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From: pez@pyuxn.UUCP (Paul Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: What constitutes proof of the existence of God?
Message-ID: <350@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 16:53:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.350
Posted: Fri Sep 20 16:53:11 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 06:04:58 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway, N.J.
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Rick,

	Why do you keep insisting that we are talking about different
Gods. Are you talking about the God that you whorship, the God who calls
Himself the ruler of the universe? In that case, we are talking about the
same God, and believe me, from my years of experience with Him, He IS an
evil pig monster. You are consistently skirting the issues about the nature
of God in order to cling to beliefs about Him that you have learned to
need. You contradict your own words several times when you say you feel
that God exists but you demand proof from me of His existence.

	Certainly there is evidence that Christ walked the Earth, but the
only evidence we have that he did what you believe he did is the word of
God Himself. Believing that is like believing Richard Nixon's account of
the Watergate years, isn't it? I contend that you are simply avoiding
what you know to be true about God. Don't fight it. Fight HIM! You'll be
better for it. You speak of rationalizations for believing in free will.
But certainly these were infused in us by God, who causes things to happen
and then makes US feel guilty about doing them. Believing that evil is a
``volitional choice'' is simply giving in to the lies of God.

	You say ``doesn't it seem kind of convenient that everything wrong
gets blamed on God and the good stuff comes only when God is too lazy to
really screw us?'' Yet you would claim that everything good in this world
should be credited to God while the ``bad stuff'' is our fault? Tell me,
Rick, which sounds more truthful to you? Which sounds like the way things
really are and which sounds like the lies of a pig filth God?  You also
make smug remarks about people outsmarting an omniscient God, since that
would be an impossibility. But who says God is omniscient? YOU do (and He
does)! Isn't it YOUR religion that is based on convenience?

	You ask to see the death and hatred God wrote down. Look at the
Bible itself for all the examples you need. The demand that a man sacrifice
his son. The destruction of masses of people at God's say-so. The torturing
and killing of people for the purpose of teaching Job a ``lesson.'' That
lesson being ``I am powerful so listen to me or feel my wrath.'' I have
heard some Christians distinguish between the horrid God of the Old
Testament and the loving father of the New. Is this a different God? Or
are we simply dealing with the same monster, who had changed His tune for
the purpose of misleading us? You ask who inspired the Inquisition and
the torture and murder of millions in the name of God. I answer, who else
but God? When you imply that man is somehow responsible, what are you doing
if not falling fall an unholy lie of God's?

	Finally, you ask to hear about any leader since Christ who advocated
real human love. I can think of two in this century. Mahatma Gandhi and
Martin Luther King. Look at the fate God had in store for each of them.

Be well,
-- 
Paul Zimmerman - AT&T Bell Laboratories
pyuxn!pez