From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 8 16:56:57 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5391837B400; Sun, 8 Sep 2002 16:56:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from directvinternet.com (dsl-65-185-140-165.telocity.com [65.185.140.165]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6C7443E3B; Sun, 8 Sep 2002 16:56:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@directvinternet.com) Received: from Tolstoy.home.lan (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by directvinternet.com (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g88NuqGd006178; Sun, 8 Sep 2002 16:56:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@directvinternet.com) Received: from localhost (nwestfal@localhost) by Tolstoy.home.lan (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) with ESMTP id g88NuqNQ006175; Sun, 8 Sep 2002 16:56:52 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: Tolstoy.home.lan: nwestfal owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 16:56:52 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" X-X-Sender: nwestfal@Tolstoy.home.lan To: Terry Lambert Cc: Juli Mallett , Joshua Lee , , Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? In-Reply-To: <3D7A380D.C682AE67@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <20020908164812.X80977-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Terry Lambert wrote: > > I wasn't referring so much to programming style, but rather to > > language syntax. And not so much to a particular language, as > > computer languages can change much like human languages. Really > > what I was getting at was the principles involved. > > So was I; "Religion is to God as style(9) is to working C code". Bad analogy. C code is meaningless without some transcendental preconditions that make it meaningful. If there were no compilers, linkers, syntactical rules, etc. coding in C would be pretty unintelligible. > I fail to believe that any single religion has sussed out the > totality of the nature of God, or His desires. They are just > attempts at approximation. Yet amazingly enough, each religion > claims an exclusive distribution arrangement for The Truth. That is because you are beginning with presuppositions that prevent you from understanding that God is able to reveal Himself to man. By the way, only Christianity can account for what you note above, that no religion give us a comprehensive understanding of God. The Christian doctrine of God's incomprehensibility takes this into account. > > Every time a natural disaster occurs, and the insurance companies > claim it's not covered, as an Act Of God, it's very tempting to > pick a church and sue them for damages, on the basis of their > being God's representatives on Earth, and settle the matter once > and for all. What this fails to take into account is that all those natural disasters are the result of God's judgement on the world for sin. Suing God for damages is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. God *is* the highest court of appeal, and your suit would most likely be overturned. 8-) Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message