| | I am once again using xanga as a place to post a comment to avoid taking up too much space on another person's facebook/xanga.
Someone named T.. left the following comment on K's post:
"The point of the law in the Old Testament was atonement for sins. The law contained certain legalistic requirements that seem strange to us today, but it was God's instructions to the Jews on how to be "made clean". You have missed the entire point of the New Testament, which is that no human is capable of perfectly following the law and that the law (please remember that Romans 2:14,15 is referring to Old Testament Jewish law) has been made obsolete because Jesus has paid the price for our sins, if we will just believe and accept Him."
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My response:
Practically all the ancient people living around the Mediterranean Sea had a system of animal, food, and drink offerings to god(s). Yes, people made offerings to atone for violations of law/custom/religion, but also simply to please the gods, to win the gods’ favor. Such ideas were around long before Israel (not to mention the Bible) even existed. Customs/Laws against stealing, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, blasphemy, etc. were also common. These things were considered immoral by many nations long before the Jews ever developed their national literature or invented their god Yahweh.
Sacrificing animals/food to god(s) is a primitive idea. So is the human-divine sacrifice of the New Testament. It would be superstitious and unjust to punish the innocent for the mistakes of the guilty [more below in the last 2 sections]. The sacrifice of innocent/spotless animals, people, demi-gods, Jesus, etc. can not cosmically or “spiritually” atone for sin or personal mistakes. And mistakes are merely the breaking of local/national/social rules/morals/laws; they involve no offense against any real personal deity up in the sky.
For another example of the primitive nature of ancient Jewish and older Gentile ideas of sacrifice and God(s), consider how they believed that the smoke from sacrifices went up to the sky, where God(s) lived, and the smell pleased the God(s). About 39 times, the Torah speaks of Yahweh smelling the "pleasing aroma" of burnt animal sacrifices: Gen 8:21; Ex 29:18,25,41; Lev 1:9,13,17; 2:2,9,12; 3:5,16; 4:31; 6:15,21; 8:21,28; 17:6; 23:13,18; 26:31; Num 15:3,7,10,13,14,24; 18:17; 28:2,6,8,13,24,27; 29:2,6,8,13,36. Example:
"...sprinkle their (an ox, sheep, or goat) blood on the altar and burn their fat as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to Yahweh."
What kind of deity likes the smell of burning flesh? Why isn't it clear to everyone that this is ancient superstition? The attribution of a human-like mind and physical senses to sky god(s) is merely a common ancient superstition. Israel adopted this belief from older neighboring nations. For one example, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is much older than Genesis, after the great flood Utnapishtim made a sacrifice to the gods and they smelled the sweet aroma, just as Yahweh is said to do in the Pentateuch. More at http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/OTChrono.html
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>> “it was God's instructions to the Jews on how to be "made clean".”
The idea that the “Mosaic Law” was really given by a sky god is groundless. All the ancient nations claimed that their sacrificial/religious systems were ordained by god(s), and they quite often claimed that their political systems were divinely ordained too. Such lent authority to rulers, laws, morals, and custom, but it was fiction.
If seen in historical context, there is nothing about the Old Testament law that makes it look divinely inspired. It is merely an ancient Jewish version of once typical moral and religious concepts.
It reflects human, not divine, custom/morals.
You can see this if you examine a list of questionable morals in the Mosaic Law: http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/EvolutionOfJudeoChristianMorality.htm#OTMorality .
The Mosaic Law was not "God's instructions to the Jews" any more than Hammurabi's Code (1700's BCE) was inspired by the Gods Anu and Bel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi). The Mosaic Law is but the Hebrew adaptation of ancient Middle-Eastern religious law codes.
Not only that, but the stories in the Old Testament involve at least as much fiction and myth as history, .. probably much more, as I show here in plenty of detail: http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/OTChrono.html .
