Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 15:07:44 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> Cc: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020904132317.I13440-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <200209041214.g84CEK183039@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org>
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On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Dave Hayes wrote: > >> I don't care what he was. There was zero excuse for that display > >> of police brutality. There's zero excuse for any of it actually, > >> and it's a prime reason I despise authority and rebel against any > >> sort of organized policing. Who watches the watchers? > > > > Hmmm...On what basis does anyone say that there is "zero excuse" for > > such and such action? Moral condemnations flow forth, but on what > > basis? > > Personal history. > > When I was 15, my best friend was shot in cold blood by LAPD for > "resembling" some guy who had offed a 7-11. The guy was one of the > smartest people I've ever known, and most definately not a > criminal. The LAPD has a very long history of using excessive force > when dealing with anyone (criminal or otherwise), especially for those > of us that grew up here. > > Granted, I was kind of traumatized and this may not be a basis > everyone can accept. But I do, and at the moment that's all that counts. Please do not misunderstand. There is indeed no excuse for such behavior. Personal experiences such as the one you relate above is where the rubber meets the road and one discovers whether or not his worldview lives up to whether or not it can withstand the onslaught of life. I would ask if you really think yours does that in the face of such wickedness. > > However, given your rejection of authority, who are you to condemn > > police brutality? > > Someone who's lost a friend to it. And this is exactly why I find it bizzare that someone who has lived through such an experience would continue to believe that in the end, it's all pretty meaningless. According to Christian theology, there is no event that takes place which does not have a purpose in the ultimate scheme of things. While many find this abhorrent, it can also be a great comfort in the face of the horrors of life. > > All you are doing is confirming that "there is none righteous, not > > even one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for > > God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless, there > > is none who does good, not even one..." (Romans 3:10-12) You really > > should read the entire passage, it gets even more to the point, such > > that, "every mouth may be closed and all the world may become > > accountable to God". > > Well, two things before I respond. > > First, when any biblical prose comes into debate, unless the people > are very focused on Truth, it will disintegrate into exact semantic > meanings of words written over a couple thousand years ago. This is > not a place to learn truth, but it is a place to steep in > righteousness. ;) The two are related. You cannot have righteousness without truth, nor can you have the truth without righteousness. This goes a long way to explaining why there is so much confusion over truth in the world. People do not by nature seek after truth, nor do they seek after righteousness. Your own comments about not trusting the watchers is a case in point. Another is your observation that debate over biblical texts can degerate into arguing over the semantic meanings of the words. People who are engaged in sin do not want to clearly interpret the meaning of scripture. The problem is entirely in man, not the texts. > Secondly, the bible has many layers of meaning. Some of the layers > are unavailable to people without the proper experiential data to > interpret them. (This means, if you are a Christan, you read the Bible > and then ask God what it means, not your pastor or some bible geek). I'm not in full agreement with what my pastor says on every point, but I do recognize the value in recognizing him as an authority, someone who has gone to seminary, studied Hebrew and Greek and is more familiar with the languages than I and the way language was used in those days. Believe me, I've gone through some paradigm shifts from studying these issues and having to accept that previous assumptions about life, and even the way one approaches the scriptures were wrong. I reject the idea that because people have different interpretations, the conclusion is warranted that nobody has the correct interpretation. What you suggest above sounds really pious, but in the end it leads to confusion, because then you get new cults forming from every new crack-pot interpretation that comes along. Proper biblical interpretation takes rigourous study, and like anything else in life, we rely on scholarship to help us along. > Ok, now responding to this. I'm familiar enough with the passage. The > entire chapter has a theme which is consistently misinterpreted to > mean that "all are sinners". It is a negativity pointed to by many > other religions as "why Christianity is self-destructive". After all, > if you can never be a non-sinner, then what's the use in not sinning? I would point out that what you deem to be a misinterpretation is actually supported by the context. Think of who this letter was written to, the Christians in Rome, probably a house church, and, being in a gentile city, probably was composed of a mixture of Christians from both jewish and gentile extraction. Paul has argued in the previous two chapters that neither jew nor gentile has any excuse for their wickedness, the jew having the law which came down through the prophets, and the gentiles having the law which is written in the hearts of all men. This continues into chapter 3, until verse 9, where he says, "What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin" Sounds pretty hard to misinterpret, doesn't it? It is at this point that Paul quotes several old testament passages to bolster his argument. These include Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3, 5:9, and 140:3, among others. Not only is Paul attempting to show the wickedness of all men, he continues to pile up passage after passage to prove his point, until verse 19 when he can then say, "so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God." Your second objection was actually anticipated by Paul and answered back in verse 8. As to why we shouldn't sin, the answer is that it is wrong to sin. The fact that we are unable to not sin does not change that. This is the fallen state of man, and the reason he needs a savior. Were he able to stop sinning, no savior would be necessary. That is why Jesus said that a man who sins is a slave to sin. Sin is that powerful. > In fact, there's another meaning here, and that has to do with what > "righteousness" is and why it's useless to be in that state (I do it > above). It's not saying "you are a sinner" per se. It's explaining > the uselessness of righteous behavior. This behavior has to be > overcome as a stepping stone on the path to being one with the > universe. Here you are doing what in Biblical interpretation is called "eisogesis", reading into the text what you want to take out of it. It can only work given your presuppositions. If you take into account the context in which it is written, the eternal, perfect character of God which serves as our objective standard of righteousness, this interpretation does not do justice to what Paul is trying to communicate. > Zen masters merely try to shut off your brain for you, if you can do > that then righteous behavior will shut off at the same time. And you find this philosophically and ethically defensible? Without any standards of righteousness, there can be no non-excusable acts which you referred to earlier. > > I really think you are deceiving yourself if you think you are > > not also deeply entrenched in assumptions. > > I don't think that I am not deeply entrenched in assumptions, how > else could I be communicating here? ;) But, alas, even that is an > assumption. I'm not much impressed with skepticism. But since you admit that it is impossible to not have assumptions (I prefer the term "presuppositions"), haven't you ever considered that there may be a set of presuppositions which are in fact the correct presuppositions to hold? Such that, without them, you couldn't know anything else? > > Everybody has them, and they are very important. The trick is in > > adopting the *right* assumptions. > > Are you being righteous? ;) How do you know which assumptions are the > right ones? "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of > God". I make no claim to being righteous. Were it not for God's grace, I would be in much the same situation as you. I don't even claim that my adoption of Christianity is anything I can boast in, for I did not save myself. I have a theological disagreement on this point with most of the Christians you've probably run into. I think it is fascinating that a non-Christian sees the irony in this that most evangelical Christians do not see. You can see here a glimpse of one of those paradigm shifts I referred to earlier. > > The question to be asked is what presuppositions are > > transcendentally necessary for experience to be meaningful at all. > > The reason that both of you are so difficult to argue with is that > > neither of you seem to think anything is meaningful. > > I'll admit, to me this is all a dream. Controlled folly this all is. On the other hand, you don't live that way. You live as though there is a distinction between dreaming and being awake. You get out of bed, go to work, pay the bills, etc. Your actions falsify what you say you believe. Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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