Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 / QGSI 2.0; site qubix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amdcad!decwrl!sun!idi!qubix!lab
From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Re: A pridefull man's reaction to a Holy God.
Message-ID: <1564@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 00:05:56 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1564
Posted: Fri Nov 30 00:05:56 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 03:36:40 EST
References: <516@watdcsu.UUCP>, <246@qantel.UUCP> <543@watdcsu.UUCP>, <263@qantel.UUCP> <1071@trwrba.UUCP>, <1142@trwrba.UUCP>
Organization: Quadratix ... Quartix
Lines: 48

> > [me]
> > Where there is sin, there must be payment for sin.

> [John Nelson]
> WHY must there be payment for sin?  This sounds like a form of revenge
> to me.  "Paying" for sins doesn't sound terribly constructive....
> especially coming from an infinite God whose wisdom supposedly
> transcends all.  Similarly the existance of an ever-burning hellfire
> seems to accomplish less than an all-wise deity should be capable of.

John, your obtuseness is beyond belief. It's basic justice: recompense
for an offense. You do the crime - you do the time. And the recompense
is appropriate to the crime, as I noted in my previous article.

> The concept of payment for sins is NOT a new one.  Many ancient
> cultures had it.  This leads me to conclude that the concept of
> "payment" for sins might very well have originated in man and not God.

...or that the other ancient cultures descended from a theistic one.

> > The "killing of an innocent" is far from "senseless." Only
> > someone who had no sins of his own to pay for could pay for my
> > sins...

> Of course that assumes that...
> 1)	Payment of some sort IS required.
> 2)	Death is a suitable payment.
> 3)	The death of an innocent is better than the death of
> 	he who is truly guilty.
> These are all necessary to the Christian theology and yet I don't think
> there is adequate justification for them.  As I had said to Ken Nichols
> before... this harkens back to the Old Testiment thinking that said one
> could remove sin from one's self by shedding the blood of another.

Not quite correct. More accurately, the One offended chose to accept a
substitute in place of the offender. In order to serve as a substitute,
the substitute must have no offense of its own. It is not man trying to
appease God. It is God saying what kind of payment He will accept.

> Your rationalizations have yet to hit the mark.  If you can't
> rationalize, then I don't try.

If you can't understand justice, my trying is futile.
-- 
		The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
		{amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab

You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.