From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: I'm God.
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 05:24:15 GMT

Sigh...

In article <70009@hydra.gatech.EDU> rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts) writes:
>In article <1992Oct3.072447.8844@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>|In article <69739@hydra.gatech.EDU> rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts) writes:
[...]
>|>No proof?  Well it is proof that you don't accept.  Jesus' followers
>|>wrote and documented a lot of what Jesus did, so that we could beleive
>|>and have eternal life.  
>|
>|Not exactly an unbiased source, is it?
>
>Who else is going to write about what Jesus did in those times, execpt
>the ones that were with him.  

Any number of the numerous bystanders that were around when "Jesus"
presumably performed his feats.

>|Strange how all the "documentation" for what "Jesus" did was written by
>|the very people who believed him to be The Savior.
>
>Again, who else at that time would have written it?  There are others
>who comment on what he did.  Josephus tells of a righteous man who
>was the Christ that was crucified and that people were following him,
>for they said he rose from the dead.

Right.  No evidence that he *did* rise from the dead, only that his
followers *believed* him to have risen from the dead.

This particular reference is one of the reasons for believing that there
existed someone who went around preaching the things attributed to Jesus
in the Bible.  But you can't say anything further than that.

>|Yeah, so?  Without any significant third-party sources for stuff like
>|this, and given that the very people who made this claim were the very
>|people who had the most to lose (psychologically) by being wrong about
>|this, I have little reason to believe that this "Jesus" actually was
>|"resurrected".
>
>These men say Jesus - they say the nail scares in his hands - they
>say the hole in his side.  Is it that they were too bold in their
>proclamation of Jesus' resurrection????  Would you not have been?

If I were a believer, I would have written what I believed.  The nail
scars are simply what one would think would be there were one to believe
that someone who had been crucified had risen from the dead.  You don't
need to *see* it to come up with it.

>|I do not question that the authors of the various passages that mention
>|this believed in this "resurrection".  I question that the authors'
>|claims match reality.
>
>How so?

I question that there existed anyone who had the capability to cure
blindness, to walk on water, or any of the "miracles" attributed to
this "Jesus".  But I do not question that the authors of the Bible
believed the man they worshipped to be capable of these things.

Belief in someone's capabilities and the actual existence of those
capabilities are two different things.

>|>I guess your have better sources that contradict all of this.
>|
>|No contradictions are needed.
>
>Have you assumed that a Jesus could not have risen from the dead and
>so that is why these letters of the Bible are not good enough?  

In effect, yes.  I have very good reason to believe that nobody from that
time rose from the dead, walked on water, healed blindness, etc.

It will take a great deal of positive evidence in support of these things
to make me even consider the possibility that these things happened.

Like I said: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  What
little evidence you and others have presented is anything but extra-
ordinary.

>Again, others mention the events.

"Others".  What others?  You mentioned Josephus, but he apparently only makes
a passing reference.

What other references do you have that are not contained within the Bible?

>|Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Since none is
>|forthcoming (I cannot consider a biased source such as the Bible to
>|be "evidence"), what good reason is there to believe the claims?
>|None that I can see.
>
>The Bible was written by several different men not by one man.  

This is irrelevent.  All of the authors were strong believers in the
particular brand of religion contained within the Bible.

>The recorded events from multiple sources should give you some hint that
>these writings have some weight.  

No.  This is true only if the authors had no contact with each other.  As
far as I know, that is not the case.

>That is unless you have assumed before hand that miracles cannot happen.

It will take a great deal of evidence to convince me that miracles did
happen.

Until then, I will make as few positive assumptions as possible, and will
thus not assume that miracles can happen.

>|In other words, "Jesus" made a *stronger* claim than the claim of being
>|godlike.  This means that *stronger* evidence is necessary.
>
>It is.  He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.  He did not
>die again.  He is alive today.

No.  The authors of the Bible *claim* that he rose from the dead and
ascended into heaven.

