Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxm!sftig!sftri!sfmag!eagle!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian Subject: Re: what does it mean to talk to God [a brief attempt at an answer] Message-ID: <400@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 11:25:59 EST Article-I.D.: cybvax0.400 Posted: Fri Mar 8 11:25:59 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 04:13:27 EST References: <893@topaz.ARPA> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 68 Xref: watmath net.religion:5926 net.religion.christian:392 Summary: Chuck Hedrick provides the most intelligent and best written discussion of a personal relationship with god that I've ever read. It's such a pleasure to read something intended to communicate avoiding jargon. In article <893@topaz.ARPA> hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) writes: > Now on to communication with God... There are certainly times when God hits > people over the head, but for most of us, most of the time, communication > with God occurs in the context of prayer. When I say that "God showed me > X", I think I normally mean that I realized X when I was praying. If you > want to look at this from the worldly perspective, it could probably be said > that no information actually arrives from an extraterrestrial source when I > pray. I think most insights could be regarded as coming from one of the > following sources: > > - considering events around me and seeing patterns in them > - Scripture, particularly meditating on the life of Christ > - the views of other Christians (or non-Christians, for that matter) This corresponds very closely with my past views (back when I was religious). This is the reason why I requested that someone describe their "talking with god" using something other than buzzwords: because "talking with god" is so inexact as to imply an inappropriate significance. "I'm as important as Moses, 'cause I talk with God just like he did, and you can too" is the misleading meaning I (and many others) catch from fundamentalists. > However in my view, God is still responsible. .... When I > claim that he is sending me messages through the events around me, it is > very hard to prove this true or false. Someone else can look around and see > no message there. According to certain philosophers of science, in the > final analysis this means that my claim is meaningless. You miss one other possibility: that the message may have come from yourself, and not god. However, it is the undecidability between the possibilities that lead me to agnosticism. > Many of the basic ideas of science (e.g. > conservation of energy) are not subject to direct proof or even disproof. > These basic ideas are embodied in a specific theory. But if that theory is > disproven, it is always possible to add epicycles to it so that the basic > principle continues. The actual choice among basic approaches is made in > the long run, on the basis of whether it proves useful or not. If > conservation of energy leads theorists to be able to propose lots of new > experiments, and continues to be able to summarize the results of these > experiments elegantly, we will keep it. I believe that it is the same with > following God. If it leads me to new insights about myself and the world > around me, and if it is capable of making sense out of everything I run into > and see in the world, then it is a useful (and hence meaningful) idea. Actually, some old theories are subsumed by new theories. Instead of adding an epicycle, the old theories become an epicycle (or degenerate case) of the new. Relativistic physics includes Newtonian physics. I agree that elegance (meaning terseness and utility in making sense of things) is a criterion well worth following. People can perceive elegance with or without religious belief. For example, while I am a zealous agnostic, I have (and do) learn from the Bible. Perhaps different messages. The elegance of the Bible that I perceive boils down primarily to inter- human relationships. Until recently, the elegance of science has been primarily chemical, physical, mathematical, and biological. Now I feel that science is beginning to subsume the inter-human relationship field, with medicine, psychology, ethology, archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, sociology, sociobiology, and a host of others all prying their way towards explanation of how and why we are what we are and do what we do. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh