[net.religion] The logic of the "logic" article

wex@ittvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat) (08/01/83)

I'm not normally one to but into another conversation, but this article
was titled "logic."  I have never seen a more misleading title here.  Look
at this "logic":

	From Hutch:
	Well, mARK, the fact is that God DID sacrifice 
	His Son.  
	
Say what?  What fact?  Fact according to whom?  I suggest you read my
latest reply to Larry Bickford for a more complete thrashing.

	This was not a case of saying, "Son, just to 
	make a more elegant creation, I am going to 
	kill you now" The situation was more one of 
	Jesus CHOOSING to die for that creation.

Were you there?  How the heck do you know Who said what to Whom :-)?

	Do you have the right to complain of the 
	cruelty of the potter when, after he has 
	made a batch of vases and fired them, that 
	he should destroy the ones which cracked, 
	or sagged in the kiln?

In all seriousness, it disturbs me greatly to see you compare killing a 
person with destroying an inanimate object.  There is just no comparison,
even by anology, to be made here.  Your callusness is sickening.

	How then can you fault God, who has made it 
	possible for us cracked and saggy and highly 
	imperfect (don't bore me by claiming to be
	perfect or even remotely close to it) creations, 
	to become perfect?

Oh, gee, an easy one: I can fault God for making us cracked, saggy, and highly
imperfect in the first place!  It seems to be a rather stupid, not to mention
pointlessly cruel, game to say "Well, I've made you five feet tall.  I could
have made you six feet tall, but I didn't, so there.  HOWEVER, since I'm such
a nice guy, if you'll just lie on this rack here for the rest of your life,
I guarantee you'll be six feet tall when you die."

	Or is it that you are so completely knowledgeable 
	about the world and about what is right and wrong, 
	that you can judge God to be wrong in His acts on 
	the face of your own experience.   (Heavyhanded sarcasm)

(No sarcasm) You had better beleive it bub.  When God made my mind, he gave
me faculties for judging right and wrong.  And I'm not going to sit here and
listen to you tell me I can't use those faculties, just because He's God.
That argument reminds me of Nixon claiming executive privelege.  (Okay, so
maybe a little sarcasm!)

	What I challenge in all this is your claim that even 
	if you did believe in the Christian view of God, that 
	you would turn from Him because you could not accept 
	His actions.   Would you similarly turn away from your
	views on natural history and evolution because of the 
	massive cruelty inherent in the destruction of those 
	thousands of species of dinosaur when the asteroid fell?

One problem with many creationists is that they seem to have this view of 
"EVOLUTION" as a sort of semi-omniscient monster that goes around meddling
with things.  They say things like "Evolution doesn't care..." as though
evolution and caring could \possibly/ be related.  Evolution is the name of
a theory of genetic change and species development.  That's all.  It's not
the bogey man "comin` ta git ya!"

Similarly, to speak of evolution and cruelty is equally meaningless.  The 
terms simply have no semantic relationship to one another.

And, although I can't speak for mARK's attitudes towards evolution, that 
comment about the meteor can have only one reply:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--Alan Wexelblat
decvax!ittvax!wex