Blood sacrifice is a primitive barbaric idea

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clarkgamble1

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I will never “get it” that such a barbaric idea that a blood sacrifice, an animal, a human, or a Jesus, to a god is somehow a good thing. It is a primitive concept that should be dropped from religious teachings and beliefs. When we read of such Aztec sacrifices we are repelled. The idea that God could be pleased by such a sacrifice by Jesus puts God in the same class as the barbaric primitive high priests of old. It is very easy for atheists to reject such a god. It would be just as easy for believers to do so if they would think for themselves rather than just believe all the nonsense they were forced to memorize growing up in a religious environment.
 
You do understand that life 2000 or 6000 years ago was considerably different than life today, and blood sacrifice of animals was a normal form of worship? Basically you were giving up your food, which was the most valuable thing to have because without food you died and many people did starve to death.

Also, if Jesus’ sacrifice was so primitive and modern society wouldn’t accept it, then why do people today praise and honor firefighters who die while rescuing people from a burning building, or soldiers who sacrifice their own life to save their platoon, or the parent who risks/ sacrifices his life to save his child? The concept of giving your life so others may live is universally respected. And that’s what Jesus did.
 
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If it was just blood, period, like the Aztecs, that would be one thing. They had different grades of blood— royal blood was more potent than blood from prisoners-- but it’s power comes from the fact that it represents life, rather than being just a bodily fluid like “tears” or “stomach acid” or “spit.”

But God doesn’t just want blood, and blood isn’t just what Jesus offered. We run into it time after time after time–
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
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So, step 1 is to reject evil and align your life to the principles that God has spelled out— not prioritizing other things besides God; loving your neighbor as yourself; not swearing falsely; keeping the Sabbath; honoring parents; not committing murder or adultery; not stealing; not bearing false witness; not coveting; etc.

If you don’t do Step 1 first, then you end up with scenes like–
"I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
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And by the time you get to Jesus, if all he had to do was “shed blood to make God happy”, he could have been slaughtered by Herod as a baby, and be done with it. But he chose to stay on earth for 33 years, and spent 3 years in public ministry, before you get to the blood part. So what was important enough about those 3 years that made him stick around?

He stepped things up. He showed us not only how to live Step 1, but how to live the advanced version of step 1: You don’t just “not commit murder”, but you “turn the other cheek”. You don’t just “not commit adultery”, but you “don’t even think about it.” It’s all about interior rightness, not just refraining from doing wrong physically.

Can you list five people you know who have gotten his message down pat and reflected it in their lives perfectly? Then maybe one of those people is advanced enough to criticize the barbarity of the blood part. But it’s not me, and I have doubts that it’s you, either… 🙂
 
Jesus sacrificed himself to save us. It was the greatest, most perfect act of love (that a man would lay down his life for his friends) there ever has been and will be.
 
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"You do understand that life 2000 or 6000 years ago was considerably different than life today, and blood sacrifice of animals was a normal form of worship?

Yes and stoning an adulteress was accepted. Still, as I said, a barbaric primitive practice in both cases. Just because it was accepted does not make it right. It is not accepted today because we are more intelligent and civilized. It should not have been accepted then.

“…then why do people today praise and honor firefighters who die while rescuing people from a burning building, … the concept of giving your life so others may live is universally respected.”

They are respected for doing their duty which is to save people. If they die it is a non-intended accident. No fire fighter or soldier goes to his/her job wanting to die or even thinking they will die.
 
OP, you keep asking the same questions over and over, and then you totally reject all answers.

And then you come back with the same questions, only to reject every answer all over again.

Why do you think you do this?

What is is that you’re looking for?
 
I am assuming you are an atheist or agnostic so I am keeping this refutation simple.

There is a great difference between Aztecs and Christians. There is a great difference between taking the life of another creature or another person, for any reason, and giving one’s own life to save another’s.