Do not confuse the claims that a few people have made with actual events.
They are two different things.

>|No.  What the believers *wrote* is what has been passed down.  That
>|the things they describe "Jesus" as having done actually happened is
>|another matter entirely, and one for which there is little, if any,
>|supporting evidence.
>
>Only if you know the writings of the Bible to be false or assume them to
>be false.

Do you know what circular arguments are?  It would seem not.

Don't you understand that the claims within the Bible are *precisely*
what I am questioning here?

You cannot use the Bible to justify the claims within the Bible!!!

>|Big deal.  I don't care who is "blessed" and who is not.  That your
>|"God" requires its followers to believe without decent evidence is
>|good reason for me to believe that your "God" is not worth following,
>|even if it *does* exist.
>
>The evidence is there.  

Then why is it that many professional historians, who make their living
studying such things, are unconvinced?  They would know better than
anyone else what the evidence for and against the claims in the Bible
is, and yet many of them (if not most) remain unconvinced on historical
grounds.

So: what evidence are you referring to?  Since the claims in the Bible are
being contested, you cannot use the Bible to substantiate them.

>|>I ask, if this is really the way it happened (which I believe), then
>|>what more could be done to document it???????????
>|
>|A *lot*.  In particular, independent accounts from disinterested third
>|parties would help greatly.  But such accounts seem not to exist with
>|respect to any of the important claims made by the authors of the Bible.
>
>Which specific events would you like to see documented?  Is Josephus'
>account invalid?

No.  But Josephus' account does not support the claims that I question.

I would like to see the following events documented, from multiple, timely
sources that are independent of the Bible:

	- Jesus walking on water
	- Jesus curing the blind
	- Jesus creating food from nothing
	- Jesus turning water into wine
	- Jesus rising from the dead


>True I don't have direct experience of an afterlife, but the people
>that saw the death of Jesus and his appearances after his resurrection
>and his ascension wrote us to encourage us that we could know (that we 
>could have faith.)

You DO NOT KNOW that these things happened.  At best, all you know is that
the authors of the Bible *believed* they saw these things.

You *believe* that these things happened, i.e. you have faith that these
things happened, but that is NOT THE SAME as knowledge.

>|The "sense" of knowing that I'm talking about is closer to the type
>|associated with your real-world experiences.  It is *not* faith.
>
>Jesus came back from the dead and never died again.  He told us of
>the life to come.

Is this from your own real-world experiences, or is this from your belief
system?  It looks to me that it is from your belief system.  After all,
*you* weren't there to see these things happen, were you?  *You* weren't
there to listen to what Jesus *actually* had to say, were you?

Like I said, the "sense" of knowing that I'm talking about is the type
associated with real-world experience, *not* faith.  Your statements
above are statements of faith, not statements of experience.

Why do you have so much trouble seeing the difference?

>|>For the sake of the argument, what if we are wrong - what have we lost?
>|
>|The ability to do things that you are currently forbidden by your
>|belief system to do.  You can't, for example, have sex until you
>|are married.
>
>Oh, I see.  Premarital sex is the great missing element in Christianity.

Only one of the many.  Another example: submission of the wife to her
husband's will.

Another example (and this is an assumption on my part.  There are some
Christians who do not believe this):  homosexual expression.

>Do you think sex is the thing that keeps people together?  

It is one of the things that keeps couples together.  Indeed, it is
important enough that couples have split up because of different
sexual needs (e.g., frequency, time of occurrance, etc.).

>Do you think it totally fulfills your life?

No, but it does to a degree.

>|>For we are living fulfilled lives today.  However, if we are right,
>|>what have you lost??????
>|
>|The ability to fulfill your life even more than it already is.
>
>In what way?

See above.

You needn't answer this, but what did you do before you were married to
fulfill your sexual drive?

Nothing?  I rest my case.

>|>Every one can know - it is a manner of faith and not works.  
>|
>|Faith and knowledge are *not* the same thing!!
>
>Clarification:  Every one can know if they have eternal life.  

