From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Stop thinking? (Was: Why I am an atheist)
Date: 29 Sep 92 20:39:57 GMT
	<ksand-280992191728@wintermute.apple.com>
Organization: noitazinagrO

>> No, no filtering out of the pain and suffering in this world. Joyful
>> participation in the SORROWS of the world, that is the way of no crutch
>> needed. And God responsible and there to help YOU out? You are a free
>> man, you have free will, the Lord has delivered your kind FROM slavery,
>> any clinging to the broken shackles is of your own design.

In article <ksand-280992191728@wintermute.apple.com> 
ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
>So it is I who am responsible for people dying in Somalia.

You and I share some responsibility. We are our brother's and sister's
keepers. Now, that doesn't mean we can fix it like that. The starvation is
caused by politics. The starvation in the US is caused by politics. I'm
sure you would want to help, if there was a way. I would gladly give half
of my salery and savings if that would mean an end to physical violence
and starvation and homelessness in the world, but I'm afraid it is much
more complicated than that. Unless you know of any ways to solve these
problems? So, that's the long and short of it. We are responsible, but what
can we do? I'm open to any suggestions.

>Or it's actually they themselves who are responsible.

No, they don't have any choice, they do not have free will. They are prisoners
of poverty and unequal rights and unequal justice. Everybody concerned about
crime, but tell me, just who are the criminals?

>Why an omnipotent God that started it all is not.

Because we were created with free will. This is what it means to be a free
human. Freedom doesn't mean Disney World. It means you have the choice and
you have the options, you select your life and you must live by your choices.
This IS the Lord's Kingdom right here, right now. We can make it either 
Heaven or Hell, but we must live by our choice, it is our own doing. It is
not easy walking the freedom walk and talking the freedom talk, but we must
if we are to realize and actualize Heaven, right here and right now. Now do
you SEE what life is really worth?

>Isn't this just trying to get rid of the responsibility?

If there is no slave master, who is responsible? Who is their brother's and
sister's keeper? Am I not?

>Let's say I have a 16 month old son, and he's
>getting ill, and I won't take him to the hospital because it's his
>fault anyway? Gee, nice logic. Sorry, I have higher moral values
>than that.

You are projecting your concept of father onto deity. That is fine, but not
very transcendent. If you worship a fatherly God, then you will find your God
to be distant, never there when needed, never there for personal advice. Why?
Perhaps the model is incorrect? What kind of a father would let his children
starve, or fight and kill each other, or not protect them or warn them about
Mother Nature? These are questions you must answer, if you model deity in the
image of father.

Regarding: "I am that I am", what is it?
>> Metaphor. What is the meaning? Trancendence.
>Nice words - no substance.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder.

>All life has the right to kill other life. I agree on that. I think
>we are dealing with satire, and I'm not on the same wave-length concering
>the jokes.

No, I'm not being satirical! I'm very serious! Well, serious as I ever get.
We as human beings are free, we have free will, free to do as we choose. But,
we must realize that we are not alone. All beings have free will, all life
has the right to live, and living means eating life or in other words, killing.
All life has the right to kill other life. That is fact. Eat and be eaten.
There is no other way. Life without death is dead, ie not life. Now, this is
not to say that we don't have societal codes of morality. You may feel you
have the right to kill and eat humans, but I'm afraid that society frowns on
that type of thing, as do many animals and plants. As a human being you are
a member of a tribe, competing with other plants and animals for space. It is
good tribal ethics to agree to fight together against outsiders and agree not
to eat each other. Strangely, we do kill each other though. Maybe we still
have some things to learn about life.

But, this is the logical flow:
1. life is good (unless you hate yourself)
2. life must eat to live
3. life must be born or created continuously to preserve the newness of life
4. resources are finite
therefore:
5. life must eat life, to live
6. life must die, so that new life can be created
7. life feeds on life and thus creates death
8. life without death is dead, static, unchanging
9. life has the right to kill and eat other life

Do you agree?
If you agree, then do you agree that this is a fire (metaphor)?
Then the question is, as an intelligent human being with free will, do you
feed the fire or quench the fire? Do you kill and eat life so that life can
always continue to kill and eat life, or do you eat as little as possible, 
and only eat things already dead, like fruit and fallen leaves? See what
I'm saying? Feed the fire or quench the fire or somewhere in between. Or
pretend that it is all some nightmare, that life isn't really that brutal,
that the MacNuggets you just ate didn't involve killing a chicken or that
a chicken is an inferior form of life, or that eating plants is not killing. 
There are lots of options. Which do you prefer? Are you looking for a 
fatherly or motherly slave master to make it all right? To protect you from
the seeming brutality of life? Life eats life and creates death, life has
the right to kill and eat other life. Do you deny these facts? Now, assuming
you hold these statements true, how do you cope? What faith do you have that
life is inherently good? Do you see Heaven or Hell? I told you that half the
story have never been told, but, now that you see the light, will you stand
up for you right? Or will you cling to the memory of the broken shackles,
the memory of a time when your mother and father protected you from the truth
and sheltered you from it?
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:17267 alt.sex:31013