We’ve all been wondering, so philosopher VJ Torley explains it (WARNING: Torley’s is a long, sprawling post defending intelligent design and arguing against atheism):
Q. Why couldn’t God just forgive people, why did he have to have his son murdered in order to be able to do so?
First, God didn’t “have His son murdered.” He allowed His Son to be murdered.
Second, He didn’t have to allow His Son murdered. Many theologians down the ages have taught that God could have redeemed the human race in some other way. The commonly accepted teaching is that God chose to become incarnate and submit to crucifixion, because that would be the most perfect way for Him to redeem the human race, albeit an extremely painful one. Death on the Cross shows, like nothing else, how much God loves us.
Does that sound like human sacrifice? Yes – but with a difference: the victim freely accepted His death. Jesus didn’t have to die, which is why the Catholic Mass contains the words, “a death He freely accepted.”
The question comes from Libby Anne at the excellent Love, Joy, Feminism.
But let’s think a little about Torley’s response here. First, it makes me wonder why Catholics as a group tend not to favor physician-assisted suicide–the doctor doesn’t cause the patient to die but instead allows the patient to cause her or his own death. And the patient freely accepts death.
Second, and more importantly, how can anyone find Torley’s assessment of “the Death on the Cross” as anything other than narrow, grotesque, and patent bullshit? Allowing your child to be murdered to show the murderers you love them is psychopathic behavior. Such behavior is to be vilified, to say nothing of avoided. Yet, for God-Jesus, this behavior is perfection–perfection, friends.
To put things in perspective, then, if you’re a Mormon and believe Jesus will visit you in Independence, Missouri: that’s fucked up. But if you’re some other Christian and think God and Jesus did the most wonderful thing in allowing Jesus to get raped and killed, then that’s just good dogma (he might have been raped–who knows?).
Oh, and ignore that first part of the question, about why alleged-God allegedly needed to have to forgive people. Just assume that makes sense.
My point? Libby Anne’s questions encapsulate Christianity’s preposterousness. The questions themselves reveal the incoherency of the belief because they show that Christianity can only be rationalized; it can’t be explained. Christianity is not a fact.
Sheesh. Anti-atheists claim it takes too much faith to be an atheist.
