From: julian@tantalus.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock)
Subject: Re: Question for Creationists
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 21:13:38 GMT

martin@Chemeng.Ed.Ac.Uk (Martin Spenceley) writes:

>That book which he is supposed to have written, which version should I
>be reading? The ones with the Virgin birth or the ones that are
>supposed to be translated properly?  Why was it written so that it can
>be interpreted in many ways, 'Thou shall not kill', but to defend God,
>King and country, say the church (who studies it more than the average
>person) is okay?

>Which version of the book has that right connection? How about the
>Mormans (with their extra guide?), the J. Witnesses with its easy to
>read, lets ignore the stuff we don't like style.

>On second thoughts, if someone provides so many alternative ways in
>seeing the world around us and expects us see through everything and
>not make a mistake in the process, (aren't we all supposed to be
>fallable, automatically sinning, etc) and expects us to worship
>something I cannot see, feel, touch or talk to in a sensible way. Who then
>acts childishly and not to forgive my mistakes in the end. Well I think I'll 
>forget it,  its not worth the bother.


>Martin.


Julian responds:

How can you write something that cannot be interpreted many ways?
Look at textbooks on quantum mechanics? Does the existence of alternative
interpretations invalidate the theory?
The centre of the message that God put in the Bible is that Jesus Christ
died for all people. So the following guide to religions will quickly
sort out which ones are contenders for an intelligent person.

Start with two facts: 1 The world exists.
                      2 There is a lot of suffering in the world.

What do religions say about suffering?
What can be our response?
Either we ignore it and go on our merry way or we try to reduce it and eliminate
it. If the latter there are basically two choices: the existentialist view
(see A Camus in The Plague, J P Sartre etc); or a religious view (ie invoking
a Deity).
The existentialist view is that suffering is real and has to be eliminated,
there is nothing worth while in it and mankind should spend its time
removing evil. However, this is a sisyphean task and will never be achieved,
so all attempts to remove evil will fail. But we must try.
The religious view is that suffereing is somehow "necessary" in the world.
Perhaps, God could create a world without it, but that is not the world
we live in. So how do religions deal with this suffereing?
The Bible says that God loves the world and as it is inconsistent to love 
people and leave them suffering He did something about it. Namely, he
came to earth himself to deal with it. In living on the earth he simply went
around helping people, but he was executed for being a threat to the
religiouas rulers of his time. This death was unfortunate but that's the
way the world is. Still he left us a good example.
As far as I know (having read some of Judaism, the Koran, Buddhism)
no other relgion makes the claim that the person who died on that cross
in Palestine was God. If it was not God then we have a nice example
of a good man dying uselessly. (See the existentialist view above).
Christianity (in all its interpretations except those originating
in the 19th century by strange people with an eye for publicity,
pace J Smith, Mary Eddy Baker, etc, which were throwbacks to earlier
ideas) claims that the person on the cross was God himself, who is the only
person able to pay the penalty for there being evil in the world.
  
So there are not that many options: if you don't care about children
dying of starvation then get on with living; if you do care but
reject a Deity then be an existentialist, and recognise that history
will be "a long record of defeat", if you care and accept a deity
welcome to the monotheistic religions; if you think that the evil in
the world demands a God-size sacrifice then you are left with 
christianity.

Your choice?

julian

PS The above argument is not meant to insult the manhy members of
Buddism, Islam etc. It is meant to say that I do not see in those
relgions a satisfactory resolution of the problem of evil. It is obvious the amount of suffering in the
world
is enormous and no human being is able to do anything about it,
so the only person left if God. Unless, of course, he does not exist.
But then I would be an existentialist. I do not know how God dying 
saves people but it is the only solution tha gives me hope that
there is a solution.