No, they can't.  They can *believe* they have eternal life.  They can
*believe* that they have a handle on the requirements for having eternal
life.

But they cannot *know* that they have eternal life, in the sense of
experience.

>Eternal life comes by faith and not by man's works.  It is a gift of God.

I rest my case!

>|You "lose eternity" only if you're *right*.
>|
>|I'm questioning whether or not you're right.  There is little, if any,
>|evidence that says that you *are* right, and a significant amount of
>|evidence that says that you're not.
>
>Give the evidence that says Christianity is not right.

Well, I'll give what evidence I can that your particular beliefs are
incorrect.

The strongest evidence is that your beliefs seem to be internally
inconsistent.  If what I understand of your beliefs is correct, you
believe that your God has the following characteristics:

	- all-knowing
	- all-powerful (capable of anything)
	- created everything.
	- all-loving (loves all of his creations)

The first three, when combined, yield the conclusion that everything is
exactly the way God wants it to be.

It is a fact that humans suffer from natural disasters, and that this
suffering is unconnected with any moral choices they have made (I don't
call the choice of where to live a moral choice).  Since these disasters
happen because God *wants* them to happen, it follows that humans suffer
because God *wants* them to suffer.  This is in direct contradiction with
your fourth premise.

All this is explained in greater detail a few pages below.

>|>|Let me get this straight:  you are not well read (by your own admission),
>|>|and you claim to know very little, yet you somehow decide to believe in
>|>|all this unnecessary and untested gobbledygook *anyway*?  Whatever for???
>|>
>|>For eternal life.  
>|
>|Except that *this* reason is valid to you only *after* you believe.
>|Can't you justify your belief without resorting to circular arguments?
>
>For I know I am not perfect.  

Irrelevent.

>I know I do wrong.  

Irrelevent *and* subjective.  "Wrong" requires a standard of reference.

>Jesus came from God
>to tell us that we can related to the one that made us, even though
>we are not able to attain perfection, which is what God requires.  

Here's an example of what I was talking about previously.  You say that
God "requires" perfection.  Well, God *chooses* what it requires.  If
God requires perfection from humans, that is because God *wants* to.

Now, since (by your belief system) humans and the universe they live in
have been created by your God, and since you believe your God to have
known what it was doing, it follows that any imperfections that are
found in humans are because of how God created humans and the universe.
In short, it's *God's* fault.

Only an insane God would deliberately create something that *fails* to meet
its requirements.

>Though Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, we are able to relate to
>the Father.  

It is not necessary that this "relationship" be so indirect.  If it *is*
this indirect, it is only because your God *wants* it that way.

Thus, one may easily conclude that this "relationship" isn't particularly
important to your God.

>The Father sees us through the gift of his Son's merits
>and not on our own merits.  

Gee, whose fault is that?  God's, of course.  God *could* have set things
up better.  God *didn't* (according to you).

>Jesus died and rose from the dead.  

So you believe.  I am not at all convinced.

>He gained the victory over the grave, for he did not remain dead 

His *body* remained dead, did it not?

>nor did he die again.  

Only because he didn't get another body.  Duh.

>He is with the Father.  

So you believe.

>We have this witnessed to us
>by Jesus' follower and by the Holy Spirit functioning in the world today.

Yeah, right.

You're going to believe some third, fourth, fifth, etc., -person account
regarding something like this?

Look, none of these people who made these claims were even *there*.  They
didn't see God, and thus they didn't see this "Jesus" with God.  So how
do *they* know where "Jesus" is??

How gullible you seem to be...

