>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Dawsonzhu@aol.com
>Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2001 2:14 PM
>Obviously, if Abraham is merely a "good story", and the Exodus
>is "a book to inspire Hebrew nationalism", it is clear what I
>would have to say. The message of Exodus is that God demands
>accountability and that there is meaning and purpose in history.
>If it's all a made up story, what reason would I have to believe
>that God is any more than an otiose deity (if that).
That to me is the real conundrum we face with various approaches to
scripture. If every miracle isn't really a miracle but a story told merely
to illustrate a sermon, then we do, as you say, have an useless deity.
[snip]
>It is possible that life is mere probabilities, frivolous chance,
>and in the flicker of a moment, lost into the vast oblivion of
>cosmic nothingness. A "tale told by an idiot with sound and
>flurry signifying nothing". No accountability. I can bump off
>all my enemies if I have the opportunity and have a good plan.
>If I have enough power, I can just take what I want. Why not
>simply have it all? Just learn some game theory, and
>life is set... and when it's gone, what use is it anyway?
>
>Not so if there is this God of the Bible.
This is one of the things that has come more into focus during my ex-pat
assignment here in Scotland. There is a very tiny group of people who go to
church here each Sunday. Something like 2% (maybe M. B. Roberts can give
more firm figures). But one thing I have noticed is that life here in an
a-religious UK is not that much different than life in the religious US. The
crime is lower, here in the Aberdeen area. Do we have theives? Of course,
but not as many as in Houston, or at least they are less active. Like the
US, the UK has its share of mass murderers (a guy was convicted of killing
lots of women just the other day) and they have some wierd doctor here at
Alder Hey hospital who had an interesting hobby of keeping children's
organs after they died. He kept thousands of them. But the US has lots of
mass murderers, and wierdos like that doctor. People like Richard Specht,
John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer etc. But all in all, life is pretty much
the same here. It causes me to question the relatively common consensus
that life would be different without God. To outward appearances, there
isn't much God here. You live in Japan, a place where there are very few
christians. Do people run around acting like they have no accountability
there?
The sad thing I have come to realize over the past 6 months here is how
little difference Christianity makes to the fabric of the US culture when
compare with an a-religious culture like this.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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