Hey FrGamble!

Quote: SOOPOO

I've tried hard to figure out what you are asking me, but I can't. My point is simple...... to call something a 'sacrifice', I feel you have to be giving up something of value to you. The person committing suicide because they believe they are going to the 'better place' is not giving up anything of value, at least in his mind. That person is doing the opposite of sacrifice; he is 'upgrading' his existence, EVEN if he is aware that he will be hurting his loved ones. My 'plane' example was just a choice of a means to commit suicide, and somehow you morphed it into choices of who should die.

I think I've asked you this before, without an answer, but I'll try again.

A few months back, I attended a funeral of a friend's wife. She died suddenly and tragically at age 49. At the funeral, there wasn't a single speaker who didn't say something like "in a better place" or "now at peace with her mother and father" or "until sometime far off in the future when her family joins her". If these things are true, why was everyone crying the entire time? If you truly believe she is now with God, isn't that a good thing?

Thanks for your patience, I think we are both trying to understand where the other is coming from.

I would point out that the person who thinks he is going to a better place is still giving up his life or being willing to be tortured or killed, that seems to be giving up something of value. Maybe another clarifying analogy would be someone who wants to get a better job and to do so has to spend lots of extra time doing his work and doing the best job he can at the cost of not having the time he wishes he could at home or doing other things in his life. Is that a sacrifice? He is doing it to get a better job so perhaps you think it is not a sacrifice?

In regards to your funeral question it is healthy and perfectly normal nor matter how strong your faith is to miss the person. Even Jesus wept at the grave of His friend Lazarus. I do believe in Heaven, but I am often sad and cry at funerals. It is because I miss the person.

Quote: Evenbob

So your Church claims Jesus was
'fully aware' he was god before
he was baptized. He was fully
aware of his duel nature as
both man and god. And all
'fully aware' meant was he
trusted god and his plan?
That can't be right, that's
ridiculous. Lots of Jews at the
time trusted gods plan.

Please remember that Jesus was fully human as well. You are correct many people trust in God's will, but you can probably imagine the difference in degree if you were God incarnate. Jesus trusted completely in God's plan and knew His unique relationship with Our Heavenly Father. Yet Jesus in His human knowledge was not all-knowing.

Quote:

Let me ask it AGAIN. When
Jesus was nailed to the cross,
being 'fully aware' he was
god (divine), what did that
full awareness mean to him.
What was in his mind at the
time, when he's 'fully aware'
of his divine nature?

It means that Jesus had complete faith and trust in God and was willing to accept suffering and death if it was God's plan to save humanity. He believed completely in the prophecies of the Old Testament, He knew perfectly the story of Abraham, and the suffering servant of Isaiah. I think you are asking if He had foreknowledge that the Resurrection was going to take place in 3 days? I think you think that Jesus knew that God incarnate could not die or that His being God made it so that He couldn't really suffer or feel pain. That is not correct. Jesus had the greatest faith possible in God being God's Son and fully aware of His divinity, but it came down to trust in God on the cross. The same trust we are called to have in God when we all have to carry our various crosses in life.

Quote:

That's where all the confusion from
non believers comes from. Why
it all sounds like gobblygook
to us. You want us to believe
something that sounds totally
ridiculous. That Jesus knew
knew he was god but really knew
nothing at all. That's how crazy
people think.

This is where you lose me and you aren't making sense. You think that the only options are that Jesus was omniscient and in His human intellect was all-knowing or He didn't know anything and was no different than any other Jew of His time. Do you see that you are setting yourself up to not understand the person of Jesus Christ? These two extremes are not the only options. In fact neither extreme scenerio you present makes any sense. How could Jesus in His humanity understand everything? How could Jesus in His divinity understand nothing? Both of your possibilities make no sense if you think about it.

You say Jesus was aware of his relationship with God. Jesus didn't have a relationship with God, Jesus was God according to your church. Jesus was divine and fully aware of his divine nature. I don't think he was omniscient or all-powerful. Being divine, knowing with every fiber of his being that he's God, common sense says that he knew he had nothing to fear in dying. Therefore he was sacrificing nothing. Not only was it not the greatest sacrifice ever, it was obviously no sacrifice at all.

This is the problem with Christianity. They always want you to accept the message of the religion but never examine the details of how the message got here. They will talk to you about the message of Jesus all day long. But start asking questions about the details, like we're doing here, and they usually clam up and walk away. They don't want to talk about it because they know it makes no sense and sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud.

It's like any myth or fairy tale. They're fun to tell out loud because it's just a story. As soon as you start to tell people that there are magic beans, and if you plant them a gigantic beanstalk will grow, and you can climb into the clouds where the Giants live, and it's all for real, people think you've lost your mind.

