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Pastimes : Understanding Islam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Ox who wrote (94)	10/5/2001 4:46:13 PM
From: David R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2926

THis is the distinction between a monotheistic world view and a pantheistic world view. I do not define God as the greater whole, I define God as a distinct entity with a set ot attributes unequalled by all of His creation. God and man are separate. We are not part of God. We are creations of God. There is a difference. I write (create) SW. My code is not part of me, and the sum total of all the code I have written is not who I am, or in any way a part of me. Like wise, we are not God or even part of Him. We are his creation, and the objects of His infinite love. You err in your understanding of Christianity as well. Christianity is understanding who God really is, and realizing that our best moral behavior is infinitely short of moral perfection. I assert that morally, there is but a micrometer tick difference between Hitler, Ghandi, and me (with me being somewhere in between, I suppose). This is when we are compared to the high mark of moral perfection instead of each other. With our moral best so far short of the mark, it the stnds to reason that moral behavior will not gain favor with God. The only way we can some into His presence is through His grace. Thus a believer sharing his faith is not seen a some sort of wise shaman or the like. Rather he is a beggar showing another beggar where to get bread. Perfect moral law allows an innocent to freely take the punishment of a guilty near-kin, and thus saving the guilty form the punishment of law. And thus we have the story of Christ. The perfect, innocent, God-Man who took upon Himself the punishment of the world, that all whom should ever believe in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. BTW: I welcome intelligent criticism of my positions and beliefs. After all, it was my God who said "Come let us reason together". He gave us minds, and certainly expects us to use them.

To: The Ox who wrote (94)	10/6/2001 5:06:41 AM
From: uu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2926

> Man is only a PART of the greater whole - or by your definition God - therefore it's only logical that a PART of God exists inside each of us. This is exactly how I feel also. And I add the following that the challenege is to find that part of God that has been placed in us - and to find this we have our intellect to rely on. The problem is how one find God (i.e. the absolute truth) in himself/herself and others for which we do not know what it truly is! Only a few can come close to understaning the absolute turth, and the rest will either give up looking for it, or keep on their attempt to get close to finding it eventhough they never find it - but still trying. It is analogous to the following: How can a born blind man truly understand what the color red "is", regardless of how much description and explanations are given to him? The best he can do is to use his own imagination to see and feel what the color red is. And in doing so the end result for most would be black for which that is all they have seen ever since they were born! Only a few - a very few - come close to understanding what the color red is all about.