That's only because you skipped out in the middle of the third act of the passion story. What you fail to realize is without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity. While the cross is important, it's nothing compared to what happened afterwards. Christians believe that Jesus is still alive.
"My sheltered life doesn't seem so bad if it means missing such evil rot as The Passion and Hellraiser. And yes, I mean both."
The Passion is hardly evil rot! Unlike Hellraiser, a desensitizing experience, The Passion is sensitizing. You feel sorry for Jesus, and understand how he suffered for us. To further clarify:
| DESENSITIZING | SENSITIZING |
| Independence Day, where crowds of moviegoers cheered as the White House was destroyed. | September 11th, where real buildings were demolished by terrorists, and we found it horrible. |
| Horror movies, which depict certain people as stupid, unlikeable, responsible for doing something bad, and people enjoy watching them die. | The Passion, where the victim is innocent, intelligent, liked by the masses, and nobody can say he deserved to be killed. We feel sorry for him, and glad when he is raised from the dead. |
Me: "To some, the crucifixion loses its punch because they've seen so much worse things in horror films."
Agnostic: "And so, one is supposed to rejoice that this murder happened? Shame, and more than that, upon them all."
As I said. The Passion is a sensitizing experience. We see how we are wrong to want criminals and the like to die. And we rejoice that Jesus voluntarily took this execution upon himself to save us from our sins. And that he rose from the dead.
"If the ressurrection was so &@#% wonderful, why did God have someone else go through it instead of his Son?"
Think about how horrible He'd be if He did that. Picking out some poor, unwitting human being to do the same job, instead of inhabiting a human body and doing it Himself. But we will all go through the ressurrection one day, but we must share in Christ's death first. But, aside from that, `why Jesus?' you ask? Only Jesus, a perfect human being, and part God, could provide the sacrifice required.
"`His only begotten son', eh? What about other worlds and times?"
The creed says "before all worlds." Jesus died before all worlds.
"And just how hard would it be for a God to have sons, anyway."
He didn't have sex, if that's what you mean. He simply created Jesus in Mary's womb spontaneously, out of thin air.
"Jesus was a good human being, nothing more."
Jesus was either the son of God or a madman. We normally don't consider madmen to be good. So...
"Are you the son of Bramah?"
Buddha: "My son, you are still in the vale of illusion."
"Are you Zeus?"
Socrates laughs.
"Are you Allah?"
Muhammed tears his clothes and chops your head off.
"Are you heaven?"
Confucius: "Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste."
(Source: Griffin, C.S. Lewis: A dramatic life, 309-310).
All these good moral teachers would make no claim at divinity. How can an insane man be a good moral teacher like the people listed above? Why would you follow an insane man's example? Why would you call an insane man's example `moral?' Why would a good moral teacher tell people that the fate or destiny of humanity rests in his hands? Why would a good moral teacher tell people that they would go to heaven or hell, depending on whether or not they believed in him? It's only a good example of lunacy. Would a good moral teacher argue that he's the savior of the world? Would this be at all a `good example' to follow? So either Jesus is the son of God, or he was a crazy man that no one should follow. Even Buddha didn't proclaim a teaching by his own authority, unlike Jesus, who said, "Truly I say to you..." Instead, Buddha stated that his teachings were important, regardless of whether he existed or not. Besides, why would people worship a metaphor or a "good moral teacher?" And, in terms of the Torah only, Jesus would not be considered a good moral teacher because of Psalm 49. If he is a mere man, he would be a contradiction of that psalm. People who say that `Jesus is just a man' say that because they cannot deal with it. They find the idea of Jesus as the son of God so alien and strange that they need to make Jesus into something less powerful.
"Jesus only appeared to die on the cross, so, while he came out of the tomb, he actually died several weeks afterwards from the wounds. The medicine of that day and age wasn't that good, you see."
This is another ad ignorantum, but it's posted here because we need to examine this accusation more in depth. Just because we don't know that's what happened doesn't mean that's what happened. And how can a man not be dead if a centurion checked Jesus' vitals by stabbing him? "Ow?" He would have done something if he were still alive at that point. Instead, he didn't react. He was put in a tomb. The centurion wasn't going to risk doing a bad job, since that would more than likely mean his execution. As Josh McDowell's More Than A Carpenter book says, "Would you die for a lie?" People died because they believed and preached that Jesus was reanimated. They could have just said, "No, wait a minute. I was only making that story up!" The rabbis of the temples of Jesus' era and the Romans would have been more than happy to parade around the body of Jesus. The resurrection is the most crucial part of the Christ story. Whether or not other parts of the story were embellished, people died for the sake of sharing the resurrection story. That part is more than just a wishful thinking fiction story. Also, a fictional story from that day and age wouldn't have made use of a Jewish woman's testimony because it would be useless in court. But Mary Magdaline saw the resurrected Jesus. You think the Jewish people of that era would have automatically dismissed the resurrection story on that ground alone. But people `bought it' and died on account of it. And the funny thing is that people who were cowards the friday before now suddenly had a burst of courage and confidence after this unprovable resurrection. The death of Jesus should have demoralized them. Why would Peter and John and other disciples be so brave and confident if Jesus had only appeared to resurrect, then die in a cave somewhere? The disciples did a complete turnaround, from running away from the Romans as Jesus was taken away to die, to becoming martyrs and prisoners for the name of Jesus. It's baffling to think of a corpse inspiring that much confidence. To face threats of death, to speak to crowds, about a man who died and lived no more. Baffling. They said that Jesus appeared to 500 people after his crucifixion. (1 Cor 15:6), on 12 occassions, and he taught them for 40 days(Acts 1:3). You think a normal guy would have died of a fatal blood infection or something a few days after crucifixion, and not survive 40 days, especially with the horrible medicine they had back then. 500 people could have easily disputed these