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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Whatever I'm calling myself this week)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Tim Maroney's world stoppin' questions!!
Message-ID: <2966@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Sep-86 17:08:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2966
Posted: Mon Sep 22 17:08:53 1986
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> You have stopped the entire Western Christian World (what there is left of
> it!) with your searing question, "How does one reconcile 'And he was handed
> over to the torturers until he should pay all his debt' with the model that
> people do it to themselves?"  And again you ask, (WoW!) "How about the
> entirety of the Last Judgment parable, in which God commands people into
> Hell?"
> 
> I can hear the churches emptying and see the blank slack-jawed look on the
> faces of ministers across the land!  NO ONE EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE!!!!! 
> EGAD!  TIM'S SHOWN US HOW IT ALL MAKES NO SENSE!!!!
> 
> THANKS TIM. [KEN ARNDT]

Ken makes a very important point here.  When it comes to any gap or hole in
Christian religious thinking, the churches will NOT empty, the clergymen will
NOT scowl and frown, the theologians will NOT ultimately care.  They will
simply go on as if no important unresolved issue or contradictory evidence
existed.  For that is the way of religion.  That is what faith is all about.
Not caring a tinker's cuss about the fact that if you really stopped to use
brain power to think about such things and reflect on the evidence, you might
not believe anymore.  (Actually, the theologians don't just "not care".  As
Paul Zimmerman likes to say, they simply take the philosophical contradiction
or problem and rewrite the premises so that they still get the solution they
want, whether it reflects reality or not.  Isn't that how all good
philosophers work? :-( )

Thanks, Ken.  As usual, through no fault of your own, you have made an
interesting point.

> Oh wait a minute!  I see the difference between a human judge and God.  God
> created the whole thing soooooo, (since we all know God can't create other
> than 'preprogramed' beings) God's at fault!  Wheeew.  God almost wiggled out
> for a moment there.  
> 
> Say Tim, have you ever thought of teaching theology?  

Actually, I wouldn't mind a REAL "comparative theology" class taught in
tandem by the likes of Ken and Tim.  Might prove interesting.  (Though not
half as interesting as one taught by Paul Zimmerman and Charley Wingate. :-)
But, alas, Ken isn't interested in presentations of opposing points of view so
that they may both be evaluated.  Since he's got it all right, he sees no need
for such things.  From his past writing, it's pretty clear that his idea of a
discussion involving two opposing parties consists of this:

	KEN:  This is clearly all wrong because Dr. Flimsky said so and
		I happen to believe it, so there.
	X:    But what about ... [SUBSTANTIVE REBUTTAL FOLLOWS]
	KEN:  You weenie-poo-poo homo, you!  Does your mother wipe your ass?
		Nobody but liberal homosexual atheist kaka people believe that!

Ken Arndt, the art of rhetorical persuasion at its finest.
-- 
"Supernatural, schmupernatural," Simon grimaced.  "You're still like the people
 in that mathematical parable about Flatland.  You can only think in categories
 of right and left, and I'm talking about *up* and *down*, so you say 'super-
 natural'.  There is no 'supernatural'; there are just more dimensions than you
 are accustomed to, that's all."		Rich Rosen   bellcore!pyuxd!rlr