Vinnie

Hot off the press!

http://www.acfaith.com/penal.html

Here I point out ten difficulties with the most popular Western understanding of Jesus' death on the cross. Instead of making evident the significance of Jesus' death on the cross, the PS model of atonement raises insurmountable difficulties and distorts the image of God.

Vinnie

Radorth

Sapone intentionally complicates the issue, asks for many assumptions, and is goofy from the getgo:

Huh? How bright does God have to be to assume people with free will will sin and will continue to sin even after Christ comes? Either I misunderstand the question or it is a dumb one.

Huh? Who cares when he forgave them? Last week God could do anything. This week he can't apparently.

From (3)

Oh my. Do I really have to go find and list them here?

Well of course he does. God is to be the judge, not us. He's also keeping us from being judged as we hypocritically judge, thus sparing us from the severe judgement of the unconfessed hypocrite.

No they don't indicate any such thing except that God might error on the side of mercy. All they indicate is that WE are not to personally exact judgement. That's why we have police departments and why you can go to jail for carrying out your own justice or even for using more force than is required to defend yourself. These are all NT concepts. We need an independent judge, always, and hopefully a merciful one.

This whole line of reasoning is full of holes a little thought will expose. Of course if you've never had any Zen training...

Rad

Vinnie

Is that the extent of your critique of what I wrote???

Vinnie

Radorth

You are pretty much just saying God cannot do certain things if you disagree with them or find them illogical. Your essay is full of the most absurd assumptions, for example that the Gospel message to starving kids in Africa must be atonement for their sins. Actually the message is "Jesus sent me to bring you this food."

Hopefully you're sending money so they don't get the idea atheists just sit around arguing the atonement, and only the Christians are doing anything about their hunger.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

Vinnie isn't an atheist. Check his profile.

Vinnie

How quickly the argument reverts to questions of character. I do not give as much money or donate as much time as I should doing charitable things but I do sponsor a child through the Christian program Compassion International. Most of my time is spent studying faith issues and learning and writing on things.

But what does this have to do with my arguments against penal substitution though? And you are incorrect in that you implied that I was an atheist. Not to mention your comment was illogical. These starving children hardly have the means to view my article on the computer and get the impression that atheists don't care. Oh wait, that wasn't meant literally, you were just "attacking" *yawn*

Okay, so maybe you are another person who thinks it is ethical to punish one person on account of the sin of someone else. Yeah, I find this view to be ridiculously idiotic. Here, as I said in objection 10:

"Further, imagine if a judge considered a whole family worthy of punishment on account of the crime committed by one person in the family. " Even baby-eating, incompassionate atheists who lack all sense of moral decency recognize this moral problem But you think some ancient manuscripts were dictated by God so you feel justified in calling injustice justice :boohoo:

I did not critique the Gospeel message to starving kids in africa. I critiqued the penal substitution model. The PS model is not official (tm) Christian doctrine. Rather, it is the most commonly held form of atonement theology today in the Western world. But for a better Christian alternative see

Metacrock's article

Vinnie

Radorth

My apologies for presuming you an atheist.

That's not what I was implying. I was expanding on my comment about your absurd, patronizing suggestion that Christians are busy preaching atonement doctrine to starving people.

You win the "Analogy for Morons" trophy this week. Nice going.

Rad

Vinnie

Well let me expand on your reading comprehehnsion problem and point out that I never suggested that.

I'm going to have to take that as a compliment

Vinnie

Radorth

Really? What are you going to say then? That you were just suggesting what somebody else said here?

Do tell us what you were suggesting in no 9 then.

Rad

Vinnie

It is a hypothetical argument based upon what that model of penal substitution says. I would only hope someone is not ridiculous enough to actually preach this Gospel to such children. Hell, I hope someone is not stupid enough to say "repent and become part of God's family" to one of these abused children. But I have no clue what some missionaries say here. In my life its always repent, accept Jesus' payment, say the sinners prayer etc. But let me speak out for one of those children and say, from their perspective, "forgivenss for what? for being born?!?!?"

But surely the Gospel should be good news to all people, including these victims but I don't see how the PS model is at all. The form of penal substitution that I critiqued (which is the most common one) appears intertwined with the doctrine of original sin. It "blames" victims such as these and tells them they deserve an eternity in hell but there is a way out of it (even if no one actually goes up to them and tells them this. You may not like this but truth be told, I don't like it either. But I never said missionaries were stupid enough to say stuff like this. If any of them are, shame on them! They deserve to be flogged!

To be quite honest, how can a sane person hold to the imputation of gult (original sin) and think one of these children is guilty and rightfully deserves aternal suffering in hell? I find that view disgusting. I am sorry if this in insulting to some but talk like that outrages me.

Vinnie