Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site iuvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!notes
From: notes@iuvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Belief - (nf)
Message-ID: <330@iuvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 01:05:29 EST
Article-I.D.: iuvax.330
Posted: Thu Apr 12 01:05:29 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 08:17:02 EST
Sender: notes@iuvax.UUCP
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 75

#R:iuvax:1700011:iuvax:1700014:000:3889
iuvax!dsaker    Apr 11 21:03:00 1984

Reply to Jeff Sargent:

>         BTW, dumb question:  I've never seen the name "Daryel"
>         before; are you male or female?

Yes.  I will comment further if it ever becomes important.
It will probably become obvious if I keep submitting to this group.

>        As mentioned before, the objective evidence is not 100% conclusive
	 proof, so I understand your reluctance.  And you're right; one
	 cannot will oneself to BELIEVE.  However, there is a choice that one
	 can make: One can choose either to commit oneself to follow Christ
	 (you might add: if He's really there) and try to live like Him and
	 be as self-sacrificing as He, or to continue to live entirely for
	 oneself.  It's a question of commitment more than belief.
 
I don't want to be prickly, but  
(1) Can you really expect someone to commit themselves to Christ when they
do not believe?  That strikes me as absurd; it would be totally arbitrary.
I might as well commit myself to following the Reverend Moon or Allah.
(No offence intended to Muslims.)
(2) How dare you say that the alternative to committing oneself to Christ is
living entirely for oneself!  I expect the followers of every other religious
persuasion as well as the humanists and many others to leap on you for that.

>        Again, it's a question of commitment to go in a direction other than
	 entirely on your own.  As for punishment: C.S.  Lewis, I think
	 quoting another author, remarked that the doors of Hell are locked
	 on the INSIDE; i.e.  that Hell is not so much a place to which God
	 condemns people as a place, or a state, which people choose
	 themselves -- because they choose to prefer themselves to God, and
	 they lock God out.

If someone is sincerely seeking the truth (about existence, or whatever you
want to call it) and they don't follow Christ because they do not believe
in him (which is the same reason why they are not following Allah or Buddha
or Krishna or any other), then you can't say that they have chosen to cut
themselves off from God.  They might be mistakenly doing that, but they are
most definitely not choosing to do that.  If there is a God, I am trying to
find him.  But I am trying to find the God that exists.  I am not trying to
commit myself to a set of doctrines; I am trying to find the truth.  

Surely you must admit that if someone is sincerely seeking the truth and they
do not believe in Christ (i.e. they don't believe Christianity's claims about
him), then there is absolutely no reason for them to commit themselves to
Christ.  Such a commitment could only be seen by them as a betrayal of their
search for the truth.  Surely you will admit that for them to commit
themselves to Allah (or Krishna or Buddha or whoever-else) would be a mistake
or, at least, counter to their search for the truth.  The same thing applies 
to committing themselves to Christ.  

And don't say that they should try Christ.  Do you know how many religions
there are?  Lots.  Why should they start with Christ?  How would you feel if
they started with non-christian religions and died before the got to Christ?
Where should they start?  And how long should they spend committed to each
religion before they moved on to the next one?  This whole approach is a
mockery of commitment as well as the search for the truth.  

I threw the above paragraph in because I have been told many times to 
"try Christ".  At first I was told "pray and Christ (or God) will surely
answer you".  When he didn't answer me I was told that was because I had
prayed without belief.  (I guess that some Christians have a well-developed
sense of irony.)

So, if God (Christ or whoever) is out there, why is he making me suffer
so much by not revealing himself to me.  I am trying my hardest to find
the truth, and if he is the truth, then I am trying my hardest to find him.


     Daryel Akerlind
  ...ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!dsaker