Silly Jesus, it’s not about what you like. It’s about symbolism, and using that symbolism to persuade and oppress, and start wars, and justify shitty behavior.
That part never made any sense to me either. Why do sins need to be forgiven and how does torturing someone allow forgiveness? Seems like torturing and killing the son of god would be a serious sin by itself.
Couldn't god just realize he created flawed beings and forgive them himself, or not hold a grudge about it? Humans are how he made them according to the religion.
You ask good questions, but if you're really interested you can look into Christian apologetics re: free will. There are some interesting answers awaiting you. But the gist of it is that God didn't create flawed beings, he created beings with free will that chose to be flawed.
And Christianity has never said free will is a flawed design, because humans having free will is one of the most important aspects of the religion and is very fundamental to what it means to be a human (a concept that is true both in and outside of Christianity, unless you believe in destiny or something). It is not a flaw to have free will, otherwise God himself would be flawed. In a regular context, it's kind of like you're not flawed for existing, but you're flawed if you do negative things with your existence. I would personally have to be convinced that having free will is a flaw/a negative thing
To quickly answer your first couple questions: death is the punishment for sinning and Jesus is supposed to be perfect and sinless and thus should not die. but instead he died in place of other sinners, kind of like taking the blame for them. And yes, torturing and killing the son of God was indeed a sin, the people who did it were sinful. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. The ones who killed Jesus were not his followers or supporters
The doylist explanation is that a lot of religions back in the day practiced animal sacrifice to their deities (including judaism, e.g. Noah sacrificing animals after the flood and Abraham sacrificing a ram in place of his son once god was bored of telling Abraham to kill his kid to prove his faith). Jesus getting sacrificed is supposed to be a mirror of this for Christians and an "ultimate" sacrifice. They don't sacrifice animals to god anymore because jesus just keeps doing the heavy lifting for them.
Ah - so they think if they aren't wearing the cross he'll have forgotten about the whole crucifixion thing?
I mean, to be fair he was only up there for like half a day - so short they allegedly needed to poke him given how unusual dying that quickly was for the execution method (though it was suspiciously shortly after drinking something in two accounts).
So yeah, maybe they have a point and a reminder is warranted.
"Hey you, remember that they nailed you to a cross! Don't forget! The most important thing in your life was that. You said some other stuff that I don't really remember and usually zone out about on Sundays, but for sure the whole getting nailed to wood part was really really important and the ultimate summation of your life's purpose. It was somehow necessary because I like to look at boobs on the Internet. So thanks for that, and again - don't forget about it, because I'm sure it was very forgettable."
No no no no, you have it backwards. They're not trying to remind Jesus of the cross, they're trying to remind themselves just how painful of a death that the alleged Redeemer of man had to go through.
Well… cuz if u would ever read bible, u would know the cross is a symbol of redemption for mankind. Same goes for Jesus hanging on it, it’s a scene of what Christian’s believe to be the ultimate act of love, sacrificing urslef for another. I think it makes perfect sense to pick cross as a religion symbol.
The whole redemption thing itself doesn't even make sense unless you buy into inherited guilt and into sacrificing another to absolve yourself from guilt which are both rather outdated concepts in our modern morality.
It makes more sense when you know that 2nd temple Judaism had an entire economy built around animal sacrifice for sins, and that the temple central to that is destroyed a few decades after Jesus died as Christianity was starting to take off.
So positioning Jesus's death not as an embarrassing failure to manifest earlier messianic prophecy but as this ultimate sacrifice making the animal sacrifices that could no longer be performed unnecessary was a very convenient belief to attract Jewish converts.
Of course, then Mark 11:16, where Jesus bans anyone from carrying animal sacrifices through the temple in the first place while alive becomes an inconvenient detail, which is probably why it later disappears from Luke and Matthew.
So Christianity probably really was a split from 2nd temple Judaism at the time of Jesus on the point of animal sacrifice, but then following his death the death itself gets reworked back into the paradigm of animal sacrifice by those coming later (i.e. Paul) which then later makes it more attractive to Jews who no longer have a temple after 70 CE when it takes even greater prominence.
