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

To: Greg or e who wrote (16773)	3/21/2004 2:05:10 PM
From: Scott Bergquist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Do I need "credentials" about aircraft manufacturing, to successfully discover when flight 3511 comes in on Saturday? Do I need "credentials" in physics, to successfully predict the acceleration of gravity in a given situation? I certainly did not discover them. The point I made is that mere "force of words", =regardless= of credentials, is not enough. What if, say, a leading expert came to possess a text, written in Latin, wherein a traveller writes of his voyage from Palestine with a certain "Jesus" on board ship? This "Jesus" claims his divinity, describes how he was driven to flee by "moneychangers" from Jeruseleum, and now wished to visit with Caesar himself in Rome. "Jesus of Nazareth" describes how he hopes in Rome to gather a small group of "disciples" to spread his simple but divine expression. However, his non-stop preaching of his divinity offends some of the crew, who dispose of young Jesus overboard. Now, in this text, all dates are clear, ship's logs are cross-referencing, there is no question about the persona of Jesus, and the text is unquestionably authentic. It is hailed by scholars =everywhere= in its importance. It become obvious that Jesus did =not= die on the cross, did =not= deliver a sermon on the mount, did =not= have disciples, did not raise the dead, did =not= change water into wine...all fabrications.... Would YOU take the "credentials" of "scholars and experts" of every stripe, and so change your beliefs?? You would not, I guarantee it. You would run to someone, somewhere, who, without examining the document, would exclaim it as a "forgery" and that would be enough for YOU. The point of this story is like Zeno's Conundrum. You could KEEP referencing "credentials" and "more credentials", "more expert than less expert", yet if you WANT TO CONTINUE TO BELIEVE you would against ANY new evidence, ... CREDENTIALS WOULD =NOT= MATTER to you... your mind is FIXED!! The absence of even a SINGLE INDISPUTABLE DISPLAY by a "caring" or "loving" divinity, ....a SINGLE DISPLAY of indisputable supernaturality could unite the WORLD in its belief, and bring happiness on the entire planet...This absence of display is proof enough for me to deny the existence of a "Supreme Being" and by extension Jesus. Even I, a mere mortal, can give you a simple example of such a "display": simultaneously, all over the world, 60,000 arches of stone appear. If you walk under the stone arch, you hear a voice saying "I wish you to be generous to every single person on this planet, and kill no one, for every person is my sacred image... " etc. in whatever language you speak. Is it that difficult? NOT for god!