Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr
From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: The Damager God: Another fool rushes in
Message-ID: <2028@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 00:52:49 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2028
Posted: Mon Nov  4 00:52:49 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 07:08:14 EST
References: <390@pyuxn.UUCP> <2015@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 66

> I'm going to look down from my whirlwind (it's what I use to trash
> net.philosophy :-) and speak on this issue.  This has a fair chance of being
> my only posting on this subject, and I am going to be a bit flamy here.  The
> reason for that latter should become apparent.  [WINGATE]

Yeah, as usual, you attack someone whose opinions you don't like.

> Mr. Zimmerman's position is built upon a bedrock of pride.  This is a man
> who believes he understands the purpose behind every action of a being of 
> whose nature he knows nothing.  Have you, Mr. Zimmerman, measured the hand
> of God?  Do you know the reach of his gaze?  The length of his memory?  Can
> you comprehend what it is to stand out of time, to be omnipotent,
> all-seeing, all-knowing?

This hand you ask Paul to measure.  This is a hand you draw yourself by
outlining your own fingers on paper.  It is based on your image of what
you choose to believe god is.  Since Paul is not making your assumptions
about the nature of god, he is not bound by your restrictions that claim
"you can't say that, you're talking about god!!!"  He is judging objectively
your notions about god from an external perspective.  (Well, maybe not
objectively, but certainly without YOUR set of presumptions.)

> Not content with one sin of pride, hew must compound it with another.

There's another fine example.  "Sin of pride".  You (and your god, or so you
say) describe such pride as a sin.  But if you don't accept your particular
notions about god, there is no "sin" involved.  This is a perfect example
of the line of thinking I describe above ("You can't say that...").

> He would judge the LORD as a man.  Would you judge a man as a dog?  A dog
> as a snail?  An infant as an adult?  What is death to one who can raise from
> the dead?  What is blindness to one who restores sight?  Even Jesus, God of
> God, would not presume to judge the Father.

Good for him!  The only thing wrong with such judging is that YOU say (that
*HE* says) it is wrong.

> Not content with that great hubris, he goes on to claim knowledge of the
> very purpose of the universe, revealed to him alone.  Not even the Buddha
> had the gall to claim to know why life was suffering.

But the great Winga, of course, has never NEVER done anything like that,
such as asserting that it is an evil "sin of pride" to question god, or
that his assumptions are better than someone else's...

> Mr. Zimmerman, I have suffered.  I have been carried out into the land of
> the mystics and brought directly to God.  I have walked through great
> valleys of silence.  God is Good.  To one who has been there, there can be
> no other knowledge.

This comes back to haunt you, Charles.  Paul claims, just as you do, to have
been "brought directly to god".  He claims to have "been there" JUST as you
have, and he has claimed that there can be no other knowledge than that which
HE found.  What does that say about the trips both you and he have made?  Did
you have a better tour guide than he did?  How do you know that?

> I am not so proud as to claim to know why God does these things.

Oh, but you ARE, dear Charles!!!  You have engaged in a "sin of pride" when
you said that "God is Good".  Just as you claimed that Paul did.
-- 
"I was walking down the street.  A man came up to me and asked me what was the
 capital of Bolivia.  I hesitated.  Three sailors jumped me.  The next thing I
 knew I was making chicken salad."
"I don't believe that for a minute.  Everyone knows the capital of Bolivia is
 La Paz."				Rich Rosen    pyuxd!rlr