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From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: From Fig to finding a Candy Man
Message-ID: <262@prometheus.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Sep-86 21:57:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: promethe.262
Posted: Thu Sep 25 21:57:00 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 01:34:16 EDT
References: <5369@decwrl.DEC.COM> <1150@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc)
Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd., College Park, MD 20740-0222
Lines: 64
Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:249 net.religion.christian:4731

In article <3306@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU> barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry) writes:
>Sounds to me like the "Sure, I *could* have done that...I just didn't want
>to" you probably heard when the neighborhood pompous ass was cornered as
>a kid.  You really believe in a god like this?

I've got it, you want God to prove that He can be a Candy Man,
and make you a "Snicker bar tree".  Least that's one of my favorites!

>It is unfortunate that many religious people have to resort to doublespeak
>when it comes to dealing with "miracles".  They blindly assume that whatever
>this entity that they so dearly want to believe is good, ALWAYS does good.
>Regardless that it may be .. ...           ..   . .  sending humans
>to hell for being imperfect (even though *he* supposedly made us this way),
>cursing the human race for seeking knowledge .. . 

The hell is simply a state of being in which the soul is incapable of
seeing the "good (reality) around it", and therefore it is tormented
by loneliness and its own distorted impressions of reality.  If a being
can "love", "see truth",  learn of things and their relationships, act
according to this knowledge to reasonably improve the lot of "balanced
life", and to honestly exchange concepts of reality with others, then
these activities will develop a healthy soul, one fully capable of
"heaven". Imperfection has nothing to do with going to hell per se, in
fact it is usually quite the opposite.  It's the conceited and arrogant
who find life a series of short cuts who have the most problems.   By
analogy some butterfly pupae undergo metamorphosis to the adult stage
and others do not.  

I detect a horrible terror of imperfection and an intense feeling that
no matter what, control over your spiritual destiny is totally lacking
as a Christian or otherwise.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 
Only strive for an reasonable amount of goodness and in time that amount
may increase.    

Since the Creator was the source of everything I suppose all the "good
and bad" that happens could be placed at his feet.  I think this is
naive,  because the biosphere as a whole works quite well and constantly
moves things toward balance.  We now may have the power again to destroy
that.  That is what comes from the "misuse of knowledge" or "not getting
a reasonable amount of good (evil)- all things considered" out of a life
time of living.   There still may be people in the world who would
selectively learn and apply their knowledge to their own ends to the
detriment of most everything else.   Know anybody like that??

So for me, learning and "cross checking" as much knowledge and experience
as one can and still maintain full health and relationships is the way to
go.  Science seems to me to be a valuable tool in "condensing" and
extending a lot of that knowledge.

>>>I'm disgusted by the common Christian attitude that "because we assume
>>>god is good, we can make up any outlandish story we want to reinterpret
>>>the Bible to cast god in a favorable light."  

Nothing is the most evil thing there is.  Divine Matter is quite the
opposite of that.  We seem to be a mixture of being and nothing, but
insofar as the nothing is quite inert, I think we have great possibilities.
Of course doing nothing with something won't cut it either. 
+---------------------------------------------------------+--------+
| Paul M. Koloc, President: (301) 445-1075                | FUSION |
| Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222        |  this  |
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