From: mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Organization: Royal Roads Military College, Victoria, B.C.
Distribution: world,public
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 01:36:20 GMT


In article <1993Jan6.200935.21283@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>, simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale) writes:
|> In article <1993Jan5.223146.29327@ra.royalroads.ca> mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
|> >
|> > But we can have eternal life and the knowledge of good and evil.
|> > Sure, when God placed the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil in the Garden,
|> > HE knew that the people would partake of it and be condemned to death as well
|> > as all the generations that followed them. GOD knew this!  
|> 
|> If I ran a simulation (the closest I can get to omniscience) of, say, a
|> passenger aircraft design, and the simulated plane crashed, I would be
|> tempted to think that going ahead with building and operating the plane
|> was A Morally Dubious Business.
|> 
|> >    That is why He provided a plan for salvation through His one and only Son,
|> > Jesus Christ.  We are living in the age of grace whereby we may be saved IF we
|> > choose to follow Jesus.  There's nothing more to it than that.  
|> 
|> That's OK, my simulation indicates that a small proportion of the passengers
|> will survive the crash. Just don't get in the front three quarters of the
|> plane, because I *know* that everyone in there will throw a seven. How are
|> my morals looking now that I've slightly reduced the number of passengers who
|> I know will die at my hands?
|> 
|> Unless your purported God provides a plan for salvation which guarantees the
|> salvation of *everybody*, then he has failed adequately to attone for *his*
|> voluntary action (important point there, don't blame Eve for sitting up
|> front in first class when offered the seat) in going ahead with the Garden
|> ritual in the full knowledge that it would result in death.
|> 
|> If *one* of the passengers dies as a result of the crash which I knew was
|> inevitable (which, dammit, I actually *planned*) then I'm as guilty as if
|> they all died.
|> 
To use your analogy, God built the airplane and it flies fine.  The fact is, not
everyone wants to ride in it.  In fact, most people choose to jump out and then
curse God for not giving them a parachute.  God's plan of salvation through
Jesus Christ is open to EVERYONE and that means that EVERYONE can be saved.  Sad
fact is, not everyone will be saved.  Why is that?  Because most people choose
not to believe.  I respect that.  It is not for me to choose for someone else and
I would not wish to impose my beliefs upon another.  I am delivering a message,
that is all.  I'll answer questions or else refer you to someone who knows the
answer.  I don't know it all.


|> Sure, I'm not your God and his morality may not be the same as my morality.
|> But if in the next breath you talk of `in the image of God' and of moral
|> absolutes which supposedly derive from this, the moral high ground is
|> shifting visibly beneath your feet.
|> 
|> > Maybe I'm being too simplistic.
|> 
|> No, I don't think you're being simplistic (for which read `rigorous') enough.
|> As I've just written in a followup to another of your posts, you should
|> *dissect* this garbage and get down there in the nuts and bolts and see exactly
|> what it really *means* and what are its premises and logical consequences,
|> rather than floating around on clouds of romantic language and foggy notions
|> of love, free will, salvation, condemnation, grace, devotion and all the rest
|> of it. Revive or acquire an ability to cut through the crap and get to the
|> underlying logical structure of a claim or a set of claims. Trace the
|> development, be merciless toward circularities and other logical fallacies,
|> nail words down and don't let meanings shift during the development, reject
|> appeals to mystery and faith as valid or in any way providing clarification.
|> 
|> If this stuff is correct, it should stay correct when utterly demystified,
|> and if that isn't possible, you've been had and should toss it in the trash.
|> 
|> > I don't post too often but I am a firm believer and I just couldn't stand
|> > by silent in admidst this debate. I don't mean to flame anyone.
|> 
|> Me neither, but sometimes it's difficult to attack views to which somebody
|> is deeply attached without it coming out like a flame.
|> 
|> > After all, Jesus came into this world to save not to condemn. And in His
|> > likeness, I would not do the same. I welcome your response.
|> 
|> Likewise.
|> 
|> Cheers
|> 
|> Simon


You can't de-mystify God.  Even if you could, you wouldn't understand God because
you would have to have the mind of God to understand Him.  I know this sounds like
a lot of hokum but that's the way it is.  If we could prove the existence of God,
where is the faith?  Nuts and bolts?  Logical consequences?
   I can't prove to you that God exists.  I know that He exists by my experiences
with Him.  He gives me the strength to do what I could never do on my own.  He
picks me up when I fall down.  He has changed my life irrevocably and for the 
better.  He has surrounded me with brothers and sisters I never knew I had.  These
things are real.  You can't quantify the Spirit of God or measure Him on a
yardstick.  He is beyond human understanding, but He is real.  My life is proof
of that.
   Thank you for your post, Simon.

God loves, Man kills.


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