this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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Atheism

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[–] taladar@feddit.de 39 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The whole redemption thing itself doesn't even make sense unless you buy into inherited guilt and into sacrificing another to absolve yourself from guilt which are both rather outdated concepts in our modern morality.

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You’re saying my plan for fixing climate change by sacrificing the rich to the fire god is outdated and unlikely to work?

[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago

idk it’s still definitely worth trying

[–] DasRubberDuck@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

Hehe fire... Fire! FIRE! 🔥🔥

[–] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

If you sacrifice enough of them it should work.

WTF I'm suddenly feeling very religious

[–] Bread@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I mean, it could still work. Whether it was because of the fire god or eliminating the problematic people, we will never truly know.

[–] isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

That and it was the way Romans dealt with literally anyone deemed... a nuisance? 😂

[–] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

You described christianity quite well there

[–] kromem@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It makes more sense when you know that 2nd temple Judaism had an entire economy built around animal sacrifice for sins, and that the temple central to that is destroyed a few decades after Jesus died as Christianity was starting to take off.

So positioning Jesus's death not as an embarrassing failure to manifest earlier messianic prophecy but as this ultimate sacrifice making the animal sacrifices that could no longer be performed unnecessary was a very convenient belief to attract Jewish converts.

Of course, then Mark 11:16, where Jesus bans anyone from carrying animal sacrifices through the temple in the first place while alive becomes an inconvenient detail, which is probably why it later disappears from Luke and Matthew.

So Christianity probably really was a split from 2nd temple Judaism at the time of Jesus on the point of animal sacrifice, but then following his death the death itself gets reworked back into the paradigm of animal sacrifice by those coming later (i.e. Paul) which then later makes it more attractive to Jews who no longer have a temple after 70 CE when it takes even greater prominence.

The irony of course is that looking at some of the early apocryphal sayings of Jesus on the ridiculousness of sin and salvation as an inherent birthright that shouldn't be given over to another to be lent back out at interest - this development of the crucifixion as an ultimate sacrifice on behalf of humanity was possibly the exact opposite of a historical Jesus's whole point, even if it was favored for survivorship bias given the destruction of the temple.