>|>Again, for the sake of the argument, what do I lose, since I live to my 
>|>understanding a fulfilled life?  What do you risk losing?
>|
>|The opportunity to do anything that, were it not for your belief
>|system, you would be inclined to do for the benefit it brings you
>|and others.  Sex before marriage is one such thing.
>
>Again I forgot about sex being everything. :-)

Well, most people seem to attach a fair degree of importance to it.  :-)

>Have you ever thought that his inclination to do anything for 'the benefit'
>of others maybe is not really for the others benefit, but for someone's
>own personal pleasure, regardless of the others real needs.  

Like I said: "for the benefit it brings you and others".

I'm not talking about rape here.  I'm talking about sex between two
consenting adults.  In such a situation, it's very hard to argue that
only one of the people is deriving any benefit from the act.  I would
call pleasure a benefit.

>Intercourse 
>is not the thing a woman needs - they need affection all day long not
>just the sex act.  

Note that you say not *just* the sex act.  I agree that sex isn't the
*only* thing women want and enjoy, just as it's not the only thing
men want and enjoy.

But you cannot deny that it is *one* of the things that most members of
both sexes want and enjoy.

>Sex is the culmination of many events.  

Yeah.  So?

>|I cannot believe myself to have merit over something/someone whose
>|current existence I do not even know, except in hypothetical terms.
>
>I don't quite follow this.

I can, only in hypothetical terms, believe myself to have greater merit
than something I have no belief in.  But only in hypothetical terms.  Not
in real-world terms.

For me to believe that I have merit over something else in real-world terms,
I must believe that something else to exist.  Such is not the case with
respect to this "Christ" of yours.

Whether or not I have more merit than the travelling preacher who spoke
so long ago, and who is currently thought of as "Jesus" by you, I cannot
say.  I don't have enough data.

I *do* have enough data to say that, hypothetically, I have more merit
than your God.  *I've* never killed anyone, for one thing.  I've never
told someone to kill someone else, either.  But your God has done both.

>|>You do believe there was a historical Jesus, correct?
>|
>|I cannot say for sure.  I understand that there is good historical
>|reason to believe that *someone* during the period in question
>|travelled around preaching some of the things attributed to Jesus
>|of the Bible, and that this person eventually became known, in a
>|fashion, as the Jesus portrayed in the Bible.
>
>How long do you think it took for this man to become know in the fashion
>he is know in the Bible?

Looks like it took 50 years or more, from what I've seen knowledgeable
people saying here on the net.

>|Yawn.  This does nothing to address my point.  If you believe your "God"
>|to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, *and* you believe your
>|"God" to have set up the initial conditions of the universe, then your
>|belief is internally inconsistent, because the logical conclusions that
>|can be drawn from each assumption contradict one another.
>
>I don't quite follow this.

Okay.  I'll spell it out for you.

(1) You believe your God to be all-powerful, i.e. capable of doing anything.
I will assume that your God cannot break definitions, and thus cannot do
something like creating a rock too heavy for him to lift, but this is the
only restriction I will place on what God can do (if God can break
definitions, then God trivially gets whatever it wants, *always*).

(2) You also believe your God to be all-knowing.

(3) You also believe your God to have created everything.

The above three, when combined, yield the consequence that your God
created everything *exactly* the way it wanted it.  That is, everything
had exactly the attributes God wanted, no more and no less.  Being all-
powerful means that God was incapable of making a mistake in implementation,
and being all-knowing means that God was incapable of making a mistake
in planning.

So: mankind had exactly the traits God wanted.  Satan had exactly the traits
God wanted.  The universe had exactly the traits God wanted.  Thus, any
interaction between these elements is something that God not only knew
about, but wanted to happen.  The same is true of the results of any such
interaction.

Now, one of the properties of mankind that God intentionally implemented
was that mankind had a nonzero probability of doing something God had told
him not to do.  God also created the universe with the statistical property
that, given enough time, anything that has a nonzero probability of happening
*will* happen.  Thus, God intentionally created a situation in which it was
guaranteed that his creation, mankind, would disobey his commands.

Thus, the story of Adam and Eve, if true, happened exactly the way God
wanted it to happen.