Christianity only makes sense if it's told as a myth. The story completely falls apart if you tell it like it all really happened. As a myth I can completely accept all of it. As a real event, it's just another urban legend story that never really happened.

Quote: Evenbob

You say Jesus was aware of his relationship with God. Jesus didn't have a relationship with God, Jesus was God according to your church. Jesus was divine and fully aware of his divine nature. I don't think he was omniscient or all-powerful. Being divine, knowing with every fiber of his being that he's God, common sense says that he knew he had nothing to fear in dying. Therefore he was sacrificing nothing. Not only was it not the greatest sacrifice ever, it was obviously no sacrifice at all.

Thank you Bob, this paragraph shows a real better understanding of Christ. I really can't tell you how much I appreciate you listening and having patience and really showing some respect and understanding.

Where we differ, and it might not be possible to reconcile, is that Jesus having complete confidence and faith in God His Father was obedient to death, death on a cross. That this was a sacrifice in that He overcame His human fear of suffering and death out of love for others. He had faith and trust and was willing to surrender Himself completely to the Will of His Heavenly Father no matter the cost, including death. He trusted in the promise of God for the salvation of all of humanity and abandoned Himself into God's hands. I consider that a sacrifice, the greatest of all sacrifices. I believe that His knowledge that He was God and yet willing to die only heightens the sacrifice.

I also understand your point that you think even without being all-knowing, simply the knowledge that He was God's only begotten Son means that He never experienced any real fear, worry, or struggle. I think the Gospels make it clear that this is wrong, but I get where you are coming from.

Now you're grasping at straws, desperately trying to find a sacrifice. You've been told there was one, but you can't really find it. If you could, you would be able to tell us where it is. And so far you have not done that. Eventually you will give up trying to explain it and just go back to doing what all Christians do, concentrate on the message, and don't try and explain where it came from. It's just like every other myth in existence. They all have a message, just don't examine where the message came from too closely. It usually comes from a story that's completely made up to make a point.

Quote: FrGamble

Quote: aceofspades

Padre - I see what you are trying to say by referring us to Genesis 22
However, Abraham, unlike your claim about Jesus, was ONLY a human, he was not also God
Additionally, Abraham did as he was told out of FEAR

Abraham was a human with great faith, so was Jesus. Now Jesus of course was also God so His faith was even more perfect than Abraham who is our Father in Faith.

I don't think there was any fear motivating Abraham.

Why did Jesus need faith in God if he was also God??????

Quote: aceofspades

Quote: FrGamble

Quote: aceofspades

Padre - I see what you are trying to say by referring us to Genesis 22
However, Abraham, unlike your claim about Jesus, was ONLY a human, he was not also God
Additionally, Abraham did as he was told out of FEAR

Abraham was a human with great faith, so was Jesus. Now Jesus of course was also God so His faith was even more perfect than Abraham who is our Father in Faith.

I don't think there was any fear motivating Abraham.

Why did Jesus need faith in God if he was also God??????

Because He was fully human and fully God. In His humanity he had perfect faith in God the Father. In this he models perfectly what we are called to have as well.

Quote: Evenbob

Now you're grasping at straws, desperately trying to find a sacrifice. You've been told there was one, but you can't really find it. If you could, you would be able to tell us where it is. And so far you have not done that. Eventually you will give up trying to explain it

Wow, Bob silly me, I thought we could come to an agreement after you showed some better understanding of what I was talking about. I get this funny feeling that you have given up trying to understand it long ago.

Quote: FrGamble

Wow, Bob silly me, I thought we could come to an agreement after you showed some better understanding of what I was talking about. I get this funny feeling that you have given up trying to understand it long ago.

You keep changing the parameters of the sacrifice. As it stands right now from your explanations the sacrifice is some vague concept that most people here can't even grasp.

Let's look at it from the other direction. The New testament says God so loved the world he gave his only son etc etc etc. So let's forget about what Jesus knew about his divine nature. God knew everything there is to know. God knew Jesus would die on the cross because God knows everything. God knew Jesus would rise from the dead 3 days later and walk and talk with his friends. So where is the sacrifice on God's part.

If the myth said that God had a son living with him in heaven and he sent the son to Earth to die for people's sins, to really die, never to be seen again, that would be a sacrifice. That would be a huge sacrifice.

But nothing remotely like that happened. God sacrificed nothing in the myth and every Christian secretly knows this, or suspects it. That's why they never want to talk about it, and if you force them to, they get angry with you very quickly.

If knowing your Son is going to have to suffer horribly, even temporarily is not a sacrifice then I see your point. Of course, you realize more clearly now that this doesn't apply to Jesus Christ and His sacrifice, which He willingly endured out of love for you, me, and all of humanity. He did not have the complete knowledge of God the Father. I think we are coming to agreement and understanding on that.