From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Christianity
Reply-To: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Organization: Minimal.
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 03:16:54 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.062604.8757@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <1992Apr10.054106.14603@menudo.uh.edu> kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>Pending answers to these questions, allow me to tentatively answer yours.
>>God can prevent anyone from warping anything that is written by his
>>inspired agents by inspiring anyone who reads the words of his agents in
>>*exactly the same way* as he originally inspired his agents.  That is,
>>through the appropriate mind controls, he may insure that every person's
>>interpretation of the words of his inspired agents is the same, and matches
>>the original intended meaning of the words.  You may think of this as
>>occurring in the form of an instructive voice as the person is reading,
>>or something more subtle and harder to detect.  The form doesn't matter
>>much, as long as the end result is the same: a consistent (from person to
>>person) interpretation of the Bible, regardless of the language the Bible
>>being read was written in and regardless of the experiences of the person
>>reading it.
>
>Either you're new to post-Reformation Christianity or to talk.religion.misc
>or both or you're being very, very wry.

None of the above, as it turns out.

I'm basically taking the (apparent) premises of many of the people here
on this newsgroup and arriving at conclusions based on those (apparent)
premises.  In particular, those who believe that (a) there exists an entity
that created the universe (i.e., defined the rules that govern it, set
up the initial conditions, etc.), (b) this entity has some concern about
the affairs of man (for what reason I cannot even guess), (c) this entity
is capable (i.e., not restrained by forces that exist external to it, if
such a concept even has meaning) of interfering with events in the physical
universe, and (d) this entity knows with perfect clarity what it is doing
and what is, has, and will be going on.

Many people seem to think of their God as being, in effect, all-powerful.
I do not know if Mike Siemon regards his God in that way (it is clear from
his writings that he believes in a God, but it is entirely unclear from his
writings what the characteristics of his God are, save that his God is
presumably benevolent in ways which are unclear to me), but many do.  Such
a God should have little problem in arranging things in the way that I
describe.

>>A sufficiently powerful entity may accomplish anything...
>
>Yeah, good idea.  Where is She?

I haven't the slightest idea.  I have no evidence whatsoever that any
such entity as many people seem to believe in even exists.  To me, this
entity is completely invisible.  I do not detect any effects it has on
me, my life, or the lives of those I know.  I do not detect any effects
it has on the physical world as I perceive it.

I certainly cannot disprove the existence of such an invisible, but
all-powerful, entity.  In theoretical terms, the existence of such an
entity remains an open question.  I run my life, however, as if this
entity did not exist.  I do not expect to get any help from it in
running my life, nor do I expect it to hinder me in any way.  If this
entity exists, it seems to be a non-participant.

>Steve Dyer
>dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer


		Kevin Brown (kevin@taronga.taronga.com)

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc