Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
From: seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Responsibility and obedience
Message-ID: <995@ihuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Mar-84 08:55:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxl.995
Posted: Fri Mar 23 08:55:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Mar-84 08:20:59 EST
References: <797@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 44

ken perlow:

> The original statement from Jeff Sargent was that a proper Christian
> attitude is: "We are not responsible for results, only for obedience."
> I likened this statement to the "only obeying orders" defense invoked
> at Nurenburg.

> Well, I'm glad you blindly obedient folks can tell the difference.
> I'm still scared.  Why?  There's plenty of very devout people out there
> who ARE inconveniencing people in the name of their religions (obviously
> not just Christians).   ...

> Once you give up having to think about what you're doing you cannot
> be trusted to act responsibly.  Responsible people think about what
> they're doing.

Who said anything about not thinking?  Thinking is very important.
Do you really think we believe that God would give us such a
powerful mind and then ask us to not use it?  That would be like Cray
building his supercomputer and then having it add 1+1 over and over
again all day long.

I think that a big part of "the meaning of life" is the attempt to
figure out some of the hard questions.  If our biggest problem
was whether to have stuffing or potatoes with dinner, most of us
would go nuts.  If we don't have problems to work on, we *create*
them.  (Some might say we evolve them. :-)  )

Many of us really do worry about whether some "message" is of
God or of the devil.  What the right thing to do is.  Burning
bushes and carved stone tablets don't come along that often.
You have to listen very carefully, listen through the noise of the
world.  Satan is constantly trying to lead us away, and he's not
stupid, he can plant ideas that sound very logical, until you
really look closely and find the flaw. ( kind of like those
math proofs that end with 1=0 )

Obedience?  yes!    *Blind* Obedience?  no!
-- 
		_____
	       /_____\	    I taught Walter Mitty everything he knows!
	      /_______\			Snoopy
		|___|	
	    ____|___|_____	    ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert