Can someone explain why this is being voted down? The article assumes that Christ’s suffering was limited to the crucifixion. This post points out that that’s incorrect. He suffered many orders of magnitude worse than that.
I think issue is being taken with the fact that Christ’s suffering is being defined as something incomparably greater than what other humans can experience. There are a number of theological points which could be discussed (all fruitlessly in my opinion) but when I sit down to understand the Christ story, I do not attribute metaphysical degrees of suffering to Jesus. The point is that, as Richard Dawkins has said before, the “snapping of fingers” could have been chosen as an adequate basis for atonement, if God so wished it. That God, in this particular myth, required “the shedding of blood” for atonement means that, literally, God is responsible for his own suffering and was fully aware of surviving that suffering, however extensive it might have been. This makes him infinitely less of a hero than John Perry. Trying to literally define Christ’s suffering as being however immense so as to render him a hero is not a line of reasoning that I’m prepared to view as reasonable in any sense.
but when I sit down to understand the Christ story, I do not attribute metaphysical degrees of suffering to Jesus.
So, you misunderstand the story, and the post corrected that. Shouldn’t that get it voted up?
The point is that, as Richard Dawkins has said before, the “snapping of fingers” could have been chosen as an adequate basis for atonement, if God so wished it.
So, you misunderstand the story, and the post corrected that. Shouldn’t that get it voted up?
I believe the poster misunderstands the story and that the Dawkins quote is relevant to that point. The Christ myth depicts Christ as being God-incarnate suffering in human-format, and therefore suffering in precisely the same way that humans would suffer. I do not agree that it is intended to depict Christ’s atonement as categorically more painful nor incomprehensibly painful. This is why these theological debates are fruitless. Since this is all interpretation of myth, I’m not sure there is enough objective evidence here to conclusively favor either interpretation.
Specifically, the incomprehensibility of the suffering was invoked to argue that Christ, in the myth, is more heroic than John Perry is in our understanding of human suffering. I think Dawkins’ quote aptly argues against that interpretation. Even if Christ suffered incomprehensibly (I disagree that the myth asserts that he did), his knowledge of surviving the suffering and obtaining what he selfishly wanted (the salvation of mankind) makes him less of a hero than John Perry in my opinion. And many here seem to share that opinion.
If someone wishes to believe that the crucifixion myth matters because of Christ’s incomprehensible suffering, that’s fine. I disagree that that is a well-supported interpretation of the myth, and even if it were, God himself is the logical cause of his own suffering. He had to prefer to obtain human salvation through the act of suffering in order to arrange the universe such that that was what he required himself to do. Not heroic. In fact, once an entity is omnipotent, attributing heroism at all becomes a tricky matter.
The Christ myth depicts Christ as being God-incarnate suffering in human-format, and therefore suffering in precisely the same way that humans would suffer.
On a historical note, this is true for Orthodox Christianity; not true for monophysitism (and still relevant in, say, the Armenian church).
I looked up the Atonement on Wikipedia. I can’t seem to tell if he’s universally believed to have suffered more than just the crucifixion itself. It doesn’t seem to mention it on the main part, but it also doesn’t mention it on what Mormons believe differently.
Can someone explain why this is being voted down? The article assumes that Christ’s suffering was limited to the crucifixion. This post points out that that’s incorrect. He suffered many orders of magnitude worse than that.
I think issue is being taken with the fact that Christ’s suffering is being defined as something incomparably greater than what other humans can experience. There are a number of theological points which could be discussed (all fruitlessly in my opinion) but when I sit down to understand the Christ story, I do not attribute metaphysical degrees of suffering to Jesus. The point is that, as Richard Dawkins has said before, the “snapping of fingers” could have been chosen as an adequate basis for atonement, if God so wished it. That God, in this particular myth, required “the shedding of blood” for atonement means that, literally, God is responsible for his own suffering and was fully aware of surviving that suffering, however extensive it might have been. This makes him infinitely less of a hero than John Perry. Trying to literally define Christ’s suffering as being however immense so as to render him a hero is not a line of reasoning that I’m prepared to view as reasonable in any sense.
So, you misunderstand the story, and the post corrected that. Shouldn’t that get it voted up?
I don’t think that was mentioned in this article.
I believe the poster misunderstands the story and that the Dawkins quote is relevant to that point. The Christ myth depicts Christ as being God-incarnate suffering in human-format, and therefore suffering in precisely the same way that humans would suffer. I do not agree that it is intended to depict Christ’s atonement as categorically more painful nor incomprehensibly painful. This is why these theological debates are fruitless. Since this is all interpretation of myth, I’m not sure there is enough objective evidence here to conclusively favor either interpretation.
Specifically, the incomprehensibility of the suffering was invoked to argue that Christ, in the myth, is more heroic than John Perry is in our understanding of human suffering. I think Dawkins’ quote aptly argues against that interpretation. Even if Christ suffered incomprehensibly (I disagree that the myth asserts that he did), his knowledge of surviving the suffering and obtaining what he selfishly wanted (the salvation of mankind) makes him less of a hero than John Perry in my opinion. And many here seem to share that opinion.
If someone wishes to believe that the crucifixion myth matters because of Christ’s incomprehensible suffering, that’s fine. I disagree that that is a well-supported interpretation of the myth, and even if it were, God himself is the logical cause of his own suffering. He had to prefer to obtain human salvation through the act of suffering in order to arrange the universe such that that was what he required himself to do. Not heroic. In fact, once an entity is omnipotent, attributing heroism at all becomes a tricky matter.
On a historical note, this is true for Orthodox Christianity; not true for monophysitism (and still relevant in, say, the Armenian church).
I looked up the Atonement on Wikipedia. I can’t seem to tell if he’s universally believed to have suffered more than just the crucifixion itself. It doesn’t seem to mention it on the main part, but it also doesn’t mention it on what Mormons believe differently.