At 12:50 PM 25/02/02 -0600, Lucy Masters wrote:
>Jan:
>
>You raise many important issues here. It probably is not fruitful to
>continue the discussion about the sharing of wealth. My belief is if you
>personally think it is wrong to have more than others, you should take
>your paycheck and donate the whole thing each month to your church and
>open your house to anyone who wants to sleep in it.
You are twisting my words. I never said that it is wrong that I have more
than others. We were talking about a system which is unjust. How much I
give away and to whom has nothing to do with that. I quoted the Bible to
show how the Lord wanted it to be done in the OT, though the Israelites did
not obey.
> On the other hand, it is equally important to me to NOT do so. And
> this is because I believe the best thing anyone can do for others is to
> stop enabling them to be dependent and to find ways to force them to
> stand on their own two feet.
Well, I know examples of people who cannot stand on their own two
feet. They must be helped. Not doing so would be very unchristian.
>Next, I don't think it's at all hard to call oneself a Christian while NOT
>accepting the Bible as the word of God. I accept the Bible as the
>INSPIRED word of God, and I look to Jesus, his actions, and his
>personality to guide me in my life - hence Christianity. I do think it's
>entirely possible that some folks blatantly fabricated certain sections of
>the Bible purely for political gain and thus had no inspiration from God
>whatsoever. I also think other sections of the Bible were indeed written
>by folks who THOUGHT they were telling the truth about God and their
>relationship with Him, but may very well have been mistaken in their
>interpretation of catastrophic events surrounding them (water turning to
>blood, the sea parting, and so on).
Of course, when you talk about the Bible the way you do a discussion on
biblical grounds is impossible. Just a question; Do you believe that Jesus
died on the cross for your sins?
In my opinion and the opinion of anyone who wants to live by the Bible
concepts, what you describe is not the Christian attitude.
>When I contemplate God, how He thinks, what He wants, and so on, instead
>of relying on somebody else's relationship with God (the Bible), I take a
>walk in the woods, read a biology text, try to learn more about
>thermodynamics. This is because I do believe that God created the
>universe, and is continuing to create the universe, and all the systems in
>it. What we humans call "the balance of nature" is considered by some to
>be unChristian. But from my perspective, this MUST be the way God wants
>it, for He created this system.
Yes, God created it, but He told us more than just "that He created it."
If I understand you correctly, you do not know or read the Bible? If that
is so discussion is pretty well impossible. Did you read the Bible in the
past.
>I have a friend who is a priest who tried to look at the world from my
>perspective (for the sake of further conversations). He really did "go
>out there" and hike and watch animals and study nature to see how this
>world of God's works. He hated what he saw. He began to hate creation
>and all the systems. He admitted that the systems do favor the organisms
>that work the hardest (run the fastest, seek the clearest spot of
>sunshine) and do yield a healthy ecosystem in the end. But he hated the
>sacrifice involved. His conclusion was that God created the world and the
>devil then imbued our planet with natural selection!
We do go out on nature hikes as well. Our conclusion is different: "How
great thou art." in old fashioned language, but in modern English, "our
God is great. He made everything, and keeps it up every day yet." Yet, He
warned us as well that there will be an end to the world as we see it.
>Now, here's the kicker for me...he arrived at his conclusion based upon
>HIS OWN idea of good and evil.
That is exactly what the Bible warns against.
> In other words, he could not accept the idea that perhaps God does not
> find natural selection evil at all, but finds it instead to be a
> sacrificial system that yields a better universe in the same way that we
> weed our gardens to yield a better crop. Considering that God was
> willing to sacrifice His only son for a greater goal, I fail to
> understand why anyone would determine that sacrifice is inherently evil.
Have I ever said that sacrifice is evil? On the contrary, but I do think
that we cannot decide for ourselves what part of God's Word we can accept
and which part we must reject. That is so if we are priest, or if we are
not a priest. In both cases we must accept God's Word in the Bible and in
Creation.
Jan de K.
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