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From: mcewan@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Rowing through the fog
Message-ID: <32500078@uiucdcsb>
Date: Sun, 14-Sep-86 18:13:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.32500078
Posted: Sun Sep 14 18:13:00 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 00:41:24 EDT
References: <162@BMS-AT.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:BMS-AT.UUCP:162:uiucdcsb:32500078:000:1917
Nf-From: uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU!mcewan    Sep 14 17:13:00 1986


>>>What's the big deal about "dying" to prove your love when you know you can
>>>come back from the grave at will?
>> 
>> 	Getting nailed to a large block of wood is FUN?  (I'd be curious
>>    how you spend your weekends ...)
> 
> There's a couple of things to remember.  First, crucifixion is an incredibly
> painful and demeaning death -- so much so that no Roman Citizen could be
> crucified.  Likewise the scourging with barbed whips. Next, remember that
> Jesus was fully God but also fully human, with all the doubts, fears, anxieties
> and other blessings of our human nature.  Suppose I offered you the opportunity
> to face crucifixion with the promise that I would somehow preserve you from
> final death, and restore you to life a couple of ways later.  Suppose that
> you had seen me do it.  Would you be especially thrilled at the thought?
> 
> I have a colleague who had two root canal jobs performed with no anesthesia
> (Suffice it to say that they were done in a communist bloc country and he is
> a member of an ethnic minority which is not favored.)  He was not killed; the
> bruises have healed on his body and limbs (where he strained against the straps
> holding him so that he couldn't run from the pain.
> 
> The procedure was, overall, a good thing.  So what would be the big deal of
> going through with it?

That isn't a good analogy, since the person you're responding to isn't (I
assume) a god. A better analogy is "would you be willing to spend 1/100th
of a second as an ant experiencing something that is very painful to the
ant?" This still isn't a perfect analogy, since the 1/100 second is a much
longer period (compared to total span of existence) than Jesus' time on
the cross, and the difference between human and ant is much less than that
between human and God, but you get the idea.

		Scott McEwan
		{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!mcewan

"Guy's brain-damaged, but he's not stupid."