The irony of course is that looking at some of the early apocryphal sayings of Jesus on the ridiculousness of sin and salvation as an inherent birthright that shouldn't be given over to another to be lent back out at interest - this development of the crucifixion as an ultimate sacrifice on behalf of humanity was possibly the exact opposite of a historical Jesus's whole point, even if it was favored for survivorship bias given the destruction of the temple.
Where exactly does it say that the cross is the thing that should be the symbol for the religion?
That doesn't happen until around the 3rd century, 200 years after most of the new treatment was written.
Fun fact: initially the cross was a symbol made on the forehead or with the hand. So if you were looking for Revelation prophecy fulfillment, maybe the buying and selling of salvation under the sign of the cross on forehead and in hand should be the thing people are worried about, and not RFID payments.
Just like how Christians worry about blaspheming the Holy Spirit as a supposedly unforgivable sin while conveniently overlooking Paul's swearing he's telling the truth on the Holy Spirit in Romans 8 (a chapter entirely absent in Marcion's version of the letter).
It's always wild to me when believers act like they actually know anything about the book while clearly not knowing much about it at all, as opposed to at least having the wisdom to know what they don't know.
You seemed to have wholly misinterpreted the comment you're replying to in your condescending rambling. Kinda crazy that you even mentioned RFID payments somehow in your tangent. You lost the plot big time
No one said "the bible says the cross is a symbol for the religion of Christianity". Not a single verse says that, and no one claimed so. but the cross in the text is important and is symbolic of redemption/love/sacrifice. You don't need the text to say that, it's just a simple literary analysis. That's how symbols work.
Like what are you even saying with your last paragraph there? If you read the Bible, the importance and significance of the event where Jesus died on a cross is kind of hard to miss. It's wild to me that you can make a comment like yours and then pretend you're so wise and intelligent and above other people while you're rambling nonsense about RFID payments. Get a grip, dude.
I see brain rot has be transferred from reddit.
Christians worship the cross because it was Jesus' death on it that gives salvation. It was through this death by man that forgiveness occured.
Actually worshipping the cross would be considered idol worship putting a thing before Jesus. No other gods before me and whatnot. I’m not Christian so I won’t claim to know.
It was also my understanding that Jesus suffered for humanities sins by bleeding from every pore in the garden of gethsemane. Is that different than salvation? Genuine question.
I was told the cross was a symbol that represented the intersection of the divine with the physical world, since Jesus said “into your hands I commend my spirit” or whatever.
Not an expert, just curious about the minor differences taught between the various Christian sects.
I’m not from Reddit either but my brain is still rotten, sorry.
I think anyone who thought just a bit about this would have realized that cross is nothing but some icon. Not really something to be worshipped.
The whole redemption scene is quite enigmatic to give meaning tbh, but one convincing explanation I've heard is that it is to "kill" self. Your ego is strong, and often blinds you, sometimes making you overly greedy. Only by murdering ego, one might be truly "grown up" and free from various chains. Maybe Jesus has gone through such a pain just to teach that? Well, idk.
Jesus was giving really explicit instructions on how to achieve salvation before they nailed him up there so I'm going to call your interpretation a swing and a miss. Sounds like one of those retcons that happened after the Romans took over the church like that whole wacky 'let's canonize Christ's actual murderer and blame it on the Jews' caper.
That's an idol. The worship of idols is a sin. Sorry, your religion forces you to sin, and because you believe sin takes you to hell, unless you denounce your religion, you're fated to suffer in hell - forever.
I grew up evangelical, and the way evangelicals use the cross this argument makes sense. But the catholic crucifix as a depiction of the suffering of Christ makes more sense as a symbol to put a believer’s mind and heart in the right place for supplication.
Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon. We may ask what is relevant but anything beyond that is dangerous. He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don’t listen to him. Remember that - do not listen.