Is Christ cruel? (For member Schrafinator)

Do you mean which denomination? The answer is no preference. I just found some passages in the Holy Bible that I had never understood before suddenly making more sense. This means that my Christian teachers were right where I was wrong. Its a bit like a "aha!" moment when one expands ones understanding of a subject. "Aaahh, it all seems to make sense now" kind of feeling. Of course, it doesn't all make sense, but you know what I mean.For the record, as a child I lived in the Bahamas and went to a Gospel school. I returned to England and was CofE for the remainder of my Christian career. Interesting, I had a quick scan on the ideas of Arianism, and it looks to be something which merits more investigation. Thanks. Hehe - I suppose suspension of disbelief is a little like giving up common sense, but not totally. Its more like allowing oneself to stop disbelieving something for some purpose. Suspending disbelief allows us to enjoy ghost stories and horror novels, so it isn't all bad. I just don't want to live my life in a permanent state of suspended disbelief.I am not sure how people accept the literal Eden story. I think it might take repeated indoctrination whether that indoctrination is self imposed or not is not important. But that might be an insulting or biased outlook, so its probably best not to start ranting about it here.

Hi again Percy, sorry for not directly responding to you earlier, but Brian's post required more time, and time is limited.I think I might (finally) understand the problem here when you said: Perhaps having the children being involved would make a difference, but I don't think it does. The fact is that someone, in the past has broken the rules where they were trusted to not break the rules. Therefore we cannot trust people to not break the rules, therefore they must show that we can trust them to not break the rules. The analogy is weak in that spilling beer on the pool table is not a massive infraction, and we can eject people after the fact, and get the to pay for the damages. Whereas eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil is a fundamental infraction with huge ramifications for mankind. As it says - they become as God (Genesis 3:22)"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"The analogy wasn't meant to encompass all things, and run as a direct parallel (which would be impossible). It was just meant as a little illustration that being kicked out of somewhere (mankind out of eden) was unpleasant, but being allowed back in is merciful of those that run the join (God). Trying to extend any analogy beyond what it was designed to illustrate is problematic.Eating the apple, led to Adam/Eve's knowledge of good and evil being inherited. Beer spillage isn't an inherited trait. Let's totally expand the analogy again. Let's say there is a top secret file left lying around. It discusses all the business deals of the club, and all the possible shady business deals that are possible. The manager says "don't read that". And you read it anyway, you get kicked out. The Book turns out to sci-fi hypertech and has changed your DNA so that you are no inherently aware of how to con the establishment (knowledge of evil), and all your kids will inherit that trait. So if the manager could create a club that was neither Club Hell or Club Paradise you mean? Somewhere else to go that would be neither? If being out of the Grace of God is Hell, surely any club that is not Club Paradise would be exactly the same as Club Hell? That is to say can God create Paradise, and a not-Paradise, and then create a third thing which is something else?This message has been edited by Modulous, Sun, 05-June-2005 12:04 AM

It isn't a question of willing yourself to believe something. I could easily accept Christ if I wanted to. There are two schools of thought that have been discussed. One is that you are not capable of believing and your out of luck. The other is that you are capable of accepting Christ, of believing His divinity, but you refuse to believe that you can believe (perhaps as a result of the Serpent's whispers). Exactly. The Christian standpoint is that you do have a choice to believe in Christ's divinity. The Christian standpoint is that Jesus' divinity is the Truth. It would be like you being taught that 2+2=5 and someone saying, no - think about, its 4. Look into your heart, you know its 4. They have all sorts of 'logic' for why it should be 5 but they want you to believe that so you will reject maths! Its 4, everything makes sense if it is 4.A bad analogy, but there you go. You don't force yourself to believe in Christ's divinity, you let yourself disbelieve in His divinity because of the serpent. God has given us the tools to make the decision. Adam and Eve assured that we would know both good and evil. So we know both sides of the coin - it is up to us which side we choose. Its not about conciosuly thinking "I will believe, I will believe". Its not a logic exercise, or a psychological one but a spiritual one. Christ is in your heart already, seek and ye shall find and all that. If you really wanted to, I reckon you could come to accept Christ's divinity, and attain salvation. Faith would be a bit pointless if God came down and told you how great He was. Its a classic case of Job...would the whole story have any point if God came down and said "Hey Job, the Satan is going to test you, but I do love you, trust me".Which to choose, Islam? Hinduism? Which faith? Its written right into your heart.Unfortunately you have raised the same issue in about 20 different ways to different points, so I can't possibly respond to them all. I'm happy to discuss this with you, but since I have already discussed them once, can you do me a favour and slim down the posts a little? I think about 90% of what you just said could have been summed up with "Is it fair that I was created with the inability to believe that Christ is divine?". Of course, I don't want you to trim things down that much, but you know what I mean.What I'm trying to say, in order for sanity to be maintained, can we focus on one way of looking at the problem at a time? Or maybe a couple, but I kind of had rebuttal overload there!