The Jews had their myths just as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans did. It is tragic that Jewish mythology ever came to be seen as historical fact by so many people. Unfortunately a large segment of the US population is insufficiently educated in ancient history and, thus, still thinks the Bible is true.
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>> “The law contained certain legalistic requirements that seem strange to us today,”
Of course they seem strange, because ancient people invented them. They were not really given by "God." Look at the examples at the link I posted, http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/EvolutionOfJudeoChristianMorality.htm#OTMorality . New Testament morality has some problems too, as I point out at the page linked above [scroll up after the page opens].
Morality changes over time as culture changes. Life evolves.
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>> “the law … has been made obsolete because Jesus has paid the price for our sins, if we will just believe and accept Him.”
Obsolete?
True, BUT … if the Mosaic law is obsolete then you should admit that certain parts of Old Testament prophecies were lies.
According to the Jewish prophets in the Old Testament, the law of Yahweh given to Moses was to last FOREVER, and even Gentiles would one day acknowledge it and follow it: Isaiah 2:1-4; 8:20; 19:2; 42:1-9; 42:24-25; 51:4; 56:6-7; 60:1-22; 66:19-23; Jeremiah 33:17-18; Ezek. 37:24; Ezek. 40-48,; Micah 4:1-3. If you take the time to read such passages and look at Jewish history, you will see that their ideas of the future were quite different from later Gentile Christianity. The Jews wanted the law and sacrificial system to last for all time. They wanted their nation to be great and to rule the world, but they could not make it happen. They wrote in their scriptures that Yahweh would exalt the law, even in “the last days,” and they never said it would become obsolete because of the death and resurrection of the incarnate deity. Christianity twisted Jewish scripture. I examine the whole thing in depth here: http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/MessianismPreChristian.html , especially in the appendices and epilogue.
With the possible exception of Matthew 5:17ff. (likely written by a Jewish Christian whose community still followed the law), the rest of the NT says the opposite about the law.
Rom. 10:4: "Christ is the end of the law."
Eph. 2:15: speaks of Christ "ABOLISHING (contrary to Matthew 5:17) in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations."
I list several other important examples here: http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/MessianismPreChristian.html#epilogue .
There appears to have been a battle in early Christianity over whether Gentiles should keep the law of Moses; it was assumed that Jewish Christians would do so, and at first Gentile Christians seem to have kept the law too. However, factions pushing to consider the Mosaic law obsolete eventually won out over the other factions. This was helped by the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 CE, by the loosening of ties to Jerusalem, and by the fact that Gentile Christians had come to vastly outnumber Jewish Christians. Such was one aspect of the evolution of Christianity away from being a sect within Judaism and toward accommodating Greek and Roman beliefs/mores.
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In real life, mistakes do not need cosmic atonement and there is no personal, anthropomorphic sky god keeping tally. Rather, when someone makes mistakes and sees the negative consequences that naturally follow, he or she should learn to turn away from such behavior. Every society developes customs and rules for behavior. Such is natural and logical, and educated people should no longer need to appeal to ancient superstitions or divine inspiration in order to see the importance of behaving in such a way as to promote the general welfare.
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>> “Jesus has paid the price for our sins”
Part 1: No forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood ??
What have YOU personally done that is so horrible that innocent blood should be required, that a death should be required, in order for you to obtain forgiveness? Seriously, no joke, what have you done that is THAT BAD?
This is #20 on my list of reasons to reject Christianity: (http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/ListofReasons.html)
What kind of god is unable to forgive sins or mistakes without the shedding of blood?
The Bible teaches that "without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness" (Heb 9:22). It teaches that Yahweh required animal blood to appease his anger, and that his son became the final sacrifice once for all. Such a god, if he existed, would have a serious anger management problem, and would be less loving and civilized than most people I know personally. I forgive people all the time for doing things I do not like, and I do not demand any blood. Am I then more forgiving than the Christian god? Are you? And what have I done that is so horrible that blood should be shed? I have been a gentle, loving person since I was a teenager.
