Christian

Rimstalker,

LOL! A good illustration of the vital importance of taking context into consideration.

Jesus was absent from His physically dead body for 3 or so days. Anything that happened to His body during those 3 days was not a cause of pain or suffering for Him.

I grant that not being buried properly is something of an injustice compared to being buried properly, but now we are talking about issues of some objective standard of justice being violated (justice based on what moral code I wonder???) rather than issues of how much pain and suffering a person has been through.

If you believe it to be a "concrete" example of greater suffering then please explain to me how you reach that conclusion. I don't see it.

Psychological anguish comes in many forms. I'll grant that in most cases a greater understanding of the situation makes for less psychological duress. But there are also examples where the exact opposite occurs, where an increased knowledge of the situation results in greater psychological duress. For example, the doctor who gets shot with an arrow and has seen the remedy hundreds of times might immediately start dreading the coming red-hot iron. Especially so with the experience of seeing the fear in others so often. Having more mental imagery for the mind to play with while anticipating the coming painful event can be a bad thing psychologically.

Lk 22:44. Jesus experienced hematidrosis (sweating blood) the night before His torture and execution. That is a very rare medical phenomenom that only happens in rare cases of extreme anxiety. It would not have been well known at all in the first century, and the fact that Luke included something that sounded so rediculous in his account is evidence that it actually happened. Plus there is the fact that Luke has been repeatedly vindicated as an accurate historian by archeological finds.

I can provide more scripture if you like. Jesus is not the Father, by the way. Such a statement contradicts scripture and the doctrine of the trinity.

OK. I assume that you honestly are not informed about what the doctrine of the trinity is, and that you are at least mildly curious about the subject. I'll give you the short but fairly complete version.

There are three statements which can each individually be proven to be utterly scriptural. Nobody can completely grasp how all three statements can be true at the same time, but since they are all repeatedly affirmed by scripture informed Christians accept that all three are true and call the concept a "trinity."

1 - There is one, and only one God. (Only one Being. Not three Beings.)
2 - The Father is fully God. The Son is fully God. The Spirit is fully God. (Everything that makes God "God" is true of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit. The Father is not 1/3 of God, but is fully God. Same for the Son and the Spirit.)
3 - The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are eternally distinct. (There are hundreds of subject-object distinctions between them in scripture. The Father is not the Son, and the Spirit is not the Father, etc. They have all three always existed and always will exist.)

That is an accurate summary of what theologians mean by the term "trinity" (I'll be the first to grant that your average Christian is not well informed on what the Trinity is.) Bottom line: Three "Whos" and one "What." As you can see, the Father and the Son are both fully God, but are distinct from each other. The Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father.



I grant that the period of time that the suffering occured in was longer in the case of the girl. But that is not the only consideration in degree of suffering. I maintain that the psychological anguish Jesus went through was worse in degree, and the physical suffering as well.

Again, I am NOT claiming that Jesus experienced every possible bad scenario. I am claiming that He (and the girl in Rhea's example) experienced those sorts of things which fall into the category "the worst this planet has to offer."

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Thanks Helen, I appreciate that!

I gotta get some sack time. I'll be back tomorrow.

Respectfully,

Christian

Rhea

Sorry for answering several posts in one - I'm never sure whether that's easier or harder to follow. There were several good things to discuss, so I went for it.

Why change the words? We were talking about wrath, not anger or indignation. There is a VAST GULF between the meaning of those words. Why did you depart from the one we were using?

No, I have never met a wise person who feels WRATH. Period. Revenge and punishment aren't the tools of the wise, IMO. Not in interpersonal skills, not in parenting, not in business, not in justice.

...
No, not a fair assessment yet. The two aspects of suffering are "intertwined". They both contribute. And yes, I am saying that the story of Jesus indicates a relatively small amount of psychological suffering. Your mother and I know that pain and even fear are mitigated - even obliterated - by certain knowledge of a finite duration. It's-going-to-be-over-soon, It's-going-to-be-over-soon, It's-going-to-be-over-soon, LALALALALALA. It works, it's real, it's not just defining something away. It's TRUE that the suffering is less when you know why and how long. This is not just the psychological aspect, either. You actually make the pain less. You make it more endurable by your other thought processes. We literally are not suffering despite feeling identical stimuli as the poor benighted souls who suffered under Nazi dentist drills to their torment and death.