Ah but you could, if you wanted to. You simply don't want to.Besides, invisible pink unicorns aren't an integral part of your very soul

Oh yes she can!Well, the existance of souls is kind of integral to the Christian mythology isn't it? If unicorns of any variety (can something which light passes through, reflect light at a certain wavelength?), were somehow of fundamental importance to souls, I'm sure Christ, or one of the prophets would have mentioned it.Then again, you raise a valid theological issue, perhaps the transubstantiation of the invisible unicorn to a unicorn of specific colour is intertwined in the nature of that which is soul. Perhaps this trinity (invisible, purple, unicorn) is on a strictly need to know basis, and we simply don't need to know.

Can you prove she can't? You have reduced the discussion to physical attributes and the association of brain and mind. You can't discuss theological issues in that manner, because it discounts the soul. Hehe, I forget your side of the pond doesn't have the obscure culture of panto. Try this oneWe aren't in the science forum any more Toto. This is the faith and belief forum you may notice. Specifically we are discussing "is Christ cruel for damning Schraf to hell for her inability to believe?". In order for us to discuss it, we must work on the basis that Christ exists, he his divine, the Bible is the Holy inspired word of God and so on. Whether you think it deserves the same level of belief, therefore, is wholly irrelevant...and holy relevant (haha).

You clearly didn't want it enough to cast aside your doubts and embrace The Lord. I prefer to think of Ra over Apollo, but that's just me. Anyway, yes, that's what I am saying.

And that's fine. Following that logic, Christ/GOD isn't cruel, since He doesn't exist. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean that non-believers get into heaven because God forgives all?

I don't understand your objection then. I said that

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we must work on the basis that Christ exists, he his divine, the Bible is the Holy inspired word of God and so on.

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in order to arrive at a conclusion as whether or not Christ is cruel. If I am reading you right, you are saying that Christ isn't cruel, because He forgives us? To arrive that conclusion we have worked on the basis that Christ exists, he is divine...etc havent we?

I understand your objection to the conclusion "Christ is cruel". I don't understand your objection that in order to have the discussion "we must work on the basis that Christ exists". If we reject that Christ exists we cannot come to the conclusion that he is cruel, because a non-existant entity cannot be cruel...causing the debate to come to a crashing halt.I have a feeling we're arguing at cross-purposes.

I don't mean we have to believe them real to have a discussion, but we have to work within the framework of their existence. The poster to whom I responded was basically trivialising the discussion by saying believing in Christ is silly, so there. That's a position which is fine, but we can't discuss the character of Christ without first being of the position that he has a character. The reason why we need to start from the assumption that Christ is real to see if he is cruel (wheras we might not for your overseer) is because we are discussing what Christ is going to do regarding Schraf (a real person). If Christ is fictional, he is going to do nothing to Schraf the real person. I understand that - thus I was having difficulty how it was a valid objection to my premises that Christ exists, divinity, Holy Word etc. If we start off with 'Christ doesn't exist' then we would have to start everything off with "but if he did exist", unless we were merely discussing his character in the Books he stars in.So all I am saying is, to discuss the issue we say:
If Christ exists, and the Holy Bible contains the accurate account of who he was (divine) and what he did....
Then is he cruel for being responsible for the fate of Schraf?If we start off with
If Christ doesn't exist and the Holy Bible is a complete work of fiction
Then is Christ cruel for the Schraf predicament?Doesn't really work. Hence I think Jar and I were at cross purposes. He was arguing the conclusion, I was just saying that ridiculing the belief in Christ is irrelevant to a thread where we are discussing the kind of character he would be if he existed.

Agreed. If you follow the thread jar was replying to you will find that a poster here said that belief in souls is as warranted as belief in invisible unicorns (since neither could be detected) Message 234. I merely pointed out that the comment was irrelevant Message 236, and even made reference to the topic at hand:

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We aren't in the science forum any more Toto. This is the faith and belief forum you may notice. Specifically we are discussing "is Christ cruel for damning Schraf to hell for her inability to believe?". In order for us to discuss it, we must work on the basis that Christ exists...

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It seems to have spawn a mass web of needless confusion, and I fear we are eating up valuable last posts in this thread. That said, I think it might have wound down for the most part now.