Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: what does it mean to talk to God [a brief attempt at an answer] Message-ID: <711@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 10:37:21 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.711 Posted: Mon Mar 18 10:37:21 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Mar-85 05:21:46 EST References: <893@topaz.ARPA> <2635@mcnc.UUCP> <660@pyuxd.UUCP> <4048@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: Huxley College Lines: 73 >>Well, it finally happened. No, really. God actually spoke to me. >>I now really and truly believe in God. What's more, I see the correctness >>of the Christian perspective!!! God has explained it all to me. > >[lengthy story omitted] > Actually, Rich, I didn't really read your little story. [WINGATE] (This explains "charley"'s faulty summaries of other articles: he doesn't read them.) > All your story > proves is that you can write fiction. I can make up a story about anything > else in the universe too, but it doesn't make the true stories false. Ah, yes, true stories... > And by the way, your little satire upon christian experiences of God can only > be taken as an attack; since christianity seems to be a sore spot with you, > why didn't you talk about Allah instead? Because it's the Christians who are the ones so adamantly talking about their subjective experiences as "true stories". No Muslim has stepped forward. Nor has any Jew. Nor anyone else as far as I can see. Also, these other people aren't the ones who insist upon their morality as societal law. (I know, "chuckles", not you, of course. Which is why your stalwart reply to Don Black's hatred consisted of a pithy correction followed a meek "me, too".) > There is indeed a real difference between your "experience" and that of > the true believers. The difference is that yours did not take place. > I'm not claiming that you did not talk to God, only God can say that > (I believe he has posted on the subject :-). I am saying that you do > not BELIEVE that God talked to you. I am even tempted to think that you > didn't even have any dream at all. [HARTLEY] I respond to this vicious attack on my beliefs by repeating what I was quoted as saying: >>You claim I'm just making it all up? >>HOW DARE YOU!!!! > Why do I think that? > From your posting: > > > [WARNING: Satire follows.] > > [Uhh, excuse me, > > but shouldn't that have gone at the BEGINNING of the article?] > > [Whoops, sorry...] You know, sometimes you can't win no matter which way you turn. If I had left out the explanatory paragraph at the end, I would have been mauled by the hundreds of "believers" who interpreted my article as a vicious attack (as my own beliefs as a Christian are now being subjected to). But since I was good enough to admit that it was a satire, I'm subjected to charges of being a liar, and accused of not having had the dream at all! I'm sure most people can see that these attackers are just picking nits: they don't realize how powerful my personal experience was, and if Satan chose to twist and manipulate my words (we've seen from Yosi that he has a netnews feed!), and if you chose to accept the twisted words of Satan, well, that's your problem. The fact that you can no longer really tell when I'm telling the truth about these things, these "experiences", should give you a taste of your own medicine: this is exactly how YOU sound to the rest of the world. One can only wonder why you don't sound that way to yourselves. For just as I might have wished you to believe in my experience, you wish yourself to believe your own. Besides, if you can't believe me because I was bold enough to admit that my experience was nothing but wishful thinking, you can certainly believe the word of Mike Huybensz, who DID have ice cream with god. Do you disbelieve HIS story? Why? How dare you..... -- "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr