18 JULY 1997

GOD>>>>>>*<<<<<<counterGOD
Once again, I appreciate Al giving me the opportunity to participate in such a discussion as this. Al's point is given in his journal entry for 13JUL1997.

Let's start off with this:I said, "And, while we're on the subject, what kind of a God would allow a wrong translation of His Words?"
And Al said, "Languages mutate, inevitably. No translation is EVER perfect...."

I don't think that I made my point very well, so I'll try again: If God really wanted to say something to us, He, with His Infinite Power, should have no trouble whatsoever transmitting it to our feeble brains. Why would He want to give us the free will to interpret his words? Isn't that rather absurd?

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Hell and Heaven

Al sez: "I'll be honest with you, Doug. Hell is the part of my faith I least like to justify, and least enjoy even contemplating. What sort of God would shove people into the equivelent of a medieval torture chamber? What offense is worth that? After the earth is a cinder, and the sun dies out, the soul will keep suffering for his mistakes...

Of course, there is an obverse. That a soul, past the sun going out, etc. will be in BLISS forever. There's nothing equitable about Heaven, either."

It's pretty simple: fear of punishment (eternal) for not doing what you're told, and a just reward to being a nice little lamb and following the flock.

To be honest, if there were a heaven, it would not be very heavenly to me, for the population would be the people who would think that I belong in hell... I wouldn't be very comfortable there. On the other hand, if Al and his ilk were there, it would be much more interesting.

    Hell:
  • Jim Baker would be here because he lied and stole. He thinks he's a Christian, but a lot of people think not.
  • Adolph Hitler would be here; he professed to Christianity but did not live up to the rules.
  • Ghengis Kahn would be here because he was not a Christian and cared nothing for Christian ideals.
  • Mohammed Ghandi would be here because he is not a Christian.
Gee, there is something wrong with this picture.

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Logic

Al sez:"Hmmm. That's a good point...for I feel the same way about logic. Or rather, I can have faith in things beyond logic, but I don't hold with things that violate logic. (See my comments about the Flood above.) I don't believe that religion DOES violate logic...or the belief in a God necessarily violates logic. Neither did Kant, although he admitted a proof of God was inherently impossible. Let's try it this way, Doug. Do not a priori rule a Creator as illogical, and we'll try to proceed from there, all right? (And feel free to take the opposite tack and convince me that the idea of a Creator IS illogical. Just show your reasoning.)

Golly, golly, golly... I don't know where to go with this one."I can have faith in things beyond logic, but I don't hold with things that violate logic."

Beyond logic... is in some illogical never-never land. And of course you can't believe that religion violates logic. If you believed that, it would violate your self-image of being a logical person. In the same manner, if I believed that religion was logical, I certainly couldn't say that I was logical in being an atheist.

So... here is the crux of the matter. It's not whether the bible is absolutely correct. It's not whether there is an afterlife, although that may be part of it. It's not whether some Christians violate the principals of Christianity. It's not whether atheists are inherently bad... It is... whether or not it is logical to believe in God.

My idea of logic says no. Al's beyond-logic says yes.

Smarter people than Al and I (although I'm sure that you'll find this hard to believe)<G> have argued thusly. The conclusion of these arguments: absolutely indeterminate.
Well, I got sixteen good hours of sleep. I feel a whole lot better (duh!) I got up this morning around 05:00 and answered email that I'd been putting off for several days;(First-last:I get a "not-found" on your address!) I hate to leave things hanging, but I like to be able to think before I do things, too.

First: yesterday's fishing trip. Doug, Chris (Doug's ten-year-old son) and I set out about 04:30 and got to the lake as the sun was rising. We caught a few fish, medium-sized (well, I didn't catch any, I watched for a while... OK, I was watching them catch fish while I tried... I'm a slow starter) and Chris caught a real nice small-mouthed bass. They are rare in Kansas, at least on the lakes where I fish.
There's something really neat about watching a boy and his father having fun fishing!
Pretty soon, I started catching fish, too. Then Chris caught the big-'un of the day, a fat five-pounder. For a ten-year-old, Chris has an amazing amount of concentration. He got the fish in with very little coaching and a great deal of encouragement and cheering from his dad and I.

A little later on, we all started catching big fish, but not quite measured up to Chris' five-pounder. We caught probably twenty fish in the four-five pound range, and fifty altogether. Quite a day for six hours of fishing! We quit about noon, and it was starting to get very, very hot. The wind picked up quite a bit about 10:30 and kept increasing, making the fishing more difficult from that point on.

All in all, the best trip of the year for me so far. And one of the best parts was watching Doug and his son. Watching a dad and his boy having fun fishing really warms my heart.

The rest of the day was spent sleeping. I've already covered that part, haven't I?

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BULLETIN! BULLETIN! BULLETIN!

Kiddies! Back up your files! Cross yer fingers! (OK, some of you can pray!) Do those system disks! Do all that shit that you know you should do!

Yeah, you guessed it. I got stung, but good.I lost everything on my "C" drive. I'm blaming MSIE 4.0 Pre-release 2. If you get it, in addition to the above cautions, Don't install the Desktop Integration! It will kill you.

My Mailing lists are gone, as are all of my addresses. I hate that, I just went through that in November. Shit, I never learn, do I?

Have a happy weekend.

Thanx for being here!

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