Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The delusional nature of sincere belief.
From: drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake)
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 03:17:32 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <adams.725585678@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:

>Jumping into a thread that you really weren't following, eh?

Of course!  I meet the strangest people that way... <g>

>Except that this was in response to an specific person (Sean Hartigan), who
>claimed to have 'accepted Christ,' but didn't believe in the resurection or
>the incarnation.  Sean's point was that since he had "accepted" Christ, he
>was covered.  I pointed out that this was not the case.

Fine; care to address my case?  Born again, accepted Christ, washed in
the blood of the Lamb, born of water and of the Spirit, felt the presence
of the Almighty.  Believed in resurrection, crucifiction, incarnation,
and inspiration.  I'm a Satanist now.

Sean thought that he accepted Christ.  You think that you've accepted
Christ.  You claim that Sean never did.  How do you know that you
have?

>Secondly, we were discussing 'heart' confession, as oppsosed to mind
>confession.  Sean's claim was that the heart was uncontrollable, and
>therefore any claim 'by the heart' wasn't controllable and thus such a
>requirement was impossible.

Yeah, I saw that part.  Didn't quite understand it.  Thanks for the
clarification.

>As to your specific comments, the issue is that when one accepts Jesus
>Christ as Lord, one does so with their whole mind and whole heart and whole
>soul.  If you don't do that, then you haven't accepted.

Catch me up here; what do you say that that means to you?  I mean, what
practical difference does accepting Christ make?  (You get to go to heaven
later on, for one, right?  Anything else?)

>There is no con game here.  It is your choice to make.  Your decision on
>whether or not you think Scripture is the word of God.  No force, no
>intimidation. 

Perhaps we have a different interpretation of intimidation.  If you read
the Apocalypse, and actually take it seriously, I think you're going to
end up intimidated.  God (paraphrased): "You're free.  Believe whatever
you want.  It is your choice to make.  BUT...be a Christian and go to
heaven, don't and you'll be sorry."  Sounds like the archetypical
"offer you can't refuse!"

>If you had followed Sean's thread, you would know that he believes that
>there is no free will, no 'decisions' that can be made, since everything we
>do is a product of our past or our environment.

Well, that's his choice.

>At least follow the thread before jumping in with non-answers.

Look, you want to have a private discussion, get your butt off the
newsgroup and do it in netmail.  Otherwise, any post you make
is open to a/t/t/a/c/k/ discussion. <g>  I don't pretend to be
arguing from his position; I look at what you've said and take it
on its own merits (or lack thereof!)  Maybe the sarcasm was a bit
overdone; for that, I apologize.  I was not trying to get in on
the discussion you two have going; I hoped to spark a new discussion
based on some of your points which seem to me weak.

-- 
Love and Laughter,             | NOTE: Private mail must go explicitly
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