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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (710)	9/7/2000 1:32:57 AM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28931

Just think? "And let us hope that the Bible falls away- and that some new belief or philosophy takes its place- that allows men to be moral, without needing to condemn their fellow men for not believing in the same thing, as long as they too are relatively moral men- who weigh the harm they do to others carefully. I have such a morality. I wish you had it too." That's an interesting thought, perhaps you could explain how you would deal with say a murderer without condemning his action as wrong? Of course then you would in the place of God would you not? Who says that those "who weigh the harm they do to others carefully." are the standard. What if after weighing the harm, someone decides to kill anyway? As far as God needing us here are a couple of thoughts by Francis Schaeffer that you might find interesting. "God did not need to create; God does not need the universe as the universe needs Him. Why? Because we have a full and true Trinity. The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other and loved each other before the creation of the world. This is not only an answer to the acute philosophic need of unity in diversity, but of personal unity and diversity. The unity and diversity cannot exist before God or be behind God, because whatever is farthest back is God. But with the doctrine of the Trinity, the unity and diversity is God Himself -- three Persons, yet one God. That is what the Trinity is, and nothing less than this." (Francis A. Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Ch. 1) "Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. Do not let anyone divert your mind at this point. There are no other factors in the formula, because there are no other factors that exist. If we begin with an impersonal, we cannot then have some form of teleological concept. No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance, beginning with an impersonal, can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of man. No one has given us a clue to this. Often this answer -- of beginning with the impersonal -- is called pantheism. The new mystical thought is almost always some form of pantheism -- and almost all the modern liberal theology is pantheistic as well. Often this beginning with the impersonal is called pantheism, but really this is a semantic trick, because by using the root theism a connotation of the personal is brought in, when by definition the impersonal is meant. In my discussions I never let anybody talk unthinkingly about pantheism. Somewhere along the way I try to make the point that it is not really pantheism, with its semantic illusion of personality, but pan- everythingism. The ancient religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as the modern mysticism, the new "Pantheistic" theology, are not truly pantheism. A semantic solution is being offered. Theism is being used as a connotation word. In The God Who is There I have emphasized the fact that the modern solutions are usually semantic mysticisms, and this is one of them. But whatever form pan-everythingism takes, including the modern scientific form which reduces everything to energy particles, it always has the same problem: in all of them the end is the impersonal. There are two problems which always exist -- the need for unity and the need for diversity. Pan-everythingism gives an answer for the need of unity, but none for the needed diversity. Beginning with the impersonal, there is no meaning or significance to diversity. We can think of the old Hindu pantheism, which begins everything with om. In reality, everything ought to have ended with om on a single note, with no variance, because there is no reason for significance or variance. And even if pan- everythingism gave an answer for form, it gives no meaning for freedom. Cycles are usually introduced as though waves were being tossed up out of the sea, but this gives no final solution to any of these problems. Morals, under every form of pantheism, have no meaning as morals, for everything in pan-everythingism is finally equal. Modern theology must move towards situational ethics because there is no such thing as morals in this setting. The word morals is used, but it is really only a word." (Francis A. Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Ch. 1) Have a good day; Greg