> >Have you *never* made a decision
> >that you thought was so guided, but turned out to be wrong?
>
> Never, because I know when I am guided and when I am not.
Wow. It's been a few years since I ran into anyone with this attitude.
Give me a moment to adjust.
I suppose that you "know" you are guided when you have an overwhelming
feeling of peace and love unadulterated by fear, doubt, or hate. The
arrogance comes when other people claim to have had the same feelings
but follow "guidance" that is at odds with yours. You then claim that
they are mistaken or lying about their experience, while yours must be
genuine.
The sensible thing to do, of course, is not to depend on your feelings
when it comes to matters of fact. They're fine for making decisions
like who to marry, but they're useless when deciding whether evolution
is true.
> >Have you never at least seen someone else do so?
>
> You've lost me here; have I never seen someone else do what?
Have you never seen someone claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, but
be (in your opinion) sincerely mistaken?
> ...You say you were once a Christian; was there never
> a time when you knew the Holy Spirit was guiding you?
Certainly. (See "Rich Daniel's Religious Journey" on my web site.)
But I was wrong. That's my point; you could be wrong, too.
I don't mean that you could be wrong about evolution. (Technically, there's
always some small chance that science can be wrong about anything, but the
idea of common descent is very well supported.) I mean that you could be
(and in my opinion, you are) wrong about being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Sincerely,
Rich Daniel rwdaniel@dnaco.net http://www.dnaco.net/~rwdaniel/