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

To: Greg or e who wrote (3813)	12/2/2000 3:25:39 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Not only is the faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are the fathers of all worldly confusion. The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world. More likely to be true that faith not born out by the evidence or sworn to seeking knowledge . But, that JMO based upon the facts. This is absurd. What have secularists laid waste to?

To: Greg or e who wrote (3813)	12/3/2000 10:46:56 AM
From: Solon	Respond to of 28931

Greg, do you mean to have me believe that you have read that piece thoughtfully, and that you think Chesterton is saying anything whatsoever? I can find nothing in it to discuss. Beyond empty rhetoric and incomprehensible statements, what has he said? I would love to debate his argument, but what is he talking about? Do you know? I am quite willing to go through it sentence by sentence with you, to find out if he is saying anything...provided that you believe there is something to be gained by such an exercise of endurance. Let me start with the first sentence: The only thing which is still old-fashioned enough to reject miracles is the New Theology. Is this TRUE? Is being old fashioned a requirement for rejecting miracles? Is the New Theology "old-fashioned" Is rejecting of miracles "old-fashioned?" Why? What? "New Theology" is a relative term; "old-fashioned" is a relative term. If he wishes to engage in a serious polemic against something why does he not name it so that it can be discussed. Why is he afraid to name what it is he fears. I put it to you that he does not want to utilize the rules of logic, for the simple reason that whatever position he is trying to buttress has nothing to do with logic, and cannot be defended in a rational manner. That is why we get this mysterious and hostile rant that begins and ends by not saying anything. As I said, I am still willing to go over it with you sentence by sentence to see if perhaps he has said something. Maybe he is only trying to say that the thing hangs in the heavens unhurt, in which case I have no idea what he could be talking about. I don't know what he means by the thing, and I don't know what he means by the heavens, and I don't know how he could possibly arrogate to himself, the unproven assertion that some thing is hanging some where, in this precise state. His entire last paragraph mysteriously talks about some people he has known, and he then recites a litany of mixed metaphors and obscure and undifferentiated statements. For example, he states that these "people he had known" burned their own corn to set fire to the church. We can presume that this is a metaphor similar to "cut off your nose to spite your face". So to re-state: These unnamed people were people he had known, and they hurt themselves to hurt the church. If they didn't actually burn their corn, then what did they do? What did they do to hurt the church? How did that hurt them? And why does Chesterton imply that they did wrong, when he is unwilling to state in plain terms who and what he is talking about? How can one defend a criticism that is placed in such vague and wretched prose that the reader senses immediately that the last thing Chesterton would wish is to accidentally let a FACT creep into his verbiage--because FACTS can be EXAMINED. Empty rhetoric cannot. Where are his FACTS? What are they? Even the criticism is left amorphous. Can you throw a pot out of material that has no clay--just salt and water, maybe some spices, herbs, pickle juice? I hardly think so. And it is a waste of time to seek any merit in this prejudiced shrieking from someone that will not show himself. Returning to my post to you: When I asked if you would be willing to tolerate the God that was drawn up in the bible, IF He were to be made real, and IF He decided to spend some time here on our planet, you responded with an evasion of the topic, and a remark that I was hitting my head upon "anvil of God". This, of course, is quite a sincere and rational response to the question of if (and why), you think your particular life would not be harmed by God, and also the question of how you would justify the destruction of others, even should you, and your loved ones, be adventitiously spared. I don't know what "anvil of God" is, but I can only assume by your change of topic that you would indeed have no problem with Him existing on the same planet as your children. This is incomprehensible to me. I guess it is incomprehensible to you, as well. Just a feeling that you have??