Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site gitpyr.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!gatech!gitpyr!kss
From: kss@gitpyr.UUCP (Kevin Smith)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Assumptions.
Message-ID: <1007@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 17:37:15 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1007
Posted: Sat Nov  9 17:37:15 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 17:17:24 EST
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 36


	This isn't in response to any particular article, but I have noticed
several lately which touch on "who assumes what" concerning God.  So here are
a couple of thoughts about assumptions.

	Everything I or anyone else believes is of course founded on assump-
tions; I think most people recognize this.  We have a wonderful set of theorems
in geometry, but they are all useless without the assumptions (axioms, postu-
lates) they are based on.  I believe Newton's laws of motion and gravity; why?
Not just because some textbook or some teacher I respected told me about them.
I can see them work.  Drop something and it falls, and you can even predict how
and where--if you assume it is going to behave as it did in the past.  These
laws (and theorems, and whatever else) explain things, and so I believe them.

	For someone truly to believe in God (not just talk about Him or try to
live a certain way) they have to have experienced things which point to Him in
a similarly convincing way.  I and many on this net have.  Now, if I were to 
list particular instances it wouldn't be too hard, taking them individually,
for a person to ignore most of them; an apple moving a particular direction if
you let go of it one time isn't all that significant (referring to gravity 
again if you didn't guess :-).  For me, accepting God is a proven way of dealing
with the world because I know the kind of results that come from it.

	And of course the results I see most clearly are those in my own life 
and in the lives of others.  My folks are missionaries in Indonesia, so I've 
seen quite a few examples of these results.  People, I am not talking ( or 
writing :-) of rumors or blind or rote teachings; my parents have always
encouraged my to question and make sure I know what my beliefs are based on
rather than just accept things.

	The upshot:  we make assumptions.  Make sure you know why you accept
the ones you have.
-- 
Kevin Smith
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kss