From: mussack@austin.ibm.com (Christopher Mussack)
Subject: Re: Atheists and Hell
Lines: 41

>> [ To summarize:
>> While questioning the sagacity of someone who said they would 
>> "rather spend an eternity in Hell than be beside God in Heaven
>> knowing even one man would spend his "eternal life" being
>> scorched for his wrongdoings..." I described how horrible hell
>> is and compared the above statement with Jesus'
>> suffering on the cross in order to prevent people going to hell.]

which Kenneth Engel challenges:
> Did this happen to Jesus? I don't think so, not from what I heard. 
> He lived ONE DAY of suffering and died. If the wages of sin is 
> the above paragraph, then JESUS DIDN'T PAY FOR OUR SINS, DID HE?

I will wimp out and admit that I never liked the metaphor of
Jesus "paying" for our sins in the sense that many Christians
accept as literal. The point is that God understands the suffering
we go through, not just intellectually like when we watch
the Somalians on TV, but _really_ understands, He can "feel" 
our pain. This fact is manifested by Jesus' life. We can argue
that someone in history might have suffered more than Jesus,
we can think of more horrible torture than crucifixion, we can
think of cases of betrayal and fruitless effort leading to
worse despair, but the main point is that Jesus is in the
trenches with us, He is in everyone, whatever I do to the least
of humanity I do to Him, and whatever I do for the least of
humanity I do for Him.

Now, to reconcile this with the existence of hell is beyond my
capabilities, but that wasn't my goal.

> I'd be surprised to see the moderator let this one through, 

Thankfully our moderator is surprising.

> but I seriously want a reasonable explanation for this.

As I re-read this I must admit that this is more of a description
of my faith than an explanation, but perhaps that's all
I can do, hopefully that's all I have to do.

Chris Mussack