What if we all acted like the Christian god of the Bible and demanded blood sacrifice anytime someone did something we did not like?
Some Christians, attempting to defend what they would detest if they hadn't been brainwashed, say God does this because he is so "righteous," but I do not buy that lame defense anymore. One need not demand death and bloodshed to be righteous. Such is absurd.
A God who would lovingly, personally, clearly, and openly counsel those who err would be much more righteous, much more worthy of devotion than the imaginary god of Christianity; yet not only does the Christian god fail to show up and lovingly, personally counsel those who make mistakes (like a real father would), but Christians can only point to an ancient story-book to tell others what their god thinks or demands, because he cannot speak for himself, and they themselves have no actual communication with their Jesus or their "Father," despite their pretensious claim of a "personal relationship" or their claim that his "spirit" dwells in them.
The idea of blood sacrifice comes out of the distant past when fearful, unknowledgeable men tried to appease imaginary invisible gods by offering them food, drink, and blood. The Hebrews borrowed the idea from their neighbors, and Christianity just modified the Hebrew idea with a touching story of self-sacrifice. And the Hebrew law demanding blood sacrifice was not really given by a god to Moses on a mountain after a great and miraculous Exodus from Egypt anyway; it was written by priests well after the supposed time of Moses (see my paper Old Testament Chronological and Historical Problems - http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/OTChrono.html ).
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>> “Jesus has paid the price for our sins”
Part 2: Substitutional Sacrifice?? Really? Is that a good thing?
This is #21 on my list of reasons for rejecting Christianity: (http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/ListofReasons.html)
Should we not question the validity of a substitutional sacrifice
(a) for moral/ethical/logical reasons,
(b) for its lack of value and appropriateness in changing people's behavior,
(c) for its relatively low ultimate effectiveness in appeasing the alleged god's wrath and persuading him to forgive?
(a) In Texas, the law allows the death sentence for certain crimes. What if a Texas judge who sentenced murderers to death decided to pardon everyone on death row, but to satisfy their death sentence he killed his innocent oldest child instead? What would we think of that judge? Honestly.
(b) What would we think if many of the criminals continued to act as they had before and the sacrifice did not end bad behavior? The vast majority of Christians I have met certainly are not more moral or “righteous” than non-Christians I know; a great many are far less moral. They even admit that they continue to err. One need only examine the history of Christian Europe and compare it to a modern secular society like Japan to see that Christianity does not make society morally superior. Anyway, there are obviously other, less violent means of changing people's negative behavior than substitutional sacrifice. Some Buddhists seem to me to be very moral; plenty of religious non-Christians and irreligious atheists live honorable lives. If there are better ways to change behavior than by killing someone, why would a supposedly loving, merciful God demand bloodshed? Was it only to appease his wild anger? Absurd.
(c) On the whole, according to the story, the sacrifice really did not soothe the New Testament god's anger all that much. (1) If you do not believe the story despite the contrary evidence, he will allegedly fry your soul in burning sulfur (Mk 16:16; 1 Jn 2:22-23; Rev 21:8). Thus, the softening of "His" vehement anger applies to a minority of all the humans who have ever lived, and mostly to gullible people who believed a weird story based on hearsay without solid evidence because they heard it at a young, impressionable age. (2) Even if you do believe the story but continue to "sin" on occasion, he will allegedly fry you anyway -- i.e. if you lie, or slander someone, or get drunk, or have sex with someone you are not married to, etc. (1 Jn 2:4, 3:6-10; 1 Cor 6:9-10; Rev 3:16; 21:8). Lots of "Christians" would fit into this second category. The vast majority of all the humans who have ever lived fit into one of these categories, most of them probably simple, hard-working, long-suffering people.
At any rate, blood sacrifice and substitutional sacrifice are immoral, primitive holdovers from the ancient world. These concepts merely distract people from the truth.
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