Furthermore, the consequences of that disobedience were *also* defined by
God, and by axioms 1 and 2, were exactly what God wanted them to be.  Thus,
if the Adam and Eve story is true, mankind has a limited lifespan because
God *wanted* mankind to have a limited lifespan, and the same is true of
all the other consequences of "the fall".

Now, back to the universe for a moment.  Like everything else, it was
created exactly to God's specifications by God.  Unfortunately, these
specifications are such that physical, emotional, and intellectual harm
is sometimes done to the humans that dwell within, with no connection
at all with any of the moral choices these humans have made (choices such
as where to live).  Some of this harm comes to small children and other
such people that we normally regard as being totally innocent.  All this
is the direct result of the way the universe was designed and the way
humans are built (which is the direct result of how humans were originally
designed and, presumably, the consequences [which were chosen by God]
that humans have suffered as a result of their disobedience [which God
explicitly designed them to do]).

>|To say otherwise is to make a mockery of the concept we know as "love".
>
>What do you understand love to be?

Love, to me, involves caring about another being enough that you will
go out of your way to insure their well-being and happiness.  How much
you love them will determine how much you're willing to go out of your
way.  "Going out of your way" implies that the action in question will
cost you something, be it time, money, resources, risk, or whatever.

Now, since your God is supposed to be all-powerful, this means that the
cost to your God of any particular action is zero.  This means that God
need only love someone a little to do whatever it takes to insure the
well-being and happiness of that someone.

Since events occur in the universe that cause harm to the people that your
God presumably "loves", and since some of this harm has no connection with
any of the moral choices these people make, one must then conclude that
either (a) your belief that God "loves" these people is false, or (b) your
belief that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and created everything is
false.  *One* of these *must* be false, for the logical consequences of
each contradict each other.

Since your belief system is internally inconsistent, it logically follows
that your belief system, taken as a whole, is false.

Of course, if you change any of the premises, the conclusions also change,
and the system as a whole will have to be re-evaluated.

>|You attribute the changes in your life to this "Jesus" character, and
>|you subscribe to a large and complex belief system as a result of this.
>|But whether or not this has anything to do with reality is another
>|question entirely.
>
>Is my belief system large and complex because it is written down or
>because it affects every area of my life?  

Neither.  Your belief system is large and complex because it involves
a large set of arbitrary rules which cannot be deduced from any first
principles.

Not that yours is the largest and most complex, however...

>You have hit on a pretty
>good point.  The one to whom one submits or to whom one attributes
>the good one might have received or done is very important (i.e., either
>man is the highest level or God is?)

What is this "highest level" stuff?  Must such a thing be measured using
a scalar metric?

>|Since there seems to be so little objective evidence supporting your
>|belief system, I have no good reason to believe that your belief system
>
>Again, give some objective evidence denying the belief system.

See above.

Additionally, consider the fact (as presented by others far more
knowledgeable than I in this) that a number of the "prophecies" in
your reference, the Bible, were shown erroneous.

Further, consider the fact that evolution, as a process, has been
shown to be an excellent explanation for the existence of life on
earth.  I do not know whether or not you agree with evolution, but
if you do not, then that is one more strike against your particular
belief system (but not against Christianity as a whole, difficult as
that may be to define).

>|has much connection with reality (it certainly has no connection with
>|the reality *I* have experienced).  Thus, I have no good reason to
>|believe in this "God" of yours, or that this "Jesus" is my "savior",
>|or any of the other things you believe in that sound like so much
>|bogosity to me.
>
>Do you personally know any Christians?  

Yes.

>Do you interact with any on a regular basis?   

I have in the past, yes.  I do not currently, however.

>I'm not referring to someone that just goes to church
>on Sunday or Christmas and Easter.  I'm referring to someone that
>is actively seeking to become more like Jesus - living their life for
>God and not themselves.

Yes, I know what you're talking about.  My sister is one such person.

