to not understand why Christians think Jesus died for our sins?

[switcheroooo]

If Jesus died for everyone's sins, does that mean people are not accountable for their actions? You can kill people, steal and lie but have a protected status because Jesus died for your sins.

How does this work? Why are people not responsible for their own sins? Where is the justice?

Sent his son to die in our place so we can be forgiven

Do you not want free will? Would you rather have been struck dead the first time you lied?

So god does nothing about all those children being abused, raped and murdered as he doesn't want to intrude on the free will of the abusers? That's fucking sick.

Laws in the UK primarily comes from common law, parliamentary statutes and, more recently, international law. Common law originates from the Middle Ages, and mainly after the Norman conquests and applied across the country and all the kings courts. Sure, the 10 commandments influenced them, and did many other things. But it’s incorrect, and tenuous in the extreme, to say our laws are based on the 10 commandments. Why do those who espouse religion so strongly have such a poor grasp of history?

Funny how he answers prayers though.

Name another, something more recent than that.

There's no point in trying to make sense of any of this nonsense. Dying for us, blood sacrifices, prayers... It's all rubbish.

Seriously? This is the level at which you think? No wonder your version of god (not to mention your understanding of the law) are so basic.

Do tell, how does my ‘free will’ to lie impact upon a child born with a painful, incurable disease on the other side of the world?

You absolutely live in a world with right and wrong. Good people don’t need someone to tell them the difference. Good people don’t need the fear of punishment or consequences to choose well.

if your sense of morality is not intrinsic, then you need to do some serious personal work. An external basis for morality is fundamentally flawed

Right and wrong do not require any belief in god. And which god is one to believe in anyway? At the last count there were areound 3,000 of them. They can’t all be right. Indeed, if one is right all the others are the wrong one. So, what’s more likely is that there is no one supreme entity at all.

People are social creatures, on the whole, and society works on a set of behaviours based on consensus and rules, enforced by law if necessary. A definite punishment in this world is surely a better deterrent than a maybe punishment in an imaginary after life!

Sorry you are quite right it was another poster. My error.

There’s evidence for the police. There’s no evidence for god

"Evolution requires murder and death..." Huh?

We are not born with an innate sense of right and wrong, we learn it from our parents/society. Most children are total psychopaths without proper socialisation. All social creatures have actions which are beneficial to the group and any members who do not display them are ousted as they threaten the group. Humans are no different.

This point is the one I have never seen Christian’s explain.

He is imaginary. You’re allowed to say he isn’t. I’m allowed to say he is.

To give my answer to the OP's question, the best explanation I've come across is to be found in a video called "Where Heaven and Earth Overlap" by the Bible Project (I tried to link to it earlier in the thread but don't think YouTube links work).

Essentially the best way to understand the Bible is as an overarching storyline. When God created Earth, Heaven and Earth were united in the Garden of Eden. (To my mind this is a description of the pre-agricultural world where humans lived a hunter gatherer lifestyle in a close relationship with nature, living off the land but not shaping it.) Eventually people started to become more self-aware and wanted to take control of the world God created. (My own theory is that the eating of the fruit in the story is a metaphor for the agricultural revolution whereby humans started to take control of Creation.)

Since then a rift has grown between humans and God, as humans are shown in the Old Testament to repeatedly make poor choices. In the OT people made 'Holy spaces' to get close to God again, and they did this through the use of animal sacrifices. This didn't work in the long term and people continued to make poor choices, drifting further from God's Kingdom.

This is where Jesus comes in - he was a walking, human version of the Holy spaces OT people made through their animal sacrifices. His death represents the union of Heaven and Earth, making it possible for all of us to get close to God again without having to go to a particular place or slaughter an animal.

Jesus loved children and, in Matthew 18 v 6, He said 'If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.'

It’s really interesting seeing how some people struggle with the concept that not everyone is accountable for their actions. People can rape, murder, start wars and commit horrific crimes, but if they’re not punished in this life then basically they die and get away with it. That’s it. I’m a realist. I know life isn’t a series of cute little boxes all tied up with a pretty bow. Sometimes bad shit happens and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. I guess some people really can’t grasp that, so they need to believe that people will get their punishment after they’ve died for their own peace of mind.

So god is just a character in someone else’s story? Not the author?

Sorry don't get this? I believe God wrote the Bible through various humans at various points in history. Other viewpoints are available though of course!

Well, people on here cling desperately to the idea of karma for similar reasons.

Jesus had to die for man to get close to god again.

god is omnipotent, so there is nothing that says he couldn’t let us get close without that happening.

so either someone else makes the rules and god has to adhere to them. Or god does, and deliberately chose to not let man get close and to sacrifice his son for no reason.

do you have a view on which of those it is?

Very true.

But the point is that humans made the choice in "eating the fruit" / deciding to take control of Creation and decide for themselves what is right and wrong. That relationship became fundamentally broken by that decision. We wouldn't truly love God if he just "made" us love him. We'd just be his playthings, and for all our faults he gives us more dignity than that.

How on earth does Jesus (who may or may not have been a real person) dying mean that man gets closer to God (a being we have no evidence for) again? You're just spouting stuff you've heard without giving it any thought! Have some pride and engage your brain before you parrot what you've been told or read.