aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (04/13/84)
Reply to two articles by David Dyer-Bennet: > Many people have "transcendental" experiences, > or claim that some random thing changed their lives. And, if you look, > it's true, too; their lives often did change. But that doesn't mean > the event they claim as cause was really the cause, or that the event > they claim as cause actually occurred outside themselves. Actually, I don't claim that a single transcendental experience, or "random thing", changed my life. I do say that my life has been changed gradually as a result of my following God in a great number of events over a period of a number of years. (And my life has changed; people who knew me in 1975 say that if my personality then and now were put into the same person, the result would be a schizoid person--I'm that different, and [more importantly] that improved [I know no one who thinks the old me was better].) I see no reason to doubt my belief that my relationship with God and His people has caused these changes. > This is another variant of the problem of determining, from my non-theistic > position, who are the "true" christians. I don't accept the "Christ > changed my life" attitude largely because it is indistinguishable from a > wide range of hysterical con games being run in the world today. Funny...I didn't think any of my articles were hysterical. And I KNOW that I'm not trying to con anyone. > ....being Christian isn't necessarily "irrational" by my standards; if your > experience or logic drives you to Christianity as the most effective way to > fulfill some part of your needs, then it would be irrational NOT to be > Christian (and this is equally true whether Christianity is true or false). > Sometimes rationality can lead one to set emotions aside temporarily -- for > example, when accepting an immediate loss for an important, but longer term, > gain. These two quotes fit well together, since much of the Christian life is exactly "accepting an immediate loss for an important, but longer term, gain" -- i.e. accepting the loss of your self-oriented nature (which we all have) in order to gain a Christlike nature and a Christlike life, both temporally and eternally. -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq One man's data are another man's garbage.