>|>What do you call 'much of a problem'?
>|
>|Oh, things like being unable to deal with the death of loved ones, or the
>|experience of severe personal danger.  These things are things I have
>|weathered without the help of any supernatural entity.
>
>Did you greive?  (Is this what 'weathered' means?)  

I felt a loss, but it was more because I would not be able to interact
with them for the rest of my physical life than for any other reason.

"Weathered" means that I lived through it without significant harm to
myself.

>Christians have the hope of seeing our loved ones again.  

So?  That doesn't mean that you *will*.

>We are told not to greive like those who have no hope (i.e., no hope of
>eternal life or the afterlife).

Look, only if you are *wrong* are you guaranteed that you will be able to
see all the people you have ever loved or whose company you've enjoyed
again.  Why?  Because you'll have to be *wrong* for *everyone* to be
"saved" in some sense.

Unless, of course, you propose some traversable connection between "heaven"
and "hell".

>|Can you say the same?  If so, then what do you need this supernatural
>|entity for?  If not, then how does this make you any better off than I
>|am?
>
>Not only does God help in the tough situations he helps in the day to
>day ones.  All of the 'complex' system of beliefs we have can be summed
>up in one phrase 'love your neighbor as yourself', 

Oh, yeah, right.  Tell me how "no sex before marriage" is derivable from
this in today's world.  Tell me how "no homosexual expression" is
derivable from this.  Tell me how "you will roast in hell if you do not
believe X" is derivable from this.

>for love does no harm to another.  Yes, God does help in my daily activities.

Well, all I can say to this is "good for you".  Whether your belief is
an accurate reflection of reality or not is pretty much irrelevant when
it comes to your own life.  But when it comes to the lives of others,
it's very much relevant...

>|Look, even your beloved "Jesus" was unable to do a damned thing when
>|it was *his* time to die, because in the end he *did* die, at least
>|in a physical sense (and that is basically what you're talking about
>|here.  "Lifespan" isn't a meaningful term in any other sense).
>
>He rose from the dead and IS victorious over death, for he did not die again.

Bull.  You don't see him walking around today, do you?  QED.

>Again, the point was that Jesus was telling us that we can't really
>do anything about this physically life, so what can we ourselves do
>about our spiritual life.

Yeah, but "Jesus" is ever so *wrong* about this.  Like I said, we can
do *a lot* about our own physical life.  About the only thing we can't
do is ensure that we live our physical lives forever.  But if your
belief system is right, then that's your God's fault, for it *could*
have set up the universe such that eventual death wasn't guaranteed,
i.e. set things up such that the probability of eventual physical death
was zero.

>|If you're asking about what one can do about an "afterlife", then I
>|have no answer at all, because I don't even know that an "afterlife"
>|even exists, much less what form such a thing would take if it did
>|exist.
>
>You exist today, correct?  

Yeah, so?

>What do you think happens to your essence when you die?  

I haven't a clue.  It may simply cease to exist.  It might be transferred
into the body of a frog.  It might be consigned to floating among the stars.
There are countless possibilities.

>Is there more to life than the body and chemical reactions?

I have no idea.  But I haven't seen any evidence so far to suggest that
there is.

>|You have certain beliefs regarding that last, but I've seen nothing
>|to compell me to treat it any more seriously than the beliefs of the
>|Hindus, for example.
>
>I see Christian society has not advanced beyond that of Hindus, correct?

What do you mean by "advanced"?

I'm sure that, as measured by the Hindus, their society is far superior
to ours.

If you want to attribute technological society to any particular religious
sect, then I wish you luck, because I don't think you can.  But I'll tell
you this: the people that have contributed most to our understanding of
the world were willing and able to shove their religious preconceptions
aside and look at what the data were *really* saying.  In that sense, they
were being agnostic.

>|>It is a teaching from Jesus to show how little control we have over
>|>this physcial world in which we live.  
>|
>|Heh.  Give it time.  Our control over the physical world grows with
>|each passing day.
>
>Heh.  It grows?  Can you control the wind?  

