andree@uokvax.UUCP (11/24/83)
#R:bunkerb:-25900:uokvax:8300018:000:1762 uokvax!andree Nov 23 00:01:00 1983 I've been watching the garys/rlr discussion on god/~god with some interest (and amusement). I appreciate the posting of summaries in this type of discussion: given the nature of usenet, it is VERY easy to miss articles entirely. For instance, I seem to have missed the article in which garys stated reasons for believing in (one or more) god(s). If I had seen that article, I would have stated that he missed at least one such reaseon. Namely, a belief that people are basically good. My experience has been that the majority of the people I've run into are reasonable people; people who respect the rights of others; basically good people. I can not find *ANY* way that a world composed mostly of such people could have gotten us into the current state of affairs: Mutual Assured Destruction; overcrowded prisons; superpowers fighting over the world; etc. I have to conclude that some power outside of the human race is changing things - or people (I find it incredibly difficult to believe that either Hitler or Torquemada were actually human). Said power must be either aliens or a god. Having malicous aliens suffers (as far as I'm concerned) from the same problems the truly malicous humans suffer from. Hence said malicous power must be a god. This also explains where the universe came from by giving us a supreme being to have created it. I'd also like to mention that garys logical need for a god to have created the universe doesn't satisfy me: who created god? I can't concieve of something that has always existed. Maybe something that exists outside of time; but that just moves the problem up a level. The only solution I can find is that god must have created himself. Unusual, maybe, but at least it doesn't leave me wondering `why?' <mike