Christ didn’t die because some distant God in the sky wanted blood. It was the people who hatefully wanted Christ to die. That generation of Jewish leaders wanted him dead because he upset their understanding of themselves as they had become hard hearted and uncharitable; the crowd wanted him dead, because the crowd wasn’t getting the political rebellious king they wanted, since they had become hopeless and preferred to free a killer than a teacher of good works and love. Roman governors wanted him dead to stop rebellion, since they were rulers of the world, loving that power in cruel ways.

Later, his Apostles also understood the need to change the world and they weren’t intimidated and also gave their lives in very similar ways. They were preaching and changing the hearts, minds and world outlooks of many many people in many countries. They were persecuted heartily and accepted it with the greatest kind of self giving.

If someone is in peril many human beings give their lives to save a person, even strangers. Our hearts understand this noble act. Many of us don’t hesitate. Many of those heroes have saved countless more than the one who died. . The conclusion of World War II revealed thousands of stories of heroes who gave their lives to save others with no obvious reward in sight. It was about establishing a culture of goodness and integrity, and care for others.
 
You’re arguing that God was pleased by Jesus’ “blood” sacrifice.
  1. Was God pleased by it?
  2. Jesus is God. God is Jesus.
I don’t understand enough Catholic theology to explain to you what I think you’re misunderstanding.
 
No soldier goes to his job thinking he will die? You might want to rethink that.

And we don’t stone adulteresses today in Western society, nor do we crucify people today (although we still have a death penalty in many countries that can be quite a painful and unjust form or death).
We don’t burn people at the stake either.
But that doesn’t mean that society nowadays completely ignores the deaths of people who did die in a past horrible way.

The fact that there are billions of Christians worldwide who do not have any problem accepting Jesus’ death on the cross even though it was horrible and barbaric contradicts your notion that it’s somehow impossible for people today to accept. Many people even find a parallel with their own sufferings, which may not involve being nailed to a cross, but pain from cancer, burns, accidents, or even mental anguish from grief or mental illness, certainly hurts very terribly and comparably.

Your argument simply isn’t very well-founded logically, nor is it convincing.
 
I guess the only answer that would be acceptable to me would be one that was in complete agreement, that bloody sacrifices are an embarrassing artifact from the Bronze Age which has no place in modern civilized society. I’ll probably never find it here because most of the readers of this material are quite content to believe all the things they memorized growing up in religious grade and high schools and perhaps colleges. I too learned all that by memorization. But as I got older I began questioning all of it. I basically asked how do we know all this is true. And the answer I got boiled down to it’s all wishful thinking.
 
clarkgamble1 said:
I’ll probably never find it here because most of the readers of this material are quite content to believe all the things they memorized growing up in religious grade and high schools and perhaps colleges. I too learned all that by memorization
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Serious question: Since you’re not going to find the types of answers you want here, why do you keep repeatedly visiting this forum and posting here?

You’re not convincing anyone that your view is correct, and if you aren’t open minded to discussing our views, then it just seems like a huge waste of time on your part.

You also seem to have a lot of negative feelings, thoughts and emotions towards the Catholic Church. As I just said to someone elsewhere, as a believing Catholic, I would not be visiting an atheist forum regularly to criticize their views or express negative thoughts and emotions about atheism. To do so would be a big waste of my time that I could be spending on something that I enjoyed and that wasn’t likely to result in dissatisfaction for me when the atheists refused to accept my views. So why do you keep coming to this forum?
 
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Your entire rejection of God is based on your personal distaste for blood sacrifice? Or is it also the fact that God chose to reveal Himself thousands of years ago to a non-Western people- a people whose customs and lives differed drastically from your own? Yes, it’s very easy to reject what you don’t like and don’t understand- much easier when you also accuse the other side of not thinking for themselves.

If you were willing to set aside your biases, I’m sure you’d find it understandable why God wouldn’t wait until the time of PETA and iPhones to reveal Himself. If He had, He would spend all of eternity waiting. Without Him, neither of those things would have been possible. Judaism and Christianity- His modes of revelation- are responsible for converting the world from a people who sacrifice their children to trees, or slaughter 300 men, women and children a day on their altars, to a people who recognize the intrinsic value and worth of every single human individual.
 