To some degree.  I can build structures to redirect it.  I can build
machines to produce it.

>Can man even model it very well?  

Depends on what you mean by "very well".  We can model it well enough to
build flying machines that use it.  Is that good enough?

>Can man predict the weather?

Obviously, to some degree, yes.

We can do all these things to some degree, and the degree to which we're
able to do these things is growing with time and understanding.  Again,
with *zero* help from your God.

You have some point to all this?

>|Technology has the potential to do *a lot* for us (indeed, it has
>|*already* done a lot for us).  That technology comes directly from
>|what we learn about the real world, and I dare say that your "God"
>|has been of *zero* help to us in this regard.  None of the
>
>Oh,  I guess you think God didn't intend for to advance in our
>understanding and use of this world in which we live.  

I didn't say that, did I?  I said your God didn't *help*.

>God said
>to Adam and Eve, to multiply (have children) and fill the earth AND
>to subdue the earth and to rule over the animals.  

So what?  God *commanding* something isn't the same as God helping
man to *do* something.

>Which other societes has advanced more then those in which Christian is
>predominant.

Again, depends on what you mean by "advanced".

>Don't most of the other religion, especially the eastern religions, 
>teach that this world is more of an illusion than real.

Different religions teach different things.  I would wager that at least
one teaches that you should understand the world around you through
discovery.  Christianity is not that religion.

>|information we base our technology on comes from your beloved Bible,
>|and yet I dare say that your very existence depends much more on
>|that technology than on the words in your Bible (for you would have
>|no food to eat were it not for agricultural technology).
>
>Oh, I remember everyone dying off along time ago, because of the
>lack of gardening techniques.  

You think God *gave* these people gardening techniques?  Sorry, but
man had to discover and develop them for himself.

>Even in the first few chapters of the
>Bible, God put Adam in the GARDEN OF EDEN and told him to CARE FOR
>IT AND TO WORK IT.

Yeah, right.  Did it give them farm tractors to tend to the gardens
with?  Did it give them insecticides to fend off insect attacks?  Did
it give them the tools?

Or did man have to *make* these things for himself?  It looks to me
like man did the work.  And, in fact, this is what the archaelogical
evidence says.

>|This is ridiculous.  Look, if your ideas about God are right, then
>|God *created* us.  Whether what we are today is the direct result of
>|that creation or the indirect result of that creation is *irrelevent*
>|if this God is all-knowing and all-powerful (such a being *never*
>|fails to get its way).  It is *God's* doing if we fail to meet the
>|standards of God (who do you think decided upon the standards,
>|anyway?).
>
>If we had no free will, then you'd have a point.  

Free will is irrelevent to this discussion.  Only if said free will is
*unrestricted* do you have any argument at all.  But our will is severely
restricted by the universe we live in.  A universe which was, according
to you, created by your God.

>We do and mankind,
>throught he first man Adam, chose to disobey God.  Do you think we
>would chose differently?

Since the universe follows statistical law, we would eventually have
chosen to disobey God, given enough time.  It's not *our* fault that
the universe follows statistical law, and it's not *our* fault that
God chose to give us a nonzero probability of disobeying.

>Again, the point was we have so little knowledge of this physical world,
>how can we even do anything in the spiritual.  

Well, gee, if we had the kind of access to the spiritual world that we
have to the physical world, maybe we'd get somewhere.

But it would seem that your God is unwilling to allow such access (else
we would have it), so we have no way of learning for ourselves what that
world is like.

>Jesus told the people that
>the birds of the air don't even worry about where they will get their
>food, for God has provided it for them.  

A-hahahahaha!!!!   Wanna bet???

What, do you think birds don't have to *work* to get their food?  If so,
then you're *wrong*.  Birds, like any other animal, have to *work* to
get their food.

Unless they're being cared for by humans.  Again, a case where humans,
not your God, make the difference.

