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From: dhk@ptsfa.UUCP (David Krause)
Newsgroups: net.origins,talk.origins,net.religion.christian,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Rowing through the fog
Message-ID: <1662@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Sep-86 03:17:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.1662
Posted: Wed Sep 17 03:17:30 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 00:57:37 EDT
References: <162@BMS-AT.UUCP> <32500078@uiucdcsb>
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Xref: linus net.origins:3508 talk.origins:47 net.religion.christian:4649 talk.religion.misc:91
Summary: Joy vs. Pain

In article <32500078@uiucdcsb>, mcewan@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU writes:
> 
> >>>What's the big deal about "dying" to prove your love when you know you can
> >>>come back from the grave at will?

    [ Lines deleted in interest of space ]

> > 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
> 

Scott,

If span of existence is inversely related to sensitivity to pain,
then my dentist should able to predict how long people are going
to live by how much drilling they can take before they shout for
the novocaine!

Here's another analogy for you to consider.  My wife's delivery of
our youngest son was (like her earlier child deliveries) was one
of the most excruciatingly painful experiences of her life.  Yet,
when I was accompanying her out of the delivery room afterwards, she
remarked that the whole experience suddenly seemed like something
in the distant past.  She forgot her recent anguish in the joy that
a little boy was brought into the world.

Likewise, the Biblical record (in Hebrews 12:2) is that Jesus "endured
the cross, despising the shame", "for the joy that was set before him"--
the joy of redeeming from the slave-markets of sin the likes of you and
me.

David