ptl@fluke.UUCP (Mike Andrews) (10/03/85)
Hi,
Who gets the glory when anger and hate filled attacks and counter-attacks
are uselessly made anywhere, including this net.
The person making the attacks - no. Where is there glory when someone,
man or woman, puts another down or `tears them / their ideas apart'
in order to prove, in vain, a superior intelligence? How far does
someone have to push another down to make themselves look taller?
The person attacked - no, but how he/she chooses to respond to the attack
can glorify God, if the response includes God's Love.
The person who counter attacks - no. Where is the glory in picking up the
stone just thrown, and throwing it back? Where is the glory in trying to
prove equality with someone who doesn't want equality? You don't need to
prove you're an equal to the people that matter, they already know it.
The damager-god --- doesn't exist. There is only one true God, revealed
to us all as the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. No other.
God - no. He isn't glorified by our pain or our triumphs, but by how we
respond to them both - with His Love, choosing to give Him all Glory.
satan - yes. He lives for every ounce of hate he can muster in us,
or that we choose to make ourselves.
Since we are all meant to be priests, according to the Bible, the next time you
post an article, please ask yourself whose priest you are, what faith you are
living. And lets pray for eachother. We all slip, we all sin, we all need
eachother, we all need God. I pray that this message reaches the
non-Christians on this net, too.
God Bless,
Mike Andrews
--
******************************************************************************
God said He would never leave me nor forsake me, and that I am His temple.
A man is what he thinks.
A body led by the soul is only 2/3 of a person : the soul tries to get rid of
the spirit.
A body led by the spirit is a whole person : the spirit works to make the soul
help the body. And a spirit led by God the Holy Spirit is invincible.
*******************************************************************************
ARPA : fluke!ptl@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP : {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!ptlpez@pyuxn.UUCP (Paul Zimmerman) (10/17/85)
In article <1489@vax3.fluke.UUCP>, Mike Andrews writes: > Who gets the glory when anger and hate filled attacks and counter-attacks > are uselessly made anywhere, including this net. > > The person making the attacks - no. > The person attacked - no. > The person who counter attacks - no. > The damager-god --- doesn't exist. There is only one true God, revealed > to us all as the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. No other. I find it sort of sad that you can simply ignore the evidence pointing to the fact that your God, the God that you whorship, is in fact the evil Damager-God. The assumptions you make about the nature of God to get you to that conclusion are too many to count. Perhaps if you can shirk them you will know the true nature of God. > satan - yes. He lives for every ounce of hate he can muster in us, > or that we choose to make ourselves. Satan and God are one and the same. Satan is analogous to God's ``imaginary playmate.'' Ever see a child blame his imaginary playmate for things he himself has done? Children don't get away with that such things. Yet God does. Be well, -- Paul Zimmerman - AT&T Bell Laboratories pyuxn!pez
brengle@hplabsc.UUCP (Tim Brengle) (10/23/85)
[I am new to this network and news. Please forgive any breaches of ettiquette or custom.} Paul, In your article <383@pyuxn.UUCP>, you wrote: > I find it sort of sad that you can simply ignore the evidence pointing to > the fact that your God, the God that you whorship, is in fact the evil > Damager-God. The assumptions you make about the nature of God to get you > to that conclusion are too many to count. Perhaps if you can shirk them you > will know the true nature of God. You seem to imply that the evidence for your damager-god is overwhelming. Or that the number of assumptions required to believe in its existence are fewer than with a benevolent God. So far, (remember that I have only been reading here for about 2 weeks), I have seem nothing to suggest either. In order for there to be Good of any form, there must be an Evil to measure it against. Consider any of the so-called utopian communities that have been started -- including those be various religious groups. My understanding is that the "usual" reason for their short life is internal dissetion. This suggests that even is a group of all Good people get together, the usual process of finding identity (that is differentiating yourself from the rest of the madding throng) stratifies such a Good group into the More-goods and the Less-goods. It is then but a simple semantic change for "Less-good" to become "Evil". (Please no flames about the existence of absolute Truth -- there just isn't room to go into everything here.) My limited understanding of your views would seem to indicate that you have just taken Good and renamed it Evil, and vice versa. Assume for a moment that your view and the traditional Judeo-Christian view (hereinafter labeled "my view") are equally good at explaining the facts -- that is, the physical evidence around us. I can guess that you will argue over that assumption, as can I (from the opposite view). But grant it for the moment. Then, what strikes me most about the system that you espouse it the total lack of hope. You do not allow your damager-god to be omnipotent, but even so he must be a truly potent adversary. After all, have you the power to cloud men's minds as you claim he has? If he is then so powerful, how can you have any hope of defeating him? Does that not leave you in a place where your struggle is ultimately futile (and hopeless)? My view, on the other hand, has me in league with God. And places me in a position of hope -- after all I have a very, very powerful ally. Especially since I believe that he is omnipotent. It strikes me that a beliefe system without any hope is not worth the trouble. I choose instead to believe that God has a plan (beyond my puny understanding) that gives victory in the end. I have a further question: is there any love in your system of beliefs? The entire reason for my coming to know God is love. His unending, infinite love for me. It will be hard to convince me that He whose love I feel daily is one and the same with your damager-god. Sincerely (and I really mean it), Tim Brengle
