Atheist Debates - What did Jesus sacrifice?

Even if we assume the stories are true, where is the sacrifice? What was given up? If someon is GOD, before and after, was there really any sacrifice?

[freeaccount]

Matt's transition into a Bond villain is nearing completion.

[Smidge]

Remember kids: If you don't sin, Jesus would have had an awful weekend in vain.

[waxberry]

The craziest idea about justice is to "punish" an innocent person for someone else's guilt.

[cnault]

" What did Jesus sacrifice?"

According to the Bible story, he sacrificed his weekend. If anyone tells me he died for our sins I tell them to finish the book, he gets better.

[David-ivco]

"Jesus had a terrible weekend for your sins." - New bumper sticker.

[Anacronian]

Jesus sacrificed nothing, He was inconvenienced for a couple of weeks.

To be sacrificed would entail he actually remained dead.

History is full of real people who have sacrificed their lives for other people, a cause, a principle, an idea - and all those people did the act of sacrifice superior to the lamb of heaven ever did.

[TBrewer]

Jesus didn't even give up the whole weekend. He was up by sunrise on Sunday. He literally could have gone out for brunch afterwards.

[riffhammeron]

There are people all over the world who suffer that much every day. These are often children and the suffering comes at the hands of their parents. Seems infinitely worse than what Jesus supposedly went through.

[bjkarana]

Jesus: "Did you do give him [Matt] the sign of double vision?"
God: "Yeah, he just went to the doctors for a diagnosis and now he has an eyepatch to fix it."
Jesus: "Man, this guy is _tough!_ I don't know what else we can do to convince him we're real..."
God: "What if you appeared on a tortilla?"

[deborahcarroll]

I was raised as an LDS. The idea that Jesus suffered more than anyone else to save us was one of the things I questioned when I was young. Pictures I saw often show him on Golgotha with the two thieves, and it is always him being nailed to the cross but the thieves are only tied to their crosses. The crucifixion was no different for Jesus than any other person crucified by the Romans. All three would have been nailed. I asked about that and was told that the sacrifice came in the Garden when God turned his back on Christ and withdrew his spirit. This total withdrawal caused such agony that he bled from every pore. The LDS believe that there are three separate members of the Godhead, God, Son, and Holy Ghost. It was only after his physical death and after he had fulfilled his part of God's plan that he became fully God. I know that this will sound strange to many but LDS teaching seems no stranger to me than any other religion. I have been an atheist for about 30 years now because I finally took a good look at what I believed and what the stories are that I was told and none of it makes sense, no matter which religion you are following. It is all magical thinking and you must accept too much of the story on faith, even when it makes no sense. God makes the rules, we have to accept him and his rules on faith, if we break a rule and do not accept him and repent for breaking the rule, we will be punished forever? When your child lies, steals, or breaks a rule, do you never forgive him but hold that against him for the rest of his life? No, that would be child abuse and it would make you a very unloving and unreasonable parent, wouldn't it?

[nanntuckett]

Well said. If I knew being tortured for a day and dead for a day and a half would allow me to have an eternal afterlife in bliss, there’s no thinking. Not only that, but Jesus becomes ruler of the universe with his dad? Losing nothing means no sacrifice.

[cratonorogen]

Jesus gave up a weekend and now I’ve to give up eternity. Seems fair.

[FullCircleStories]

I've been thinking about this a lot too. I've a few thoughts to add/repeat:
- A sacrifice implies that you've given up something of value and you don't get it back (as you said)
- If you give up something to get it back later, that's often called borrowing (or just storing something away if no other person is involved).
- Jesus lost nothing. He is in possession of everything he had before he came to Earth, everything he had during his stay on earth, and everything he had in heaven, he still has now.
- Jesus can return to Earth at any moment ("no one knows when the rapture will come") and could even come back in stealth without us knowing.
- Depending on Judaism or Christianity, people before the crucifixion could go to hell or heaven.
- After the crucifixion, people can STILL go to heaven or hell.
- The only change was the Terms and Conditions.


Even if Christianity was always this situation where Jesus has taken our place in Hell for eternity, and we all automatically go to Heaven, it still stands that we question why that happen in the first place when someone who 1) sets the rules, 2) can change the rules at any time, has set this situation up at all.

I'm also confused why Christians want to avoid Hell. Isn't it in your interests as a Christian to spread the word of Christ to those who need it most? To go to the people who need salvation and to bring it to them? If you've decided that Hell is it, there's no redemption for you, then doesn't that say a lot about your moral compass as a Christian?

[HeinrichGossler]

I feel like its important to mention, According to the gospels, he "KNEW" he was going to resurrect... to me this alone demerites the whole thing. Plus all that Matt has stated.

[aagereinertjakobsen]

I always found Prometheus' sacrifice for humanity an infinitely more compelling myth than the bizarre nihilism underlying the story of Jesus.

[booooo-urns]

The suffering I’ve endured by having to live in a world that’s still so heavily influenced with religious nonsense is commensurate or greater than any suffering the Romans inflicted on Jesus

[patrickblind]

Well said. As an ex-Roman Catholic, I always wondered why it was a sacrifice if he knew he was going to come back. So many parts of the bible and its philosophy make no sense that by the time I had finished catechism, I knew in my heart that it was just a myth. There is a reason that the church doesn't want you to ask questions... it leads to a revelation and not the kind they like.

[venlakirahvi]

I was so happy to see you'd made a video on this. I've never understood how this is supposed to make sense. And yet it's the most important story in the entire doctrine. Most fantasy books have better plots than the bible...

[kevinhooper]

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"', sounds like a guy who believed his own BS and then figured it out too late.

[erwinmeisel]

Sacrificing his son to wash away the sins of mankind? Who came up with this s##t? Is this the best solution that an almighty God can offer?