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From: alm@tekecs.UUCP (Al Moak)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Rowing through the fog
Message-ID: <7675@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Sep-86 11:40:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.7675
Posted: Thu Sep 25 11:40:57 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 00:35:16 EDT
References: <162@BMS-AT.UUCP> <32500077@uiucdcsb> <7457MIQ@PSUVMA>
Reply-To: alm@tekecs.UUCP (Al Moak)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 100

In article <7457MIQ@PSUVMA> MIQ@PSUVMA.BITNET writes:
>In article <32500077@uiucdcsb>, mcewan@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU says:
>     
>>>>>> What's the big deal about "dying" to prove your love when you know you
>>>>>> can come back from the grave at will?
>     
>>>>>      Christ's sacrafice wasn't His life-- it was going through the pain of
>>>>> death.  And crucifixion is a *very* painful death indeed.
>     
>>>>For human beings. Trivial for an omnipotent God.
>     
>>>      Agony is trivial?  News to me.
>     
>>Are you a god?
>     
>     Nope.  Are you?
>     
>>>      Omnipotent or not, He was in *human* form.  He felt everything that
>>> humans feel, including extreme pain.
>     
>>But what is pain as we know it to an omnipotent being?  For an immortal,
>>omnipotent being to spend a finite amount of time experiencing pain as
>>finite creatures know it is trivial.
>     
>     You sure seem to know a lot about omnipotent immortals.  I suppose you
>could compare it to a human, with a life-span of about 70 years, experiencing
>agony for about 5 minutes.  It's not an *exact* ratio, of course, since a ratio
>including infinity is meaningless.  But it's a decent approximation.
>     
>     Anyhoo, you have a human who lives for about 70 years, and spends 5 min.
>in agony.  Sure sounds trivial-- unless you're the human and in the middle of
>those five minutes.  And you voluntarily opted to go through it.
>     
>>>      BTW, in case you feel like another knee-jerk anti-religious response, I
>>> just wanted to know that I'm an agnostic.
>     
>>This is something I thought about a great deal before deciding that the
>>Christian reasoning about Jesus' "sacrifice" was complete nonsense. You,
>>on the other hand, appear to have just parroted the Christian line without
>>giving any thought to it.
>>
>>And I am not fanatically anti-religious, I just get irritated when someone
>>spouts nonsense as though it were obviously true.
>     
>     Uhhmmmm... it seemed to me that the whole point of this was that, even
>*given* that the death & resurrection occurred, it wasn't any big deal.
>I'm not spouting nonsense (by that I assume you mean the Christian belief
>in Who Christ was).  And again I say, that regardless of what Christ was
>(or wasn't) before and after the crucifixion, for those hours on the cross
>He was human, and He could and *did* feel pain.
>     
>     Dave Krause was nice enough to send me some e-mail, in which he
>pointed out some of the biblical accounts which back me up on this.  Of
>course, you'll be quick to say that the Bible isn't dependable as a historical
>account.  But again, this whole thing was started by someone who said that
>even *given* the Christian beliefs as true, Christ still didn't make any
>noteworthy sacrafice.  If you're assuming Christian beliefs as true, then
>biblical accounts become admissable as evidence.
>     
>     As an aside, someone else mentioned that after a short time, shock would
>have caused Jesus to pass out-- or at least stop feeling pain.  I have a
>friend who works as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) who agrees with
>this, saying that people who lose fingers/hands/limbs usually feel no pain
>because of shock.  On the other hand, I've got another friend who has actually
>lost a finger.  He said it hurt like hell.
>     
>>>  I just get ticked off when people
>>> try to argue things they know nothing about.
>     
>>So do I.
>     
>     Well, when you get through being ticked off at yourself, try sending an
>intelligent reply.
>     
>     
>                                            -- James Phillips
>     

I don't desire to call anyone ignorant, especially those like yourselves who
are obviously not ignorant in any general sense, but I do feel that you are
ignorant of the facts of Christ's sacrifice. Yes, the pain was intense. The
agony of crucifixion is horrible. But EVEN that was not THE sacrifice. Consider
someone whom you love intensely. Consider that that person has been very, very
good to people, but the people to whom he was good are now trying to do away
with him discredit him, villify him, etc. But you, in your intense love for
him, along with your intense pitying love for the people who hate him, decide
to volluntarily assume their guilt - in such a way that you are actually
counted as guilty of every one of their terrible attitudes, wrongful actions,
etc. In your assumed guilt, you are executed. In your execution, you are
absolutely disowned and totally deserted by your beloved. In the midst of your
agony, he tells you that he disowns you and will desert you. You accept this as
though you had been the one to hate him, though you love him. Your heart
breaks. 

Obviously, Christ's agony is all this and much more, because we can't even
begin to fully understand the intensity of His love for the Father. Now, if you
truly understand this, you see wherein His SACRIFICE consisted. May He enable
you to see it, at least a little.

                                            -- Al Moak