Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 17:45:17 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Juli Mallett <jmallett@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net>, <dave@jetcafe.org>, <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020906160208.R44625-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <20020906154116.C30018@FreeBSD.org>
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On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Juli Mallett wrote: > > People have a tendency to develop beliefs that approximate the truth. > > This is because, though they try to suppress their knowledge of God, > > they can never completely erase that knowledge, for to do so would > > require giving up everything they take for granted, and that is > > impossible to do short of suicide. But then, in the end, this really > > isn't an escape either. 8-) > > It is funny that some other religions would say the same things of Christians. Possibly. On the other hand, without a basis for authority to back it up, such as a supernatural revelation from God, they would just be empty claims. 8-) > Why is it so hard to see the pattern of human influence and superiority and > conclude that either none are right (it is all human) or god takes many forms > (all are right) or some other Universal Truth binds people to these things (all > are right)? The difficulty is that it implies an absurdity. We don't live the rest of our lives that way, so why should we assume absurdities when it comes to ultimate truth? You are a coder, no? A contributer to FreeBSD? When you code, do you not have to follow certain conventions, like programming syntax, in order to produce anything fruitful? You don't create the rules of syntax as you go, right? It doesn't work that way. You have to follow the rules that somebody else has established. Life is like that. We have to follow the rules that God has established, or we end up paying the penalty by having to endure all sorts of undesirable consequences. It doesn't mean we aren't free, of course. God built into the system a great deal of leeway for creativity, which is why we have artists, computer programmers, architects, and a whole plethora of other professions in which man, as God's image bearer, can think God's thoughts after Him and emulate His creativity. > It seems silly that god would only help the people in one place of a world he > is said to have wrought of his own will. It seems more likely that (s)he > would implant some genetic (for lack of a better word) knowledge into the > people of the world, that drives them to fulfill their purpose. Much like > taking knowledge to be the kan-kan of the tribal/racial karass one could > erect from the models Kurt Vonnegut uses in Cat's Cradle. You mean something like the Law of God, written on men's (and women's!) hearts as in Romans 2:14-16? 8-) The problem of course is that man is in rebellion against God, and is therefore also in rebellion against the Law written on his own heart. He wants to deny it, but he also despartely needs it in order to get along in the world. > > I've always been drawn to earthy religions, and felt the pain of the Indian > (Native American) people very strongly. Recently found out that I do have > Indian (NA) blood. Me too. Choctaw. But alas, I don't think I have enough to get any government subsidies. 8-) > I've always felt ties to the fate of those of Occitania > and have blood of French and Italian people in my veins. My strong Desi > spiritual attrction has yet to be explained, possibly a post-indo-european > bloodline to those in Italy or Spain or France or Germany. Who knows. All > I know is the Implicit Knowledge of Truth that I have always felt, and always > hold dear. > > I also have one axom (sp?) I must write down some day in a book where I keep > things (it complements the copy of the ttc that my girlfriend gave me very > well) which is essentially that when one takes something so seriously they > cannot have a sense of humour about it, they are taking it too seriously. There is a place for a sense of humor, of course. But I like to keep a distinction between having a sense of humor and trivializing life. We can't do that. We have to take some things seriously, or we cannot claim to be faithful to the truth. Most people like to think they are seeking after truth, yet when they get close to anything that resembles it they quickly recoil, discovering that it is a sharp, two-edged sword that cuts all of us down, leaving us bare and naked were we to face it squarely. Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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