aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (03/30/84)
I got some complaints as a result of attempting to reply to every article on
the other side of the God/no God question. (I had gotten a little behind, so
I did a batch at once.) It was commented (correctly, I think) that the
arguments on both sides were getting repetitious. Also, I really don't have
the time to reply to every individual article myself. So here follow some
general ramblings that will probably address some of the points raised (some
of them originally in net.flame) without replying directly to each article.
(My thanks to others who have responded in helpful ways.) I will also address
some comments sent to me privately. These paragraphs will be in no
particular order.
But I begin by replying to a point or two by Tim Stoehr that, to be honest,
rankled this imperfect/impatient human a little. Tim said something like,
"I believe God to be demonstrable only to the irrational mind." Excuse me?
Do you expect not to use your rational mind in reading the Bible, not to
mention comprehending it? Anyone concerned with Christianity (exponent or
opponent) should at least read the Book wherein it speaks for itself.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide the believers into all truth. That
word "all" would have to include the rational mind, wouldn't it? "Snoopy"
(Dave Seifert) commented correctly that God wouldn't have given us minds if
He expected us to discard them in order to come to Him. Paul the Apostle
said, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your MIND." Anyone who believes that true Christianity requires the
discarding of the mind is at best imperfectly informed, at middle deceived
(by other people or by Satan), at worst deliberately deceiving himself.
(Remember that there is a large book of proverbs in the Bible; do you consider
all this wisdom irrational?) We are not asked to obey God blindly. However,
it has been well remarked that one way to recognize God's will is that it
usually involves some risk; i.e. we are asked to obey without knowing before-
hand how our obedience will turn out; often it turns out much better than we
would have expected, though it sometimes takes a while for that to become
evident. Jesus did urge his followers to "count the cost" of being a
disciple, i.e. be sure you want to follow Him before you set out; I think He
said this out of mercy, knowing that people would feel really unhappy if they
started following Him, discovered that they weren't up to it, but couldn't
back out.
I remarked that Tim et al. were not looking in the right places for evidence
of God, and he remarked "Show me the evidence." I will briefly reiterate
that there is plenty of evidence to make the existence of God probable --
my own gradual climb toward rationality with His help, psychological and
physical healing in others, the wonders of the universe; and that your
insistence that God meet your standards of proof is making yourself god,
which is the fundamental sin that Christ is seeking to eradicate from all
who will let him.
Enough on Tim. I alluded to the universe. I have heard of (though not yet
read) an article in Science magazine a few months back (circa November 1983)
which discussed how astronomers (and not only Christian ones) were coming
to the conclusion that there must have been a point of creation at some time
in the past; all sorts of astronomical theories fit together with this.
If/when I get to read the article, I can post a distillation of it; or perhaps
one of you has read it and can do so. The point is: Even non-"creationist"
science can point to creation.
It has been argued that God is not the main thing that has changed me, but
rather my faith, and that the same results would have occurred had faith been
put in someone/something else. Alas, there were not clones of me available to
test various other faiths. But why bother with such empty speculation?
Christ works, and works well; and if He works, why waste time with anything
else? Especially when Christianity is the only belief system I know of
wherein love--love as defined, say, in I Corinthians 13, love that really
considers the other person's good important--is so central (though there are
glimpses of the same thing here and there in the Hebrew Scriptures).
Some have complained that those who claim to be Christians, at least the more
publicly visible thereof, aren't doing their job, and that many Christians are
not truly following Christ. Well, I don't think there's a single Christian in
the world who, 100% of the time, acts exactly as Christ would. Sometimes we
try and fail; sometimes, to be honest, we really don't want to! But I, for
one, hope to minimize those occasions. We should not judge whether people
like Jerry Falwell are genuinely following Christ, are trying to and not
doing too well, or are deliberately going their own way; I don't think any
of us knows these famous people personally. BUT! The point: If you don't
like what the Church (the whole body of professing Christians) is doing, if
you don't think it's going the right way, why not join it and do your part to
move it in the right way, rather than remaining outside complaining about its
errors, which assists neither you nor the Church in getting to the right
destination? As C.S. Lewis comments, "Cutting off a man's fingers is an odd
way to get him to do more work"; i.e. keeping yourself out of an admittedly
imperfect Christian communion is an odd way to set about removing the
imperfections.
There have been numerous complaints about the bloodshed described in the
first several books of the Old Testament. There are several possible
answers to the objections:
1. Who are you, O created one, to dispute with the Creator?
2. God wanted to bring a Savior to mankind; and in order for that Savior to
work optimally, He had to come from Israel (e.g. His claims of being the
Son of God wouldn't have meant anything special in some East Asian
religions). Thus Israel had to be kept pure from corrupting influences.
It was better for a relatively few people to die than for the entire
human species to be eternally lost.
3. One theory that may spark heated discussion on both sides: The Hebrews
projected onto God their own desire to annihilate their various opponents,
possess their virgin women, etc. God Himself hints even in the Old
Testament that He is a God of love and mercy. "You shall love your
neighbor as yourself" comes from Leviticus. Somewhere in Psalms or one
of the prophets (alas, I remember not where) is the verse, "I desire
mercy, and not sacrifice." Perhaps (again, I'm not 100% behind this
theory, but it's interesting) God didn't order the slaughters described
in the books of Numbers and Joshua at all. (North Carolinians: If
Tim Maroney is unable to read news, please pass this to him.)
I am going to, now, officially consider my net-wide loose ends tied up....
--
-- Jeff Sargent
{allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
Have you hugged your junk mail today?ark@rabbit.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (03/30/84)
"Does God exist?" "Yes, of course." "How do you know?" "The Bible says so." "Why do you believe the Bible?" "Because the Bible is the Word of God." "How do you know that?" "Because the Bible says so." Isn't there something just a little peculiar about this line of argument?
smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (03/31/84)
From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: A potpourri of comments Message-ID: <629@pucc-h> Date: Thu, 29-Mar-84 19:54:36 EST Especially when Christianity is the only belief system I know of wherein love--love as defined, say, in I Corinthians 13, love that really considers the other person's good important--is so central (though there are glimpses of the same thing here and there in the Hebrew Scriptures). I've said this before and I'll say it again: if you're going to comment about Judaism (either directly or by allusion), you *must* refer to not just the Tanach (a.k.a. the Old Testament), but also the Talmud and several thousand years of rabbinic expositions and interpretations. Doing anything less is like trying to understand the U.S. political system by reading just the Constitution, and ignoring legislation, court decisions, administrative regulations, etc.