pez@pyuxn.UUCP (Paul Zimmerman) (10/25/85)
Tim, I may not be able to convince you of the fact that your idea of a loving benevolent God is based on more assumptions than my belief in an evil Damager-God is. (Then again, I may. A person should never lose faith. :-) I hope that this article will convince you at least part way, that your belief is at best ``no better'' than mine. From there, who knows? Since you ask me to ``assume for a moment that [both our views] are equally good at explaining the facts,'' I hope this can serve as a first step in approaching the truth of the matter about God. I am glad to see you are at least willing to go this far. You wrote that I ``seem to imply that the evidence for your Damager-God is overwhelming.'' As a matter of fact, the evidence is just as overwhelming as YOUR evidence for your God. Because it is exactly the same evidence! It is simply interpreted differently by you and me. You look at the evidence in your own Bible, showing a God who autocratically says that His will is law, destroying anyone who disobeys, crushing entire peoples who might interfere with His plans for the world at His say-so. And what is your conclusion? That all of this is fine and dandy, because it is God we are talking about, God ``defines'' good. And what is my conclusion? That such abominations are, quite simply, abominations, acts of an evil filthy pig Damager-God. Which of us is making assumptions here? Me, who judges evil as evil without presuming or reconfiguring my analysis? Or you, who sees the evil and insists that God is good anyway? You cite the dichotomy of good versus evil, saying that good can only be called good in relation to something called evil. You say that the reason that ``utopian communities'' dissolve because there are some who are ``less good'' than the rest, who cause dissension (whom you classify as ``evil''). I'm not at all sure how you can insist that people are to be stratified into ``good'' and ``less good'' categories (based on, according to you, the process of finding identity). What are your criteria? How well the ``less good'' people fit into the ``good'' people's decreed norms? But the most curious thing of all is your statement that your understanding of my views is that I have "just taken Good and renamed it Evil, and vice versa". How CAN you say this after your position takes the vile disgusting actions of a despicable God (as described in your own Bible) and calls them ``good'' because God did them? Certainly it is you who is taking evil and renaming it ``good.'' Getting back to the assumption you asked me to grant you (that our views represented equally reasonable concepts, that yours makes no more assumptions than mine. Yet in your own article, your complaint is that you don't like my system because it represents ``a total lack of hope.'' Because I ``do not allow God to be omnipotent.'' It sounds like you choose your beliefs based on how much hope (or other things you want) the beliefs offer, and that you get to ``allow'' the components of your beliefs to have certain characteristics (regardless of what they are really like)! What's more, you claim that since God is so powerful, we can never hope to defeat him, thus making my struggle ``futile and hopeless.'' Again, do you choose your beliefs based on how pretty they depict life to be? Point of fact, I do have my hopes that someday mankind can find a way to beat and destroy God. (Who's to say that this is impossible?) But I hope we can (as they say on Hill Street Blues) do it to Him before He does it to us. No matter, I find the problems of a life in a world with a pig filth God to be challenging, not futile and hopeless, even though in the end He does make mincemeat of us all. Regardless of your beliefs about His false promises of afterlife. (Have you ever wondered why He only promises you things you can never verify? Like a corrupt used-car salesman?) You say ``a belief system without any hope is not worth the trouble,'' that you ``choose instead to believe that God has a plan.'' Thus you prove my point that your beliefs are based on what you WANT to believe about God, and that you are not concerned about whether your beliefs correspond to reality, as long as they profess ``hope'' or other things you want. Forgive me for sounding gruff, but when you say so proudly that you are ``in league with God,'' I have no choice but to state my utter distaste for such association with pure evil. When you call Him your ``very powerful ally,'' you sound like someone who has procured the friendship and assistance of a vile gangster to aid and abet. You have the gall to ask if MY beliefs contain any notion of love, making the assumption that because you claim to have found love through God, as if this were the only way to learn about love. (Indeed, if it is A way at all!) I happen to have very real love for all people, indeed, for every living thing on this planet. It is for this very reason that I despise God, because He seeks to interfere with and damage it all for His own pleasure. You can hardly claim that belief in Him can be equated in any way to real love. Be well, -- Paul Zimmerman - AT&T Bell Laboratories pyuxn!pez