Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:aeq From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: response to anti-religious flame - (nf) Message-ID: <609@pucc-h> Date: Thu, 22-Mar-84 11:43:49 EST Article-I.D.: pucc-h.609 Posted: Thu Mar 22 11:43:49 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Mar-84 21:27:37 EST References: <6291@uiucdcs.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Lines: 33 Reply to James Jones (uokvax!emjej): >> = Sargent > = Jones >> The reason I continue to believe in God is that there is evidence that He >> does exist. He has changed me vastly. In the years I have been a >> Christian, I have been enabled (via prayer, the ultimate psychotherapy, >> and via the ministry of other people) to become much more fully human than >> I was, say, 10 years ago. > You mean that you interpret the changes you have experienced over the past > 10 years as being caused by God. There's no way that you and I could agree > on what has happened inside your head, or its cause. 1. There is evidence that a relationship with God (or, as you would phrase it, what I perceive as such a relationship) changes people for the better if the person will allow it to. Note that this does involve giving and committing oneself to God as completely as He gave Himself to us in Christ and has committed Himself to love us unchangingly, never to leave us or forsake us. Sure we can't quite match that "never", but the point is made: commitment to the person of Christ (not just to some set of doctrines called Christianity, but to the living Christ) will usually be followed by changes in a person--often quite dramatic ones. 2. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. If you've never tried such a commitment, such a relationship, you can't know what it's like. (As an analogy, I suppose the same can be said about marriage--I don't know what it's like, never having married.) -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq Have you hugged your junk mail today?