Is this really such a bizarre concept? Wouldn't your soldiers proudly say "it's nothing" when asked about their wounds and privations? Or do they all sob and lament about how hard, painful and desperate is a soldier's life? Put those SAME stimuli on a child or sheltered philosopher, and it would be suffering, indeed. I think even your soldiers would acknowledge the difference.
No. Have you? Just curious...
What, people were less scared of things back then? You're saying Luke couldn't possibly have known of the phenomenon except through Jesus? Why? That doesn't follow. How does that make it a proof? Embellishing the tale to make it seem more severe is less likely than it happening in the first place?

But aside from that, I stipulate that the phenomenon exists. And what I am trying to convey is that for the SAME stimuli, some people feel it and some don't. AND that some people suffer from it for days, weeks, YEARS and other suffer it for an afternoon in a garden. Some people claim it (the severe anguish), and others might rightly say to them, "why are you getting all worked up?" And THAT is my argument, based on the things Jesus is said to have experienced - apart from the father's wrath thing, which I find to be too contradictory to even contemplate.

So, artificially separating the physical and social "suffering" from the supernatural suffering, I do not put the story of the crucifixion into the category of "the worst the world has to offer". It just doesn't make the grade.

As for the thing between him and his self/father, that is just impossible to reconcile because he's doing it to himself after having been defined as the "God of Love".
Yet your argument assumes you grasp it... and you assume that my grasp of it must be wrong and yours right, even though neither of us can grasp it? Why is it sound for you to lean on #3 here and wrong for me to lean on #1? They are all equally true, independently. So for me to claim #1 is at work, you (scripturally) cannot deny it. By your own argument. Right?

...


Right, so you agree, there should be no problems inherent in God making fewer choices available to us. To wit: remove the choice to murder. Remove the choice to rape. Remove the choice to abuse children (although, that's not biblically sinful, is it?) Remove the choice to sin. And everything is hunky-dorey, we seem to agree. Yes? That's what you just said, right? That's an okay state of affairs.

Radorth

Technically correct. (It is unfortunate how technical and pedantic skeptics get here to make an argument). Of course God knows all this, and allows for it in his decision. A good God wouldn't really care, why someone's will was changed, or why they become willing, would he? My points are in addition to Christian's argument and compliment it. They hardly negate it as you imply.

The simple fact is, people in heaven are there because they are willing, for any number of reasons, to serve God and one another. The fact is God will use any circumstance to help us choose and do what is only best for us. This is why Jesus says that if we are just "willing to do his will" he will try to help us. God is forever trying to make up the difference, and all he gets is a lot of holier-than-God crap for it.

Rad

Radorth

Well you certainly are polite Helen. But of course it's your motives that count, right?

Rad

Philosoft

Apologies to you, Christian, and those of you who offer honest explanations but... no matter how many times this is explained to me, no matter how verbose and detailed the explanation, I have yet to begin to understand the Trinity. Sometimes apologetics are reasonable and/or logical; sometimes hermeneutics are helpful and insightful. The Trinity, however, is such a glaring example of ad hoc rationalization, of trying to shoehorn a polytheistic product into a monotheistic case, that I often feel genuinely sorry for those who feel the need to defend it.

HelenM

The Bible says in various ways that it's important to be polite; the Bible also says God looks at the heart. Therefore, according to what the Bible says, both our motives and outward actions matter to God.

For what it's worth, I think most people's motives and outward actions are somewhat related, most of the time.

take care
Helen

GunnerJ

Then forget that act of burial. It is the fact that the girl was so uinknown and unloved that she never had a burial, although her culture probably deemed it important, that is worth considering. Also, if you claim that Jesus is divine and still existing, then you still have to account for what he personally gained from his sacrifice, and how he knew in advance that he would be getting infinate rewards from finate suffering.

True enough. Getting shot four times in the stomach is worse if you know that the person shooting you is the same guy you thoughtlessly cut off on the highway that morning: regret hightens the pain. However, before you were claiming that a pain is just as painful even if you know why. Now you are stating that there are some situations where it is more painful. I maintain, as I imagine Rhea does, that Jesus' suffering is an example of where knowledge of the context of suffering acts as a dampener to the killing.

