kss@gitpyr.UUCP (Kevin Smith) (11/10/85)
This isn't in response to any particular article, but I have noticed
several lately which touch on "who assumes what" concerning God. So here are
a couple of thoughts about assumptions.
Everything I or anyone else believes is of course founded on assump-
tions; I think most people recognize this. We have a wonderful set of theorems
in geometry, but they are all useless without the assumptions (axioms, postu-
lates) they are based on. I believe Newton's laws of motion and gravity; why?
Not just because some textbook or some teacher I respected told me about them.
I can see them work. Drop something and it falls, and you can even predict how
and where--if you assume it is going to behave as it did in the past. These
laws (and theorems, and whatever else) explain things, and so I believe them.
For someone truly to believe in God (not just talk about Him or try to
live a certain way) they have to have experienced things which point to Him in
a similarly convincing way. I and many on this net have. Now, if I were to
list particular instances it wouldn't be too hard, taking them individually,
for a person to ignore most of them; an apple moving a particular direction if
you let go of it one time isn't all that significant (referring to gravity
again if you didn't guess :-). For me, accepting God is a proven way of dealing
with the world because I know the kind of results that come from it.
And of course the results I see most clearly are those in my own life
and in the lives of others. My folks are missionaries in Indonesia, so I've
seen quite a few examples of these results. People, I am not talking ( or
writing :-) of rumors or blind or rote teachings; my parents have always
encouraged my to question and make sure I know what my beliefs are based on
rather than just accept things.
The upshot: we make assumptions. Make sure you know why you accept
the ones you have.
--
Kevin Smith
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kss