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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!ISM780B!jim
From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: (Orphan) Re: Penses
Message-ID: <27500076@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-May-85 22:26:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.27500076
Posted: Wed May 29 22:26:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 11:37:39 EDT
References: <1655@decwrl.UUCP>
Lines: 31
Nf-ID: #R:decwrl:-165500:ISM780B:27500076:000:1665
Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    May 29 22:26:00 1985


>>>One last point.  This notestring has been discussing how all laws and
>>>other absolute truths are but good hypotheses.  Thus, nothing is absolute -
>>>it just hasn't been contradicted yet.  Well, in a Christian's life, there
>>>ARE absolute truths.  Since basic beliefs state that the Bible is the
>>>Word of God, what's written there must be absolutely true, having been
>>>written by the only One who knows it all!
>>>
>>       But He had to write it so we could understand it! Also He
>>didn't write it, He merely inspired the various authors to write it,
>>each in thier own idiom and style.
>>
>>                               Sarima (Stanley Friesen)
>
>I really don't see what you mean by your response to this last point.
>For me, the Bible is the Word of God, and is therefore absolute.  The
>truths presented therein are absolute truths.  God can't make mistakes.

The statement that the Bible is the word of God is a hypothesis, and, it seems
to me, a pretty poor one.  While God as you no doubt define him cannot
make mistakes, you certainly can.  You can be mistaken in everything you
believe about him (scientists are already well aware of their capability of
being mistaken, so it is pointless to throw this one back).  To claim that
you know an absolute truth when you see one is, like most so-called faith,
the height of arrogance.  If you were to couch everything you say within
"I suspect ... because ...", you might get a sense of what science
and philosophy are about.  In the meantime, for the sake of everyone else,
please keep out of net.philosophy any beliefs which you are not prepared
to subject to analysis.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)