I will just say, that I'm a pagan and my best friend is a very devout (in her own way, but devout none-the-less) Catholic.

Even though we come at things from different directions, we see things in very similar ways.

are you a "devout" pagan? if so define - devout, please

Okay for tribo,

Why is a blood sacrifice necessary in religious ceremony for the forgiveness of "sins" and to whom is this sacrifice made?

JB

According to what i've studied, God started the "blood sacrifices in the garden of eden, he set this method up to put into motion what he intended at a later point in time with the birth of his son jesus "the savior" who would act as the ultimate sacrifice for all mankind. All of the blood sacrifices set up in the old testament were for atonement of religious sin!!!! hahahaha.
The jews had a name for one type - the "scapegoat" which represented the unblemished animal or sacrifice and represented Christ but all of the sacrificial animals had to be spotless or god would not accept the sacrifice - again pointing to his future time on earth as the christ.god/christ/holy spirit are all in one according to christianity - so god was really in a sense as to christ/savior - sacrificing the second person(son) to himself - god sacrificing god.This person god/man would also have to be spotless as to religious sin in everyway - unblemished no one but god could fufill that role - so god became man to do so. I donrt believe this im just stating the teachings i learned .

ps: it was "necessary" because man had fallen away from gods original grace, by eating from the fruit of the tree, 3 things would then have to take place for man to be able to reconcile himself with god, and make gods actions or justice toward's satan be righteous, 1) god's plans for man were injured when satan seduced eve to eat th fruit, god then had to present away that he could punish satan for his actions that no one or thing would find ungodly in doing. 2) setting up the blood sacrifice was that way he chose, 3) becoming man and sacrificing himself in the second person was the answer to bringing man back into fellowship with himself through christ atonemnet on the cross.

This is what I have heard too, but it does not answer the actual question.

Lets skip over the question "why" and ask the question "how" does a blood sacrifice of an unblemished animal or person, atone for sins? How is the god appeased by this?

In Jericho, the people (I have been told) sacrificed their babies to their god. So they too practiced this blood sacrifice. It was not simply something done by or for the God of Adam and Eve. It was done by and for other gods as well. Who were these other gods and why were they appeased by blood sacrifices?

My guess:
I think they were blood thirsty reptilian or draconian gods who feasted on the blood of innocents when they roamed the earth, and the primitive humans just continued these rituals even after these reptilians left the earth or went underground. This actually makes more sense to me that a loving god being appeased by this kind of violent and bloody sacrifice.

JB

the scapegoat had to do with Cain, and what Cain represents. Not to be touched by man nor hindered.

The lamb is an emblem of inherent surrender and gentleness, emblematic of Christ.

The Cross was ordained because of the rebellious nature of the people of JHWH, not because of the entirity and enormity of the covetousness of Isra-el so disengenuously enamored by the doings and constructs and inventions of their neighbors whose guiding light was not the LORD, JHWH, but another, so described as Satan, the God of this world.

The distinction going back to the Garden of Eden speaks more of the difference between the knowledge of good and evil, on the one hand, and the fruit of life which is an emblem of the Word of God, spoken to man through JHWH, exclusively, on the other hand.

Where the world is paradoxically suffering incoherence is in the fact that on the other hand, JHWH, Jesus incarnate, is the only voice given man to know the will of the Creator.

But such is lost on the lost, until they be found.


Notably, as sheep, metaphorically speaking, and not as goats,(stubborn and recalcitrant and rebellious) , metaphorically speaking.

That would be the way it is.

But then, that is not the way it is with all that will not come forward and partake of the goodness of the Lord.

Excuses abound and excuses are the wall in the midst of the Garden of Eden.

That wall is a metaphor too.

Very few can get past the first few chapters of Genesis and continue on in faith.

Most rationalize that it is gibberish.

No need to proceed further than that when ones' personal judgement is set.


Allegories abound.

So be it.


peace.

HOW? i can only say that to the religious belief - that it is what god set up. I cannot tell you for sure why he set it up past what i've posted being it was his decission to use this method to bring abut that which he desired, i don't think as abra does (blood thirsty) as the monotheistic believers believe that god is not blood thirsty, i just believe that god is a fictional character invented by men to rule an unruly people as to the isrialites especially. in other words man created yaweh/ the I am, god did not create man/mankind all of mans gods are blood thirsty in that sense. or truly - man is blood thirsty!!

As to your draconian thought's i dont remeber reading that in the bible, or are we changing subject matter here?????

and the Mayans and the Incas too.

But they all fell apart when the spiritual influence looking for a sacrificial lamb didn't come from their midst. It took a few generations, but the influence waned immediately when Christ was crucified. It just took some time for the people to actually recognize that things were different, spiritually speaking.

Mayan hyroglyphics are actually phonetic Hebrew.

See ASOP, San Diego, Ca. for the proof of that.

There are things that academia would rather not address in political correctness, but there are realities to consider world wide in historicity.

Even the Aztecs were looking for the return of the Messiah.

Some would speculate that these were all the lost tribes of Isra-el, but proof is elusive.

Cortez plundered their sensitivities, but that served to preserve them.

I have just made some very conclusory remarks.

Verty much unsubstantiated by me, also.

But I won't write a book, I will just share what I know.

Don't ask. It will take too long.

Asop has books that share the imperical evidence of the connections.

I will leave it to others to seek the affirmations and the credibility of certain paleontologist's due diligence.

i agree that the bible and other writings should be seen and read as allegories and metaphor's.and your right about the scapegoat and sheep being emblematic in nature. ut the question is now "how" did it appease god the blood sacrifices any more to say?

It is not about appeasement.

It is about clearing out the cobwebs.

But now, some 2000 years later, we have new cobwebs, which will not be answered to those seeking excuses, first and foremost, for the way things are.

the excuses are centered on fear and unbelief and dismay and the sheer reluctance to suffer the lack so engendered in imaginary display by all that seek the world's good, carnally, and in the balance choose to partake more of temporal gratification than spiritual enlightenment.

Which is emblematic of the very condition of early man and specifically, Isra-el, in that they sought out more the auspices of their neighbors and their artifices than the simple pleasures of life without the distraction of the temptation to be like the short sighted around them.

They had it all and sought to think otherwise for themselves.

Beccause of pride, no less.

The wall in the midst of the Garden, so to speak.

Oversimplified, but to the point. seeking is finding.

JB - on the "how" maybe this will help - god already knew that man would be tempted and fall so god had already worked out his plan to bring back mankind (believer's) through his sacrifice of christ, knowing this he set into motion this method to insure when the time came it would meet "HIS" need's to reconcile those who had dis obeyed and fallen (ORIGINAL SIN)and provide a way back that would still show his justice toward's satan as well as mankind and also toward's the angelic being's. how does it pay for religious sin's? By atonement, would it be my choice? no, but it the christian god's choice.

Not changing the subject at all. Just trying to make sense out of information gathered. I give all information credit for having some purpose and I evaluate all information, not just the Bible. Although the Bible does speak of the serpent who walked like a man in the Garden of Eden and of fallen angels who mated with human women. These could have been reptilians or draconian gods spoken about by others.

The Left Hand Path is one of power, pride, freedom, indulgence, revenge, and (for me) happiness.

Church of Satan.

You are correct, beautiful.

Sorry about all the sudden messages, but I have been busy. Doing good deeds.

agreed

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

Amen

Exactly.

I think the story can certainly make sense as a dungeon and dragons fairytale. Just like the Lord of the Rings made sense within it's own story plot.

As long as people remain within the story they can make sense of it, because they aren't willing to take their eyes off the story.

This would be like going to a movie and asking questions about the movie trying to answer all the question within the plot of the story.

In other words, like with the Lord of the Rings. Why was the ring so powerful and why did it have to be dropped into the lava of mount doom to destroy it.

Well DUH???? That's what they story said needed to be done! You don't ask questions of why that needed to be done. There's no need to step outside of the story to understand it.

You could do that with the bible and say, fine. It makes perfect sense. except, the Bible isn't claiming to be a fictitious movie at a theater.

It's claiming to be a picture of the creator of this universe!

OUR CREATOR. The God who CREATE US!!!

Therefore, not only do we have a right to step outside of the biblical story to question it. We are obligated to do so!

So asking question like, "Why would an all-wise God choose to have man offer him blood sacrifices as appeasements for sins"?

We can't just say, "Well because that's what God wants".

That's not a real world answer. That a movie screen answer. That would work for a movie, but not for the real world.

In the real world we have every right to recognize that a God asking men to give blood sacrifices is not a wise thing to do.

What would be taught by this? It's sending mixed signals. All kinds of mixed signals. First off, why should man even care? So big deal. If he wants to sin all he needs to do is go sin, then come back and kill a few lambs and all is forgiven. What message does that send? It that a lesson that any all-wise father would teach to his children?

Personally I don't think so. I don't see any valuable or constructive lesson in a God asking for blood sacrifices at all.

This just does not appear to me to be what an all-wise, all-loving God would come up with. This sounds much more like what the men who lived back in those days would have come up with!

If I had to choose which I feel is more likely, I would definitely choose to believe that mankind made this up. It makes absolutely no sense to me that an all-wise God would do something like that.

Especially in light of the fact that his supposedly all-wise, and all-knowing God would know that modern men are going to be expected to believe these stories.

This is where it all breaks down. I can't see a reasonable reason for God to request blood sacrifices for atonements for sins.

Jeanniebean suggests that maybe aliens were involved. I can certainly understand her reasoning there. Maybe there were actual beings that did want food, so they requested blood sacrifices. However, I have to honestly say that I don't buy into that one either.

Wouldee had pointed out that the Incas and Mayans (and many other religions around the world had various forms of 'blood sacrifices' to the gods.

I tend to believe that this is just the kind of thing that mankind innately makes up. The Mayans in particular believed that there were only so many "souls" available. So they would conduct make-believe wars pitting brother against brother. Just to reduce their population when it got so large. The idea being that the souls that died could then be reincarnated and new babies could be born.

I'm not sure why they believed that. Just goes to show that some idiot can dream something up and then a whole culture will go along with it. Clearly they were wrong. But in some ways it's too bad. Had they been right we wouldn't have the overpopulation problem that we have today.

I never did understand though why they still just didn't wait until people died naturally anyway. What was the rush. So no new kids are being born. Is that really a big problem?

Just goes to how crazy religions can be!!! People will believe anything.