Here’s some audio from a forum I was invited to be a part of at Wesley Church a little while ago. It’s between me and pastor Nigel Gordon, with Paul Whitfield doing a fine job as moderator.
It was called “Do we need forgiveness?“
My take: We don’t need forgiveness from a god. We need to get forgiveness from each other, and try to become more aware of the consequences of our actions. And if the god of the Bible is real, he needs to beg forgiveness from all of us.
One thing about this discussion has stayed with me: Nigel keeps comparing the debt of sin to the debt of money. But I don’t think sin is the same as money. When I sin, does a little pile of stuff appear somewhere, and it has to be taken away? Or is it something else? What is the form of this ‘sin’, and why does it need to be dealt with? And why would god killing himself accomplish this?
Why wouldn’t god just forgive everyone? Why would he need to (in Matt Dillahunty’s words) need to sacrifice himself to himself as a loophole for a rule that he created?
It’s all very arcane, and when I try and clarify this beyond the vague details, Christians talk in circles. It’s a metaphor that you could probably accept if you don’t think about it too deeply, but when you start to unpack it, it makes no sense. Yet this pile of mush is the very heart of Christianity.
16 November 2012 at 1:32 pm
You don't understand because you were never a real Christian, you were just a Mormon after all. 😛
16 November 2012 at 2:20 pm
I'll accept that from you, since you were apparently never a true Christian. 😛 😛
16 November 2012 at 2:25 pm
Forget the "himself to himself" bit. The very concept of sacrificing someone in order to supposedly absolve the whole world of its sins, without even implementing any sort of rational plan to then prevent future sinning, is surely the epitome of stupid.
I sometimes wonder if God, bad planner that he is, is in charge of main roads and sewerage because it always seems the sewer pipes need digging up within weeks of new asphalt being laid.
16 November 2012 at 4:07 pm
I think the ethical teachings of Christ would be the rational plan.
16 November 2012 at 10:36 pm
To figure out which of Christ's teachings are ethical, you're using your own moral sense of right and wrong. Why not skip the middleman and use it directly?
22 November 2012 at 7:10 am
Damn, it seems my earlier reply vanished in hyper space 🙁
If "the ethical teachings of Christ" was a rational plan, from a being that created an entire universe in less than a week, one would think we'd see signs the plan had worked. But we don't.
And would we even expect it to work if we applied it in the modern justice system? Get some bad people to kill an innocent person then tell all the bad people you did it so that they would be forgiven for all their wrongdoings. Then sit back and assume you'd done all that's required to rid the community of bad people?
Doesn't seem rational to me.
18 November 2012 at 8:37 am
could find your email, so leaving a comment here. im using your font "daniel" for my small business and i just wanted to drop a thank you for free usage 🙂