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clarkgamble1 said:
I guess the only answer that would be acceptable to me would be one that was in complete agreement,
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And so

Do you think that by coming back here again and again, you’re ever going to get that answer?

And even more why do you care if other people have made peace with these Bible passages?
How does is affect your life?
What does it gain for you?
What does it cost you?
 
clarkgamble1 said:
I will never “get it” that such a barbaric idea that a blood sacrifice, an animal, a human, or a Jesus, to a god is somehow a good thing. It is a primitive concept that should be dropped from religious teachings and belief
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I don’t think “primitive” is the first word I would use to describe it, but rather “universal.”

Every culture from every age in every geographic location has had this concept of blood sacrifice to a deity. It’s something deeply ingrained in the human psyche and spirit.
 
Love commits the whole person, body and soul. Blood is part of the body. In ancient times blood was seen as the essential life of a person. So to give one’s blood is seen as giving the completeness of life. And that is the Truth conveyed by these scripture passages. Not that we should have bloody animal sacrifices, no. That we should commit our whole selves to love.

Christ did that. In non-violent love he gave all of himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity. It’s not that God wants blood. We make blood the price of redemption, not God.

In our obstinate rejection of Christ, he goes all the way to the bottom of death: body, blood, soul, and divinity. Nothing held back.
This is something to think about when we go about being obstinate. We make our obstinacy the price. And the more obstinate we are the higher the price.
 
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clarkgamble1 said:
I will never “get it” that such a barbaric idea that a blood sacrifice, an animal, a human, or a Jesus, to a god is somehow a good thing.
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You wouldn’t have a concept of “barbaric” unless you already had a concept of “normal” that this is allegedly a violation of. Where did that “normal” standard come from?

Likewise, you assume some things are “good” and people should do or honor only those good things.

Where did that assumption come from?
 
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Hi clarkgamble1.
I did not grow up memorizing stuff, I came into the church in my 20’s and before that I could not figure out why religious people believed in something that had about as much substance as the tooth fairy and a lucky rabbit’s foot.

As I look back at my growing up years, those men that were the most kind to me, the most generous, most loving, it turns out that they all were Catholic. When I was 10, all I knew was that they were loving and kind, that they helped me, they included me in their families. I didn’t know they were at church every Sunday. That kind of stopped me in my tracks when I was older.

The idea that, if I had a spouse, who was the love of my life, step in front of me and take a bullet from a crazy guy in a crowd, and save my life, it would cause me to weep and sob until I don’t know when. WHY would you do that? Yet I know why. They love me more than their own life. Who loves like that? Who loves like that? I know who. Jesus loves like that. From then on I could not understand why, when people hear the Gospel, they get mad, they get annoyed, they think it’s stupid. Maybe one day, it will hit them like it hit me. God has this crazy love for us that is incomprehensible. Only then does this whole thing make any sense at all. This is what I wish for you. God bless you.
 
clarkgamble1 said:
Any modern intelligent person who has studied history, logic, ethics, and perhaps comparative religions, will criticize the barbarity of the bloody part and reject the blood sacrificial practices of these barbaric bronze age ancestors. Why try to excuse them? They were non-evolved ignorant barbarians who were terrified by their gods.
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You’re totally ignoring the meat and potatoes of the message of Salvation, and you’re getting bogged down in details.

When you’ve got the clean and humble heart part down, and when you have the lifetime of love and service for your neighbor part down, and you’ve got the loving God with your whole heart thing down, and you’ve got the open-handed charity part down---- then you can get on to criticizing the whole “Lamb of God” approach.

Sin is messy. Sin is bad. Sin is ugly. Sin separates us from God.

Why would Redemption necessarily be a neat and tidy process?
 
While this discussion is worth having, this isn’t the thread for it. It isn’t so much the OP’s incredibly faulty assumptions but the attitude with which everything was said. They’re not interested in a conversation. All they did was rant and insult.
 
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