I would say that scripture isn't evidence, but since we are assuming the existence of Jesus in this argument, that won't work. Suffice to say that I never doubted that Jesus was, as anyone would be, anxious about being crucified. Your spiltting of my statement in two blurs the real point I was trying to make: I wanted support for the conclusion that Jesus was undergoing psychological trauma as a result of the "wrath of the father." Now, I don't doubt that more scripture might be able to support this, but I am only giving the Gospels the provisional honor of being worthwile evidence in as much as the constitute a recording by a witness; I will provisionally accept that Jesus may have sweat blood in as much as if the Gospels are assumed to be reliable, we can assume that someone witnessed him bleeding. I fail to see how anyone could have witnessed the cause of Jesus' psychological anguish, or witnessed something about his suffering that could provide an inference to its cause. I mean, what, exactly, does "facing the wrath of the Father over every sin ever committed" look like?

Now, it's not exaclty pertinent to the discussion at hand, but fuck, do you really believe this?

Heh. That's probably more benefit of the boubt than I deserve, but thanks.

Well, so is the claim that only fools are atheists, and I certainly don't believe that, so I don't see why you mention this.

So wait. There's one god. But there are three discrete entities that are each also god. Now I'm not a math major, but, 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?

You may say that I am making a false quantitative distinction, and that the issue is really qualitative. Even so, the example fails. A demonstration: I define x to be any object with the properties of being red, spherical, composed of rubber, and used to play kickball. This means that a ball I got for Christmas when I was twelve is x. However, the toy and sporting goods stores in my area sell many discrete objects which also satisfy the condition of being red, spherical, composed of rubber, and used to play kickball. I would say that they are all members of a class called x, but your logic would have me believe that all these discrete entities are really one x.

There is something logically wrong here. I will not reject your thesis out of hand because of this, as counter-intuitive claims have been demonstrated to be correct before (i.e., in the field of quantum mechanics). However, I will require move evidence to be convinced than that your thesis is scriptural.

Then you won't hear an argument from me on that point. Even so, I don't want to conclude this discussion, as I think there are some interesting points still to be made. Besides the slight digression on the subject of the trinity, there is the issue of how bad Jesus really had it. Yes, crucifixion is horrible, but given the context of his experience, how much did Jesus really sacrifice? Cynically, I might say that a mere 24 hours in pain out of an infinate existance is a small price for a veritable army of devotees singing your praises, especially if, as Christians claim, Jesus is still around to enjoy it. If I wanted to give the Christian position a little more credance, I might argue that if Jesus really cares for and loves humans infinately, then suffering horribly for the chance to avert some pain coming to them (we will ignore that this possible pain was either caused or condoned by Jesus in the first place) actually "pays for itself" after the first convert.

Philosoft

Excuse me, Christian was the one so adamant that there exist "no external or internal constraints." I don't care if you need constraints, just don't propose constraints while telling me there aren't any.

I honestly have no idea. There are a ridiculous number of opinions about what God would and would not care about.

I think you'd better clear that with Christian first.
Do you end all your arguments by assuming what you're trying to prove?

Radorth

Jesus is quite the opposite, almost all the time. He has a perfect heart IMO, yet he is "rude" by any standard of decorum I know of. Dr. Laura is "rude" and I can find no fault with her motives really. Therefore one might conclude one had to be somewhat rude to have pure and benevolent motives. That sounds ridiculous to some, but if one is so worried about offending someone that they withold truth from them, I'm not sure what they can accomplish except a big funeral. In my case, I do fine with people who don't chase me around the forum looking for witches. All they find is a mirror, though some haven't got it yet.


I don't consider repenting a constraint. I don't consider being less tempted a constraint. But anyway what's the difference? The larger issue here is why God wants willing servants instead of conscripts and what he has to allow to get them. Christian and I are both saying that. You are making two positives into a negative, I don't know why- just to make an argument I guess.

You're avoiding the issue, which is why a good God might allow suffering, or the crucifixion for some larger and nobeler purpose. Jesus speaks God's heart when he says "how often I would have gathered you together as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not." He only wants willing souls to be gathered together, as a family of brothers and sisters in a peaceful world. In Jesus parables, he talks about how the "good" would not come and even "those who were invited" refuse. So he sends his servants out to get the "lame, the halt and the blind" -anyone who will. We see this all through the NT, and one of the final verses is "whoever will may come."

We try to explain this, but all we get is less than workable ideas and simple assertions God should just snap his fingers and make it so. And from stupid comments like "Who wants to be in heaven with fundies" and I'd rather burn in hell than serve in heaven," we see what the problem is, I think.

Rad