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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Summary of responses to Rick Frey on maltheism
Message-ID: <2027@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 00:50:58 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2027
Posted: Mon Nov  4 00:50:58 1985
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> More likely than not you won't
> get through to me (or I to you) by repeating that God is a (long string of
> evil adjectives) but if you can show me that some part of my set of beliefs
> doesn't hold, then you've got an inroad.  That was my idea in talking about
> the Bible and the damager-God, because to me it seems illogical and
> inconsistent to have an evil God inspire a book that tells people how to live
> peacefully, and joyfully.  [FREY]

But clearly that book DOESN'T tell people how to do those things, because
those who've read the book have persisted throughout modern history to
pillage, persecute, slaughter, torture, etc. (isn't that enough?) those
who wouldn't follow their "peaceful joyful" way!  Maybe Paul's right about
the intent of the author. :-?  (Maybe he included hidden subliminal [Satanic?]
messages in the Bible!!!!  This would explain where religious leaders
originally got the idea of looking for such messages in other works...)
In any case, it seems your assertion is without merit.

>> In fact, your only basis for believing
>> this is that He told you that He has those powers. 

> We'll start here.  How do you know that that is my only basis?  I believe
> that God is revealed through His creation.  I've seen testimony of God in my
> own life and in friend's life through things like answered prayers, changes
> that have taken place and even miracles and prophecys (the church I'm at is
> strongly charismatic).

And the only way you can believe that testimony as being evidence of the
existence of god is to believe in your presumption about his existence!

> Paul in Romans says what I feel pretty clearly, "For
> that which is known about God is evident with them for God made it evident
> to them.  For since the creation of the world, his divine nature and eternal
> power have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so
> that they are without excuse."  Romans 1:22 (roughly)

And Richard Nixon said in his account of the Watergate years "I Am Not a
Crook",  "It was John Dean all along, we could have done it, but it would
be wrong, I should have burned the tapes..."  Another example of your accepting
the source as being unbiased.  How can you assume that god is unbiased about
itself?  ("Because he's god, he wouldn't do that, he's perfect and good..."
"AND HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?" "Because he's god, he wouldn't do that, he's
perfect and good..." ...)  (Side note to Paul Zimmerman:  thank you for
the excellent Nixon example; wish I'd thought of it)

> Does the background in Physics needed to understand lasers make one evil?  Or
> is it the specific formulas and calculations that produce the actual beam
> of light?  Or is it just knowledge in general is evil?  Where does this evil
> actually reside?  Is the knowledge of optics evil when it's in a laser but
> friendly and nice when it's in an x-ray?  Is the knowledge of biochemistry
> Forgive me if it's trite and cliche but guns don't kill people, people kill
> people.  And it's the same way with science.  Knowledge is neutral.  There is
> no such thing as an evil fact, theory or hypoothesis.

Tell this to certain people in net.philosophy...

>> Why do you so off-handedly reject the concept that they are one and the same

> Why do you so off-handedly reject my claims.  Just because yoou make points
> like this more often than I have done in the past (and would like to do in
> the future) doesn't mean that you're assertions are less founded on
> assumptions than mine.

Rick, I wonder if you recognize the consequences of your admission that you
and Paul both have belief systems based on equal numbers of assumptions.

>> Despite what you claim, the only evidence that Jesus was what you say he was
>> is found in the word of God, and that is like accepting Richard Nixon's
>> account of the Watergate years. Josh MacDowell's book only proves my point:
>> if you accept apriori the assumption that God is good, all else follows. 

> Sorry if this appears harsh, but this is blatantly wrong.  Josh McDowell's
> book cites numerous extra-Biblical sources in support of Christ's existence
> and claims.  There are the reports of Jewish historians of the time, Roman
> censuses, letters between Roman officials, official documents and court
> records discussing Christ and Paul.  If you give any credit to history 
> whatsoever in terms of accuracy or validity, Christ (maybe only second to 
> the apostle Paul) is the best substantiated figure of antiquity.

All those things prove is the EXISTENCE of a person, not his claims (or yours)
to his divinity.  Paul is right on the mark:  McDowell is an extremist
presumptivist.

>> If YOUR child has grown up to be bad, a delinquent, how could this
>> happen? Are people naturally evil? Or did some bad influence (perhaps even
>> from you) make him what he has become? 

> You asked earlier if I had any children.  I'm only 22 so I have no kids of my
> own but I've been working with high schoool kids for the last three years
> now, counseling and teaching in both churches and public schools.  I've also
> taught in both public and private elementary schools (mainly sixth grade) so
> I've had a decent background in dealing with kids and with the causes/sources
> of their problems.  I completley agree that many kids have been 'pushed' in
> the wrong direction by the bad influences you refer to above.  But what
> about the kids out of the good home with loving parents, material security,
> good teachers, good friends, nice siblings?  I've seen lots of kids who
> simply chose to rebel, against anything they could find to rebel against. 

People don't "simply choose" out of thin air to do particular things.  They
choose things based on material causes, the result of their upbringing and
experiences.

> If we have the free will to fight against the damager-God, why don't we have
> the free will to choose to be bad?

Who said we did?
-- 
"iY AHORA, INFORMACION INTERESANTE ACERCA DE... LA LLAMA!"
	Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr