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From: emjej@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: response to anti-religious flame - (nf)
Message-ID: <6432@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Apr-84 00:23:09 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.6432
Posted: Wed Apr  4 00:23:09 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Mar-84 05:13:19 EST
Lines: 45

#R:pucc-h:-58300:uokvax:2200043:000:2340
uokvax!emjej    Mar 24 09:37:00 1984

/***** uokvax:net.flame / pucc-h!aeq / 11:49 am  Mar 22, 1984 */
> 1. There is evidence that a relationship with God (or, as you would phrase it,
>    what I perceive as such a relationship) changes people for the better if
>    the person will allow it to.  Note that this does involve giving and
>    committing oneself to God as completely as He gave Himself to us in Christ
>    and has committed Himself to love us unchangingly, never to leave us or
>    forsake us.  Sure we can't quite match that "never", but the point is made:
>    commitment to the person of Christ (not just to some set of doctrines
>    called Christianity, but to the living Christ) will usually be followed by
>    changes in a person--often quite dramatic ones.

We can both agree on the observable effects of an event, but is it the alleged
supernatural being that is important here, or the commitment? Are these cases
of placebo/Hawthorne Effect?

> 2. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.  If you've never tried such a
>    commitment, such a relationship, you can't know what it's like.  (As an
>    analogy, I suppose the same can be said about marriage--I don't know what
>    it's like, never having married.)

You're quite correct in that respect; I can't know what it's like. I'm
not sure I can ever do so. I can picture myself standing rigid with my
eyes tightly shut and saying something analogous to "I *do* believe in
<fill in blank>!  I *do*! I *do*!" (mail re the character that I'm
thinking of (the Cowardly Lion?) and the proper fill is invited, since
forgetting such things bothers me), but internally I know it's a lie.
(This is probably why brainwashing requires stress or other stimuli
to the point at which one's higher brain centers are turned off or ignored
while dogma are implanted; see William Sargent's *Battle for the Mind*.)

It's also the case that people who use various controlled substances
make the same claim about the "higher reality" or "greater creativity"
that they say they get from them; how many of us believe that they are
correct in their claims?

Not to ridicule your positions; I enjoy such reasoned discussion as has
gone on so far. Maybe this is not inflammatory enough for net.flame and
we should wander over to net.religion ("AMEN!" I visualize MANY people
saying...)
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						James Jones