Re: virus: To S.G. re: his Jesus predicament

MemeLab@aol.com
Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:52:12 EST

In a message dated 1/26/99 8:37:43 AM Central Standard Time, ncashen@klondyke.net writes:

<< SG-

Critical thinking and logic do not encompass everything; we prove this with every SCHRITT or mistake science/philosophy makes. Nobody will like this here, because it is a declaration of acceptance of the illogical. But I guess I'll have to just take the heat or be ignored. Either one suits me.
>>

Boy, you are really setting yourself up to play a martyr role. Where did you learn that? I hope you enjoy it. You can embrace the illogical if you like. It doesn't bother me any way. Critical thinking is a process, not a conclusion. It's not so important that people make mistakes, its that they can correct them. You confuse evolutionary processes as nonsensical processes. That people make mistakes proves nothing.

>>Intuition tells us things that don't leave us with a "leg to stand on"
all the time. Faith does not makes sense, but where would we be if nobody every dared to be stupid enough to have it? My suggestion is that you try to understand what this Jesus phenomenon represents, what it might mean to you personally. And do not allow anyone to pull it away from you, because then you will never have the chance to wrestle with it and find an outcome that you can believe in.<<

My intuition tells me that you are being less than sincere. What makes you think that anyone can "pull it away" from him? I think you are suggesting that an impossible thing is in fact possible, namely that somehow S.G. can be involuntarily "deprived" of his experience. If he wants to believe what he has experienced as being actually real there is nothing that anyone can do about that. If he want to discount what he has experienced as a rationally explainable phenomenon due to the fatigue, stress, and hunger which he has cited here, there is nothing that anyone can do about that either. He is free to come to his own conclusions about this, regardless of what we say. Does it bother you that he is?? I think it does. I have no problem with it regardless of the conclusion that he comes to.

He wanted to talk and so I responded. He doesn't have to listen. It seems that he is well aware of the crowd that is on this list. It is quite possible that he even chose it because of its composition. Maybe he wants to hear somebody tell him things like this. That's a free choice too. Does it bother you that he might do such a thing? It doesn't bother me. He can find lots of people easily who will either confirm or not confront the "realness" of his experience. It is not as easy to find people who will challenge it thoughtfully. Maybe that is why he chose this list. Does it bother you that he might be actively seeking out answers instead of thrashing blindly and unsuspectingly into a cyber den of atheists and other doubters?

Of course he could always be posing as a wind up to an evangelistic performance. Right now it doesn't look that way, but if he is, I am sure that we are all in for a little entertaining diversionary waste of time. And that's fine too, though I may lose interest quickly - I have had quite a share of those in my time. Right now I think SG is troubled about something and working these things out for himself. How he does this, will probably have no real consequences for me, but I am happy to provide opinions.

-Jake