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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: The Revelation to Mike Huybensz
Message-ID: <5087@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Apr-85 22:49:26 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.5087
Posted: Mon Apr 22 22:49:26 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Apr-85 04:46:47 EST
References: <4881@umcp-cs.UUCP> <471@cybvax0.UUCP>
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In article <471@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:

>Pardon me if I adopt the same air of certainty that Christians exhibit
>so readily.  Now you have an idea of what I feel when I read your
>writings.  At this late date in history your beliefs also represent pure
>speculation.  At least my hypothesis requires fewer entities.

Well, the obvious difference I see is that there is a long chain of analysis
and examination (not to mention person-to-person witness) between me and the
supposed origin of the church.  You seem to be falling into the
fundamentalist heresy, Mike;  church tradition is also important in
determining the nature of christian belief.

>You'd have to be exceedingly ignorant of Christian abuse of
>skeptics/heretics to be serious.  I've been abused by analogies with
>this passage several times.

Well, I must apologize-- I'VE never heard the passage used that way.  I
suppose there are people out there who use this passage in that fashion.  I
can see how, in a certain way, the analogy to Satan holds-- but only in as
much as Satan stands for material desires and impulses.  The analogy that you
are like Satan AND therefore evil is false.

>> Perhaps Mike should read _Pilgrim's Regress_, paying particular attention
>>> to the passage on copies (in Zeitgeistheim).

>I love the title.  What's it about?

_Pilgrim's Regress_ is [gasp] another C. S. Lewis book, one of the two whose
insights are especially good (_Screwtape_ is the other, for the curious).
It's sort of a Gilbert and Sullivan version of the obvious Milton, except
that it's more or less serious.  Essentially, Lewis has taken Milton's plan
and applied it to the modern forces against christianity.  It must be
remembered that Lewis is, in large part, talking about popularized versions
of the great philosophers; this point is brought up indirectly in a couple
of passages, but it is nevertheless easy to take his criticisms more broadly
than he intended.  (Somehow I think Rich will find Reason to be a bit too
"objective"....)

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe