> I *did* say way back that my relationship with
>God cannot be simply defined in words and
>communicated. The paradox of communication,
>well studied in networking classes if not
>communications classes themselves, is that you
>can't communicate anything without a prior
>communication establishing the protocol of
>future communication. I can't tell you what a
>relationship with God is like if you have not
>established one for yourself. I can only give
>analogies that describe it. So why are you
>trying to refute things I fully admit are
>insufficiently expressed and, by the very
>tenants of my faith, can't be otherwise?
>("...the natural man receiveth not the things of
>the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto
>him: neither can he know them, because they are
>spiritually discerned." I Cor. 2:14) You made
>your point; I made mine; this stopped being
>productive some time ago.

You asked me a few posts ago if I could tell someone what it's like to have a sister who never had a sister. I freely admit that I can't do this adequetly. However, I submit that that is irrelevent to the discussion at hand.

Here's why. I can try to explain in words how I feel about my sister and how my sister feels about me, what it's like to have a sister, blah blah. But I *know* that in the end, this won't explain to you the concept of *sisterhood*. All it explains to you is how *I* feel about this concept, and what *I* get out of it.

However, I *can* define the term "sister" in stringent, consistent terms. I can prove to you that my sister exists. I can not only tell you, but show you how I communicate with my sister. These are all very basic concepts that require no special communication tools for me to get across to you. I can very easily prove to you my sister exists and lay out a step-by-step process about how one goes about communicating with my sister, how one knows that it is *my* sister who is responding to you, and exactly what methods of communication she will use to communicate with you.

So yes, I freely admit I can never know what it's *like* to have a relationship with God unless I establish one for myself. But that does not preclude the possibility that *you* can explain to me how it is God talks to you, how it is you know it is him, how it is he helps you with your problems. Do you hear his voice in your head? Is it just a strong feeling you get when you pray? I'm not asking you to tell me how it feels to have ice cream down your pants. I'm asking you how you know there *is* ice cream down your pants, and how you know it's strawberry and not chocolate.

If you can't do this, if it boils down to an appeal to the unknowable, then again I say you have no claim to Truth. I admit I can't tell you what it feels like to have a sister. But I also say that it would do me no good even if I *could* tell you, because there is no universal Truth to be found about "sisterhood" in my feelings about my sister. If you had a sister it would be entirely different for you. If you had *my* sister for a sister you *still* wouldn't have the same experience. And it is this inherint subjectiveness that I'm trying to point out.

If you *choose* not to reveal these things to me, at least say so, so maybe someone else can take a stab at it.

And did you ever notice that if you say the word "sister" enough times it stops sounding like real word? Yeesh.

-- Dave