Hey FrGamble!

Quote: SOOPOO

I think I'm getting a little of what FrG is saying. Jesus could feel pain, but the Holy spirit and God can't. Just seems so silly to be an all knowing, benevolent, all powerful God to go through such silly machinations... for what again? So people can suffer? You will never be able to convince me that if you believe your God is benevolent, that his actions are congruent with that thought. If you told me there was mean sunofabitch that was all powerful, but evil, he would allow babies to die, starvation to be prevalent, Alzheimer's to exist, etc.... that I'd say at least makes sense. Your story of all this goodness in God allowing untold suffering just doesn't cut it. And deep down inside, you know I'm right.

Thanks SOOPOO for your understanding.

You really jump into some deep waters here and I'm already feeling like I'm drowning trying to keep up with all the other posts about Christ's suffering, but you ask probably the most difficult and important question. Maybe the discussion of a God who is willing to enter into the suffering of humanity and share in it gives us the beginning of an answer. Knowing that when we suffer unjustly, are abandoned, betrayed, beaten, and when the innocent suffer that there is a God who is no stranger to these things is important to keep in mind. He enters into our suffering and in doing so brings us hope. Deep down, you and I know there is hope. None of us want to believe that these babies killed in the womb or that starve to death, or the elderly that suffer from Alzheimer's are just here to suffer and die and that is it. You know I am right about that, even if you can't understand it or don't want to believe it we are all searching for some hope in the midst of our terribly broken world. To attack God and deny His existence is a easy target but that doesn't help us, does it? Jesus Christ not only suffers with and for us but teaches us a way to follow that cares for the least among us. Something that surely I do not live perfectly nor any of us. Nevertheless the notion of altruistic loving service of the poorest of the poor and caring for those in need, not unique to Jesus, is a message God desperately wants us to hear and follow. Greed and selfishness are at the root of so many of the tragedies you describe, not God.

The vision of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God created the world and humanity and called it very good. Sin entered the world and corrupted and changed everything. While respecting our freedom, even our freedom to reject Him, God shows us a way to live and gives us hope that this world is not all there is. Death, suffering, hate, greed, sin, they do NOT have the last word. Love wins in the end. We all implicitly feel this and want this but we rightly ask the question why? Why so much suffering and pain in the world? I believe the answer is sin and the solution is God's gift of salvation and living as close to the way Jesus would want us to, but I guess we all have to come up with our own answers and solutions.

Really makes your head spin, doesn't it?

FrG. You must have a good heart. If you could snap your fingers and end world hunger, would you?




If you would, why doesn’t God?

Quote: SOOPOO

FrG. You must have a good heart. If you could snap your fingers and end world hunger, would you?




If you would, why doesn’t God?

Yes I would, but I'm not God. And thank goodness for that because I would also snap my fingers and make everyone love God and each other. Well I guess if I did that then hunger would actually go away. Maybe there is a reason God doesn't force us to love Him and others? I don't know it would seem much simpler to just snap my fingers and solve everyone's problems for them, whether they knew they had a problem or even wanted it to be solved. Good question.

Quote: FrGamble

I have googled it and have not found a single historian that claims numbers as large as you are quoting.

There are dozens of sources for
this:

"Spartacus was pinned between armies. The ex-slave army was defeated at Siler River by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Pompey's armies captured and killed several thousand rebels that escaped from the battle and Crassus captured several thousand more. The Romans judged that the slaves had forfeited their right to live. In 71 BC, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the 200-kilometer (120 mi) Via Appia from Rome to Capua"
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/Civil_Wars/1*.html#120

The armies of Pompey crucified another
5000. This is just a fraction of the number
Rome killed this way over a 300 year period.

Crassus crucified 6,000 of Spartacus's followers on the road between Rome and Capua. 1878 painting by Fyodor Bronnikov.

Quote: FrGamble

You are right, of course it did! Having the faith in confidence in His Heavenly Father enabled Jesus in His human will to abandon Himself to the plan of God for the salvation of the world. It allowed Him with complete trust lay down His life for you, me, and the whole world.

How was Jesus dying, with full knowledge
that he's divine, man and god at the same
time, a sacrifice. And how on earth would
it be a sacrifice that cancelled out original
sin, and every other offence against god,
which is the definition of sin. All sacrifice
involves loss of something. What was
lost in the death of Jesus that was so
great it forgave all the sins of man.

When you Google this, you find
dozens of sites, hundreds of
sites, that all say how important
it is to understand what Jesus
sacrificed for us. They go on to
talk in circles and quote scripture
making the point they have no idea
what was sacrificed, exactly.

This looks like the greatest con
job ever perpetrated on humans.
Every Xtian agrees there was a
sacrifice, but none of them can
explain what the actual sacrifice
was. And when they try and explain
it, and you don't understand it,
that's your fault, you're the idiot
who doesn't want to understand
their rambling, circular nonsensical
definition. That's almost FrG's
reaction here. He think's he's
explaining this perfectly, it's the
fault of the rest of us that
we don't 'get it.' He can't explain
it because there was no sacrifice
to explain.

As far as I can tell so far, the only
thing Jesus/god sacrificed was
the weekend he died. He gave up
his weekend for our sins. For that
they started a religion?

Quote: Evenbob

How was Jesus dying, with full knowledge
that he's divine, man and god at the same
time, a sacrifice. And how on earth would
it be a sacrifice that cancelled out original
sin, and every other offence against god,
?

We've already established that Jesus being aware of His divinity does not mean that in that in His human intellect He was omniscient. You also are aware that the sacrifice of His life was to forgive sins. Using your definition of sin, it is an offense against God. All sin begins with a lack of trust or faith in God. All sin boils down to someone saying I am going to do it my way, not God's way. Therefore, in His humanity Jesus perfectly abandons Himself to the Will of God. The perfect trust in His heavenly Father is the antidote to sin. Jesus did this of course long before the way of the cross, He lived His whole life in perfect obedience to the Father. He fulfilled the law and the prophets. Original Sin is that first rebellion, the first time we said No to God. Jesus is the definitive Yes to God that brings about healing and freedom.

So here it is:
God creates the universe and mankind, all is very good.
Man falls into sin by disobedience and taking the place of God.
Suffering and death enter into the world.
God establishes covenant after covenant with His chosen people.
God sends the Prophets.
Jesus Christ, true God and true man, comes into the world.
He fulfills the prophets.
He established the new and everlasting covenant in His Blood.
He undergoes suffering and death.
Jesus, in His humanity is perfectly obedient and trusting in God His Father.
God recreates and redeems mankind, promises a new heaven and a new earth, where all will be very good again.

Padre - a couple of questions:


How old do Christians believe Earth is?

Did dinosaurs exist?

Quote: aceofspades

Padre - a couple of questions:


How old do Christians believe Earth is?

Speaking for Catholics and mainstream Protestants, as old as the modern science tells us.

Quote:

Did dinosaurs exist?

yes

Quote: FrGamble

Speaking for Catholics and mainstream Protestants, as old as the modern science tells us.



yes

OK - now that we have that straightened out - are other Christians that believe otherwise wrong? If yes, what makes their belief wrong and yours right? If not, how do you resolve your beliefs as a Christian compared to theirs?