>-----Original Message-----
>From: John W Burgeson [mailto:burgytwo@juno.com]
>Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 7:09 PM
>Aha. I THINK I have finally seen where Glenn is going with this. It is
>not so
>much that he wants more verification of the claims of Christ than he has,
>so far, been able to find. It is also that he wishes to discover a way
>to falsify the claims of other religious bodies, or, at least, show
>thatthey are less reliable.
>
Yes, that is a large measure of it. Given the mutually exclusive claims of
most religions, they all can't be true at one and the same time. But we
can't claim that Christianity is true without some rational evidence. And
IMO that evidence can't be simply because I believe it to be true.
And part of what I am arguing against is the hypocracy I see when we use
arguments supporting Christianity when we would reject those same arguments
as fallacious and inapplicable if used by another religion. We have no right
to use such arguments; or at the very least, others have the right to ignore
us if we use such ineffectual arguments.
[snip]
>Perhaps there is more than a single road to the father -- yes -- I know
>the relevant
>scripture about "narrow the road." Perhaps the animist in deep Africa,
>who has never heard the gospel,
>can attain heaven through Christ just as we can -- even though he has
>"never heard." I see no
>reason to claim Mormons, though their secondary book has been effectively
>falsified, are
>not welcome into heaven through Christ anyway. Likewise, my YEC friends,
>though their
>origins claims have been falsified. For that matter, who among us will
>claim that his personal knowledge today is,
>as far as it goes, 100% accurate? If nobody -- then what % of accuracy is
>OK to let us in the kingdom? 90%?
>Maybe 50%? 10%? I think the question speaks for itself.
No one comes to the father except through the Son. But we are also only
responsible for the amount of light we have been given. So, while the
animist may never have heard of Jesus, it doesn't mean that he can't be
saved. But he isn't saved by his animism; he is saved by Jesus.
>
>In the end, Glenn, you are correct in that our faith is based upon faith
>-- a leap of faith. As Taylor writes in THE MYTH OF CERTAINTY, we may be
>wrong, quite wrong. But we must do what we must do -- in my case
>following the Christian path that makes the most sense to me -- that
>conforts me -- in which I have had, if not often, at least some contact
>with the heavenlies.The relative historicity of most of the O.T. just is
>not all that relevant to that position. At least not to me.
I agree that the Christian path makes the most sense (However, some of the
arguments supporting it don't ). As to the historicity, I liked what David
Campbell wrote the other day as he understood also:
>I am not certain how verifying the historical accuracy of the Flood will
prove that God
>was involved, any more than proving the historical accuracy of the New
Testament proves
>that Jesus was God. Both support the credibility of the claim of
theological
>reliability, in contrast to something grossly historically inaccurate like
the book of
>Mormon.
If all we have is grossly inaccurate, then one must wonder if we have a
similar theology. That is why historicity is important.
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
>Burgy
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jan 27 2001 - 17:04:20 EST