If birds don't "worry" about getting food, it's because they don't have
brains capable of such a thing.

>He even compares a flower (a lily)
>to the most arrayed king of the world (King Solomon) - Jesus said Solomon
>in all of his splendor was not as beautiful as the lily.

Well, this depends on who you ask, doesn't it?  I'm sure King Solomon
thought himself *much* more impressive than a lily.

>|However, I strongly believe that if the ability to grow taller at will
>|ever comes about, it will come about through our growing understanding
>|of the universe around us, i.e. through technology, and *not* through
>|some hocus-pocus belief in "Jesus".
>
>Oh.  Jesus rose from the dead a little before technology has achieved
>it.  

So you say.  But there doesn't seem to be any concrete evidence of it.

>In fact he overcame death - for he never died again.  

BZZZT.  He never overcame *physical* death, which (as far as I'm concerned)
is the only kind of death worth discussing.  Anything else is pure
conjecture.

>Has technology
>done this?  Who is first in the area of knowledge and understanding?

Technology has *obviously* extended the physical lives of human beings.
And there's a lot of research being done into why humans age and die.
Once they've got *that* figured out, they'll probably be able to do
something about the aging problem.

Of course, people will still die, because humans have a limited self-
repair capability.  But even that might be augmented with nanotechnology,
should that capability ever come about.  And then there's genetic
engineering.

It's really sad that your God decided that humans would definitely have a
finite physical lifespan.

God's choice, not man's.

>|>It is amazing that one can look at the beauty of nature, for why should
>|>there be beauty without a creator, 
>|
>|Why *shouldn't* there be beauty without a creator?
>
>You don't think a picture or building just plopped into being, but you
>know that someone designed and built it.

Yeah, so?  What has that to do with beauty?

>|Beauty is a subjective thing, and is something whose definition varies
>|from individual to individual.  Some regard nature as "beautiful",
>|and some don't.  Few regard *everything* in nature as "beautiful",
>|and few regard nothing in nature as "beautiful".
>
>Name something.

Okay.  A mosquito.


>|One needn't believe in or see a "master designer" to wonder about the
>|universe.  I'm living proof of that.
>
>You've NEVER even thought there could have been a Creator?  Not even
>after someone suggested it?

Of *course* I've thought that it's *possible* that there's a creator.
I still think it's *possible*.

But just because something's possible doesn't mean that things are actually
that way.

I don't complicate my life by making unnecessary assumptions.

>|>We look at trival things (paintings
>|>and buildings) and say man he did a good job, but look how insignificant
>|>and small man's works are and how big and beautiful the universe is.
>|
>|Right.  So?  Just because man is small and the universe is big doesn't
>|mean that the universe was created.  That the universe is beautiful is
>|a subjective interpretation, not an objective assessment.  It takes a
>|human being (or perhaps a chimpanzee, if they're capable of this) to
>|consider the universe beautiful.  This sounds to me more like an argument
>|for the importance of humans, if anything, than an argument for the
>|existence of some master designer of the universe.
>
>How did man get this ability to recognize beauty.  What survial purpose
>does it have?????????

I thought I already explained this.

Recognition of beauty is a positive emotional response to external sensory
input.  This response is pleasant, and thus makes the section of time the
person is experiencing this more pleasant.  The rest I've already explained,
but here it is again in case you didn't follow it the first time:

    Most people regard living as a more or less pleasant experience,
    though.  If you are asking why *this* is, consider that someone
    who considers life to be pleasant will be more motivated to
    survive than someone who doesn't, and will thus be more likely to
    reproduce.  Someone with a genetic disposition towards enjoying
    life will have kids who are so predisposed, and that disposition
    will eventually dominate the population.

Recognition of beauty is one of the ways humans find pleasantness in life.
The more beauty one finds in the world, the more incentive one has to
survive.

>For Christ and His Kingdom,
>Richard Pitts


-- 
Kevin Brown					kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
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