claims. And you'd think, if it were all a lie, that at least one of the apostles would have buckled under the pressure, and told the truth, and we'd have some archeological discovery of a text saying so. It went on by word of mouth for quite some time. Plenty of time for questioning. You'd think they'd sweat the truth out of the apostles eventually. If Jesus merely `swooned' on the cross to die later, then there would be no point to Christianity. There's no "appearing to die." He had to have died or there's no point in me being Christian. I would be better off as an Orthodox Judaism observing gentile. Moslems believe Jesus didn't die, because they believe no prophets can die. They see Jesus only as a prophet. But I believe Jesus truly died and came back to life, and he still lives today. Sure, they might have had bad medicine back then. One time, after I had gone to two consecutive church services, I began thinking the same thing. I doubted. I became an atheist for a day. I've seen people put in caskets. I never saw those people again. You're raising that same exact doubt again. I don't have an answer for it. I don't know if Jairus's daughter or Lazarus truly died. But nobody came and snatched Jesus off the cross. They let him hang up and suffer there for a whole day. How could you possibly survive a crucifixion if nobody takes you down from the cross for a whole day? He wasn't tied there. This is what happened during his execution: Jesus was flogged with whips, cat-o-nine tails with bits of metal and glass stuck on the end of them. Jesus was stripped naked and flogged with those until his flesh hung down in bloody strips. And they drove a crown of thorns into his head. They put a robe on him. With those open wounds, that wouldn't have been pleasant. When they later removed the robe, it was further torture. Then he had to carry his cross to the execution place. They drove giant nails into the areas in his arms below his wrists, stacked his feet on top of each other and nailed through both of them to an inclined board, so you have to move the nail through both your feet and push upwards in order to breathe. He was suspended by his wrists. When you're crucified, the blood goes to the lower half of the body. Fast. In only 6-12 minutes, your blood pressure drops 50% and your pulse rate doubles. Eventually, too much blood goes in the heart and you faint. There's not enough blood to circulate to the brain and heart. You die due to heart failure, or maybe asphyxiation. Jesus didn't accept the painkillers they offered. They said he breathed his last. And a soldier stabbed him, too. To check if he was dead. Blood and water came out of the wound. Your argument will only be compelling if you can show me a documented case, "besides Jesus" where somone survived that kind of torture and lived. Besides, if Jesus was in that bad of a shape, he'd need serious medical attention, which wasn't that good in those days, it would have meant that Jesus eventually died, and therefore the disciples would have no good reason to think that Jesus had the power to conquer death, a concept the disciples later lived and died for. They would have been sad, not joyful, and they'd be anything but worshipful of a wounded victim who just ended up dying anyway. People have been martyred for the name of Jesus. People have dedicated their whole lives to Jesus, because he conquered death. People died rather than denied the name of Jesus. Why would people die for the sake of a lie? I think the "they moved the body somewhere else" would be more convincing than that argument. There's a bible account that says someone bribed a disciple or someone to say just that after Jesus died. The disciples were saddened over the loss of Jesus, they respected the government because Jesus told them to, so they wouldn't have stolen the body. If the government had found the body of Jesus, they would have carted it through the city and destroyed Christianity before it started. Roman officials could have refuted any argument about the resurrection of Jesus just by bringing out the body.
"But you said Jesus went to heaven! You only go to heaven when you're dead!"
I believe Jesus went into heaven bodily. I believe Elijah went into heaven bodily, because God took him there. I believe God/Jesus has the power over death. Jesus is alive, but yet Jesus died on the cross. He was buried, he went into hell, then he rose from the grave and went into heaven. The disciples saw him go up in a cloud into heaven. The disciples saw him, physically, in the flesh, alive, after he had died on the cross. Why does the presence of Jesus in heaven make any difference? He's the son of God. He can go anywhere he wants.
"`The priests in Jesus' time crucified Jesus for blasphemy?' A `sin'? That's only because of their belief in an invisible spook for whom they had to kill, because He apparently can't do anything for Himself. I say they committed murder, because the law was based on untruth - the supposed existance of God (good) and Satan (sin)."
He was also crucified because people thought he was planning to overthrow the government. But if Jesus is the son of God, then the accusation of blasphemy is a human one, not from God, whom you slanderously call `a spook.' God used those humans, wrong headed as they were, to sacrifice Jesus for our sins. So his death was not a pointlessly cruel murder, nor an example of God's absenteeism, in other words, the supposed `untruth' you speak of.
"Even if Jesus died for our sins, I don't see any evidence that he died for our ruined bodies."
Well, that doesn't matter anyway. He ressurrected for our ruined bodies. We die, then we are raised perfect.
"The crucifixion doesn't seem to have been a very effective gesture- at least in this world. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be, but the price was rather high if not- and as I look around at the world, I'd say something a bit more effective on this mundane level would have been nicer."
People thought that Jesus would bring peace to the world. He did. He brings peace to every believer's heart. I believe one day there will be peace across the entire earth because everyone will believe in Jesus, and then Jesus will return from heaven bodily, glorified, and rule earth. You can't imagine that because you can't relate to a world like that, because you haven't experienced it. But I've tasted a microcosm of it in religious gatherings. I can imagine a world like that. It would be wonderful. No one would steal anything or kill anyone anymore, because they'd all worship Jesus. That's what I believe will happen one day. Isaiah 65 says that the messiah (whom we know is Jesus now) will bring a kingdom without war, violence, hatred, death, suffering, pain, etc.
But, how's this for effective?
Christianity would fall apart if we believed that. You're ignoring the whole Easter account. The best part is, because he conquered death by rising from the grave, we too can live forever like him.