Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site stolaf.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!stolaf!gulley From: gulley@stolaf.UUCP (William T. Gulley) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: On the question of belief in the Bible Message-ID: <1979@stolaf.UUCP> Date: Sun, 7-Oct-84 15:10:53 EDT Article-I.D.: stolaf.1979 Posted: Sun Oct 7 15:10:53 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 8-Oct-84 04:19:29 EDT Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield MN Lines: 41 > > [Steve Nelson] > > I have a simple, perhaps naive, but utterly fundamental question: > > > > What is it that leads a person from any other state of mind > > to the state of believing that the Bible is totally true > > and inspired by the God described therein? > > > > Answers from those in either state of mind will be appreciated, thank you. } [Mike Huybensz] }Positive feedback. The same kinds of positive feedback that cause people to }become confirmed conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Moslems, Hindus, agnostics }sociobiologists, etc. And the same thing that causes a person to become a confirmed Mike Huybensz. (no personal judgement intended) }Christianity can provide superficially consistent answers }to a variety of commonly asked questions. Consistency of explanation is very }convincing to people, and explanations that rule out accepting other kinds of }explanation are the positive feedback that lock people into Christianity and }other cults. If I'm anything like the average human being (and I assume that I am, by positive feedback), I *prefer* one coherent perception of truth, for sanity's sake, if anything. And therefore, I will lock myself into that explanation if it provides me with even a semblance of a coherent reality that works for me. And me, Mr. Joe Superficially-minded, had better be able to understand that explanation, or I'll soon be heading down Nietsche's Road to Nonmoralistic Insanity. (you know, where all the signs say things like, "No left or right turn" at a T-intersection.) And that's why Christianity has had such a good record with the simple-minded, and not with the intellectual snobs that can't stoop to such an easily-assimilated truth. Only coherently one-track minds will accept a coherently one-track Truth, and the others will get what they look for. (i.e., pieces of a shattered mirror) ---- The Charbroiled William Gulley {!inhp4 | !decvax} !stolaf!gulley