MrHambre,
You say:
I honestly don't get the logic behind Jesus's sacrifice: Jesus suffered on the cross to save my life, but I can still burn in Hell? In other words, He's forgiven all my debts, so I owe Him bigtime?
Here are three truths I think we can agree on:
All truth is reasonable, or logical.
Understanding the logic (if any) behind any statement postulated as true is essential to evaluating the truth of that statement.
The statement, "Jesus died on the cross to save my life." is postulated as true, and, if true, is relevant to the task of deciding whether biological diversity came about through a willful creation, or natural selection operating on random mutations. This relevance stems both from the fact that the statement is biblical, hence relevant to the veracity of the bible from whence we have the idea of creation, and that, without your life, you are unable to examine the truth of any statement.
OK so far? I would hope, of course, that you would want to understand the logic of the cross simply on cultural grounds. An lot of our history has stemmed from an understanding of this matter.
The logic begins with an ontological model of the universe, supposing that it is a created entity, created by a personality with an agenda. We understand "created entity" largely by analogy with our own creations. The creator's manual for the proper understanding and use of His creation is a book called the Bible, wherein we find that one main purpose of His agenda is to create beings, other personalities, with free will, the freedom at least to operate within the purpose of the creator for the rest of His creation, or not. Every one of these beings, of course, in using that free will, remains partly within the purpose of the creation for themselves, since that purpose was largely to see what they would choose. But, only largely. Each of these free-will created persons (some angels, some humans) had other purposes as well, which they either choose or reject. When they reject these other purposes, they cause havoc, death to other parts of the creation that they were supposed, or created, to protect or husband or otherwise interact with productively. When they reject doing the job they were created to do, they are thought to justly deserve a consequence comparable to that which came about due to their not doing that job. For example, in the military, a man assigned to keep watch chooses to abandon his post. An enemy therefore slips in and kills dozens of soldiers who were sleeping, trusting that the watch would awake them and warn them of danger. The man who deserted his watch is therefore shot. We normally consider, in fact, that desertion from an army, even a conscripted one, justly deserves the death penalty.
Hence, all humans who are deserters from God's (militaristic) purpose in creating them, insofar as their desertion caused, or even might have caused, others to die, deserves to die themselves.
But, there's more to this. After our desertion, we got captured by God's enemy, so the story goes, and became slaves to someone who was out to destroy the creation because they hated (by choice) the creator. That enemy uses us to mess up the creation, and messes us up as part of their own destructive agenda. The creator, it turns out, can purchase us out of the POW camp where we are being kept and used and abused. The enemy is willing to make a deal.
Now, the creator would like to have us "saved and come to a knowledge of the truth," to get back to work fulfilling the purpose for which we were created. But, for this to happen, we have to be bought out of the enemy's camp, and then we have to deal with our court martial for the original desertion, and acts of compliance with the enemy in the POW camp. The system of justice that was set up by the creator allows for what Yeshua did at the cross to accomplish both purposes. Thus, because of what happened at the cross, you and I and everyone else are set back at the way it was before we (or our fathers; most of us were born in the POW camp) deserted. Moreover, we are declared "not guilty" for whatever happened while we were POW's. (Redemption is purchase from the POW camp. Salvation is being freed from any court martial consequences of our bad behavior.)
But, being back at ground zero, we again have to deal with our own free will choice. Will we choose to desert again? God, so the story goes, wants us and will be grieved if we decide that we don't want Him. But it would be unjust to force us against our free will to be with Him. Although an important part of our purpose in this world is to save it and our neighbors from evil, the main thing is, what will we choose? The freedom to choose never goes away, so that if we use it to reject loving God, so be it. But, the legal consequences of that choice don't go away either.
Here's a relevant example: The title of these comments is "Re: A Skeptic's Response?"
But skepticism, like military desertion, has a remarkable record of killing innocent people. For example, James Lind wrote a treatise on limes and scurvy, which skeptical sea captains ignored for fifty years, until governmental agencies forced the issue. Maybe 100,000 sailors died unnecessary and painful deaths due to this skepticism, maintained I suppose by the "sneer review" system wherein individuals responsible for the ships did not want to appear gullible. ("You don't believe that nonsense, do you?") So, they did not provide their sailors the limes shown by Lind to prevent scurvy. Today, skepticism haunts both prayer and bible code studies, (and, still, vitamin C research) even though all of these have been shown to be potentially able to save many lives, and reduce much suffering, at negligible cost. Just like limes on sailing ships. God created us to believe, not doubt. Skepticism is thus the moral equivalent of military desertion, or so the story goes.
In the end, everyone who ends up in Hell is there because they considered the choice set before them, the costs and benefits, the risks associated with both, and freely made a choice that resulted in that terrible fate. Nobody can take the freedom to make that choice from anyone. However, the enemy of God (Descartes' "evil genius") works very hard to confuse, tempt, deceive, and distract the POW's that he has captive, so that they choose unwisely. That too, is taken into account by the cross, which is why we humans can never judge who is saved or who is not. It is written that the Spirit of God is poured out on all flesh, that everyone in whatever situation has some idea of the choices set before them, for life and good, or death and evil. By the work of the cross, anyone, anywhere, who is dealing with their situation by choosing to resist evil and take up their duty to their creator, ends up in heaven. And those who choose otherwise, risking an eternity in Hell, find their free will and responsibility for their life preserved by the cross. Satan, because of the cross, could not "make them do" the cowardly, foolish, ignorant, unloving, skeptical things they choose to do.
This is a scientific discussion, and this understanding is presented so that, should you decide to put these ideas to a scientific test, you properly understand "the materials and methods" of the test. For example, if you wish to do a prayer experiment, seeing if, as predicted by this hypothesis, prayer to Jehovah results in good changes, you now know something more about what sorts of testimonies need to be made in the prayer, and what sorts of things to pray for, that will bring about, if this story has any truth to it, observable results.
Hope this helps.
Stephen
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