldly and succinctly: Jesus did not die
for your
sins or for my sins.
That proclamation is theological nonsense. It only breeds
more
violence, as we seek to justify the negativity that
religious people
dump on others because we can no longer carry its load. We
must rid
ourselves of it. One can hardly refrain from exhorting
parents not to
spare the rod lest they spoil the child, if the portrait of
God at
the heart of the Christian story is that of an angry parent
who
punishes the divine Son because he can take it and we
cannot.
The interpretation of Jesus as the sacrificed victim is a
human
creation. It was shaped in a first-century world by the
disciples of
Jesus, who drew on their Jewish liturgical symbols as a way
the
Crucifixion might be understood. They borrowed this
understanding
directly from the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, in
which an
innocent lamb was slaughtered to pay the price for the sins
of the
people. The sinful people then had the cleansing blood of
that
sacrificial lamb sprinkled on them.
We are not fallen, sinful people who deserve to be punished.
We are
frightened, insecure people who have achieved the enormous
breakthrough into self-consciousness that marks no other
creature
that has yet emerged from the evolutionary cycle. We must
not
denigrate the human being who ate of the tree of knowledge
in the
Genesis story. We must learn rather to celebrate the
creative leap
into a higher humanity. Our sense of separation and
aloneness is not
a mark of our sin. It is a symbol of our glory. Our struggle
to
survive ... (our) radical self-centeredness, is not the
result of
original sin. It is a sign of emerging consciousness. It
should not
be a source of guilt. It is a source of blessing. We do not
need to
be punished. We need to be called and empowered to be more
deeply and
fully human and to develop the godlike gift of being able to
give
ourselves away freely in the quest for an even deeper sense
of what
it means to live. Jesus did not die for our sins. Jesus
demonstrated
in an ultimate way that it is by giving that we receive and
by loving
that we enhance life.
Catholic New Times: Jesus did not die for our sins
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_12_29/ai_n14863640
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