> I would Wolfsprite, but both me and Sam have preaty much come to the realization we arn't going to budge each other and grow tired of tring. We agree to dissagree and just go on being friends. Besides I was thinking to much, and thats not what I come to rinkworks to do. I respect you and Sam and Chris and who ever else was arguing with me here but I still stand by what I said. Humanity is growing, slowly, but we are maturing, milleina from now we may have grown to be Gods equal.
>
> Spider-Imayhavejustgivenawaythatstartrekepsiodesprovidemyrelgiousfoundation-Boy



Thanks, Sam, for alerting me to the existence of this thread. I've just now read every post in it and, well, .....WHEW.

Much has already been said about the love and the longsuffering of God, the self-inflicted ruin of the human spirit, the sacrifice of Christ for our sins, and the necessity of our surrendering to God in faith. To what Sam, Wolfspirit, unipeg and others have written, I can't add much that would not be sheer repetition. (Thanks to all of you, though, for writing things that have been very edifying for me to read.)

What I *would* like to contribute, if possible, is a consideration of the "is not -- is too" nature of many a religious discussion that arises in this and other forums. We call it an "exchange of opinions," but the opinions are most often rather launched, missile-like, than exchanged.

Some thought is involved in the development of our beliefs, but by and large we seem to develop them automatically throughout life. To determine the source of our beliefs requires more discipline, and to apply patient thought to examining the validity of our beliefs is usually difficult and painful. Yet that's what I'd like to do right now.

One of the biggest ethical, practical, religious and philosophical problems of our day is the problem of authority. Perhaps our strongest cultural mandate in America is to resist authority, and this resistance is practiced at all levels. It appears notably in the conviction that "no one should presume to know more than I do about what is best for me." In the foregoing discussions of this thread, that "no one" has included God.

It isn't inherently a bad thing to challenge authority, but the objective of the challenge has been forgotten. Authority is challenged, not so that we can be rid of it, but so that it can be validated. We as a species cannot in fact do *without* authority. Everything that each of us knows and believes has been presented to us from some outside source in which we recognized a degree of authority. I submit that we are not creatures of intrinsic authority, and at some level we know it. We are always forced to appeal to some other standard, whether we name it God, natural law, wisdom, reason, or something else.

(This position is opposite the humanist claim that humans do have intrinsic authority, as it were by default: there is no other authority in existence. The humanist and I fundamentally disagree at this level, and cannot carry on a fruitful discussion; we're limited to "is not -- is too". For those who share with me the conviction that some authority more firm than human preference exists, read on.)

Now, then: when a person denies all authority outside his own will, he puts himself in an impossible and precarious position. Lacking real authority of his own, he remains open to influence, but declines to do the work of discerning valid influences from invalid ones. It pleases the person to think that his beliefs are authoritative because they are his own, and he supposes that the validity of other peoples' beliefs is equally subjective. But on that point he deludes himself.

No conversation or discussion can get anywhere so long as one party refuses to stand on any ground more solid than his own will. Such discussions are inevitably plagued by changes of topic, in which one side replies to critique only by tossing out another assertion, not necessarily related to the first. A professor of mine once quipped that the postmodernist doesn't have to argue a topic; he just changes the subject. The professor was joking, but the joke accurately describes many a religious discussion, especially on the Internet.

Once the other party lowers the drawbridge and crosses his own moat, as it were, he and I can accomplish a lot in a discussion. Since at that point we're both standing on the same ground of recognizing authority, we can get down to the business of examining and validating the authority of those sources that underlie our beliefs.

At that point I can marshal support for my claims about God, such as God's historical activities in the world of humankind. After all, I'm not arguing for a myth; I'm talking about a real being, a person who has revealed himself in tangible ways. And those reasons would be given the respect of due consideration, rather than brushed aside with the easy remark: "Well, that's what you believe, but that's not what I believe." Even admittedly personal and subjective arguments such as the effect that salvation through Christ has had on my life would, in a real discussion, be respected as having an authoritative basis other than my imagination. But let that mutual acknowlegment of and seeking after authority lapse, and you've pulled the rug out from under the whole conversation.

I love to talk about God: who He is, what He's like, how He allows me to know Him and how He wants others to know Him too. I love to debate theology and to repeat the simple gospel story over again. But there's no real savor in talking just to hear myself talk (although my own pride is sometimes still gratified by it). The enjoyment is in finding someone who is interested in hearing, and has something to say on his part as well. It is no respect towards me if someone allows me the freedom to hold my own opinions while remaining insulated from them, invulnerable within a fortress of subjectivism. Respect is given when someone recognizes that what I am saying touches him as well through our common acceptance of authority. In that way I am given power through my words, to threaten the other person or to serve him, and he to edify or endanger me as well.

We can agree to disagree, but let's not imagine that the disagreement is not meaningful, not rooted in facts about which we are either correct or mistaken.

Issachar

.....is back. Just accept it. :-)