Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:aeq From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: The Unanswered Question(s), part 1 Message-ID: <811@pucc-h> Date: Fri, 29-Jun-84 04:23:56 EDT Article-I.D.: pucc-h.811 Posted: Fri Jun 29 04:23:56 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 1-Jul-84 04:01:17 EDT References: <179@ssc-bee.UUCP> <776@pyuxn.UUCP>, <786@pyuxn.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Lines: 116 A partial response to some of Rich's questions.... But first a question of my own: Rich, are you really interested in the answers because you think they might do you some good, or do you just want more material you can use as points of attack on imperfect, imperfectly understanding Christians who are not (yet?) able to come up with all the pithy responses Christ was famous for? 1) 51 FACTS | Why does the author of this article fail to mention any of the | 51 "facts" he describes? Inasmuch as I have never seen that list of supposed facts (which seemed to contradict the Bible and have since been proven untrue), I cannot answer this question. Ray, would you please post some of them? > Jeff's going to have his work cut out for him (if chooses to continue to > carry the flag) with David now gone. I would certainly appreciate help from anyone who wishes to give it. I do have a job I'm paid to do, and this isn't it. [I sometimes suspect that posting articles IS Rich's job! :-)] 2) ACCURACY OF PROPHECY BASED ON WIDELY APPLICABLE PHENOMENA | What of those who predicted the end of the world in 999, also based on the | Bible? Are those who now predict that our modern time is the time of the | end of the world more enlightened about the "real" meaning behind those very | specific prophecies in the Bible that could apply to any time in history? Yes, actually. About 10 years ago, David Wilkerson published a book called "The Vision", in which he described a vision he had in 1973 of terrible calamities about to come upon the earth; he indicated that he had checked this vision with the Bible and found that they agreed; and he said that he believed that all these calamities would come on this generation. The calamities he saw included economic confusion (already starting), drastic changes in the earth (freakish weather, earthquakes, etc.), a growing flood of pornography and sexual practices which might draw protest even from Rich, hatred of parents by their children, and persecution of genuinely believing Christians throughout the world (not just in totalitarian countries). The Bible predicted that people would say something much like what you said (paraphrase of some verses from II Peter): "Where are the indications that Christ is about to return? Things are happening just as they've always happened since the world began." In fact they haven't gone quite the same. The Bible clearly predicted that the nation of Israel would be re-established. Lo and behold, it has been. I haven't made it into the prophecies yet in my current wading through the O.T., but my understanding is that the rebirth of Israel was to be one of the earliest signs that the world was about to get the hook.... 3) THE BIBLE IS SACROSANCT AND INFALLIBLE, BUT LET'S ONLY OBEY WHAT WE LIKE | An interesting point: you claim that you [Bob Brown] "realize that a lot of | the 600+ laws of the Old Testament (what Jews refer to as "The Bible") | don't have much bearing on today's life" but that certain ones do. How did | you make that determination? Why are you claiming that the laws on | "keeping Kosher" or following Jewish law are obsolete, while other laws | concerning sexual practices you don't like or establishing absolute | infallibility of god and church and bible are OK? Sounds like an arbitrary | distinction to me. If you can make such determinations yourself, great. | More power to you. Now allow the rest of us the right to make the same | determinations for ourselves. I think I answered this in some article not too long ago -- i.e. Jesus Himself indicated, for instance, that keeping kosher was not required. Jesus, and also Paul, were big on the idea that keeping the letter of the Law was not the important thing (Jesus and His disciples broke the letter of the Law numerous times), but rather that what one was inside was the important thing. When Jesus named the greatest commandments in the Law (and they are indeed in the O.T.), viz. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart & soul & mind & strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself", he also said, "On these depend all the Law and the prophets" -- i.e. even the intent behind the O.T. law was not to bind people into a rigid system of behavior, but rather to get them to change into people who would want to live as the Law described. 4) EVERYONE IS RELIGIOUS; EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING | Could someone explain precisely why it is impossible not to worship? I | [don't] do it every day. Also, could someone explain what in heck Larry | meant by "the myth of neutrality"? Worship, by my dictionary, is not restricted to its traditional theistic sense. It also means "to have an excessive devotion to or adoration for; to idolize". I wish I could remember that dictionary's definition of "idolize", because I think it would be most appropriate. However, borrowing again from Doug Dickey's book (the man who said that all people are incurably religious), an idol (or a god, or even God Himself) is a center of integration around which one's life is built. One could also call it the foundation upon which one's life is built. If it collapses, your life collapses. But I doubt that anyone is without such a foundation. Many people do not recognize their foundation explicitly. Rich at least is quite explicit about his foundation...enough for his audience to see that his life is founded on the general idea of negating and doubting everything he can, that his foundation can be expressed in the simple phrase "it is not!" He may claim that this is not the case, but most of the articles I've ever seen from Rich have consisted largely of denying other people's claims. Christians' foundation, on the other hand, is not "it is", but "He is", or even "He lives!" -- a positive statement. But anyway, everyone, in the sense described above, worships something or someone. I don't remember Larry's article where the phrase "myth of neutrality" was introduced; but my guess is that he meant that you're either for God or against Him, that there is no middle ground. Care to comment, Larry? This is getting long. I'll work on the other questions later (if no one beats me to it). -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq "...got to find my corner of the sky."