From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: OCA Initiative (was: Family values defined)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:31:21 GMT

In article <1beosvINNb7q@cascade.ens.tek.com> davidh@cascade.ens.tek.com (David Hatcher) writes:
>>>  From my perspective, God can be compared to a Master Gardner. And
>>>all Master Gardners know that the best way to prevent weeds is to
>>>plant more flowers. In my opinion, Christ can be likened to a Master
>>>Gardner. Christ did not go around pulling weeds. He operated by means
>>>of a planter of flowers. He went amoung the sinners and planted flowers
>>>by helped them.
>>If Jesus is a master gardener of this kind, he's an incompetent one.  To
>>properly run a garden, of _course_ you have to pull weeds.
>  Sorry, but for good weed control, you do not need to pull weeds. Just 
>plant more flowers. The flowers will smother the weeds and keep them away. 
>  Gardeners, really competent ones, approach gardening from the perspective
>that weed control is best done by planting more flowers. They know the
>advantage of using flowers to keep weeds away. Planting flowers also adds
>beauty, and is a way of creating more life within a given area. And in
>in the long run, the planting of flowers for weed control is a lot less 
>work than approaching weed control as one of a weed puller. Without planting
>flowers to keep weeds away, the weeds will always come back. What kind of
>weed control is that?

If you've ever tried to raise a garden, I suspect you would not be saying this.

It looks to me that you're trying to work backwards from what you want God to
do, to figure out the right way to run a garden, instead of really looking
at a garden and then working forwards from this to figure out things about
God, like you claim.

>  Also you can be sure that the weed puller is going to blow it and instead
>of pulling out weeds, yank a flower out by its roots instead. The same thing
>happens in life. The person who thinks that they can correct sin by pulling 
>it out by its roots it going to also pull out the flowers as well. 

You're working backwards again.

For real flowers, as opposed to analogical ones, you most certainly do want
to pull out weeds.  If you pull some flowers by mistake, it's still a lot
better than losing _more_ flowers to outcompetition by weeds.

Again, you seem to be working backwards: you decide how you want God to be,
say God is like a gardener, and go from what you want God to be to how you're
"supposed" to run a garden, instead of the reverse.

>>I believe that given the context, this means I have just demonstrated that,
>>_from your own premises_, churches must be attacked.
>  You lost me. I have no idea from where you got this wrong minded premise. 

The premise is that God is like a gardener, and that attacking churches for
bad ideas is like pulling weeds.

You try to go from this to saying that churches should not be attacked, because
weeds should not be pulled.  But weeds _should_ be pulled, which means that if
I accept your own premise of weed pulling being like attacks on churches,
people should attack churches.

>>That is a problem with excessive proof-by-analogy: if your analogy is wrong,
>>you suddenly end up with an airtight proof of the wrong thing....
>  Maybe. But I do not see my Beloved God as anything other than a planter
>of flowers.

You don't get it.  I'm not saying anything about God.  I'm telling you you
don't know how to plant gardens.  _You_ are the one who says that planting
gardens is something like God spreading religions; I'm just telling you that
for _real_ gardens, that leads to some rather weird conclusions.
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)