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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Explanations for Bob
Message-ID: <431@opus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-May-84 02:26:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.431
Posted: Tue May  8 02:26:21 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-May-84 08:28:11 EDT
References: <108@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 49

<>
David Norris:
>Let's not mince words.  Love is not undefined.  Love, or Agape, gives
>without recieving or expecting to recieve...
Actually, I think that David is right and that the word "love" has too many
connotations to work well in our discussions.  Agape is a better word
(although as David has started to define it, it sounds a lot like paying
taxes...:-)

>See later paragraph for one of the miracles I have witnessed.
...below...

>...I am a "sinner" in that I have committed a sin.  I have lied to
>someone not long ago; that makes me a sinner.  I also suppose, by your
>definition, that I am a "good person".  I am generally a nice fellow, easy
>to get along with (at least I am so told), etc.
David, I think you've touched on one of the things that bothers a lot of us
on the "other side" - though I haven't seen it well expressed:  A good
person can do bad things, and conversely.  (So what makes them good or bad?
An average?  (Why not mean, median, mode, RMS goodness?))  If you lied to
someone, without any just reason to do so, you did something bad.  That
does NOT make you a bad person!  The way to "atone" for doing something
bad, once you've realized that you've done it, is to try to correct
yourself.  If you've injured someone by your wrong, try to help heal.
Then do what it takes to try to keep yourself from doing it again.  Calling
yourself a sinner might bring these points home to you - but it's a little
out of hand.  The problem with labeling yourSELF, rather than your ACTIONS,
is that it can tie you up in big games of self-recrimination, doubt, guilt,
defensiveness, pity, etc., which do nothing positive for you.

>But here is a miracle that I was witness to: the brother of a good friend
>was hospitalized with two types of cancer (one had spread to the other).  The
>doctors gave him ~6 weeks to live.  We asked many people to pray...
>X-rays, taken 2 days after the X-rays which produced the "6 week" diagnosis,
>showed absolutely nothing.  No cancer.  The doctors, totally baffled, released
>him after numerous tests.
I can't buy this.  This is exactly the sort of direct "pray-for-results"
approach that you and others have been telling us won't work.  (I don't
think it should, either - it just makes prayer a cheap bargaining ploy.)
It sounds as if you believe that a positive correlation [prayer <->
results] is meaningful but negative ones [prayer <-> no results] or even
[no prayer <-> results] are not.  It's hard to argue against that kind of
view of effect, but it's also hard to believe it.  So what do I think
happened?  Something that medical science, in its less-than-infinite
wisdom, doesn't understand or didn't find out.  There must be more to your
God than an explanation-of-what-we-don't-understand.  (Or is there?)
-- 
...Relax...don't worry...have a homebrew.		Dick Dunn
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd				(303) 444-5710 x3086