At 05:17 AM 5/6/99 PDT, Snow Leopard wrote:
>Premises:
>God cares about us.
>He's about as narrow-minded as I am. (One set of truths)
>God is Powerful enough to let me know.
Eric beat me to the punch, but I was going to say that before you set out to prove something very questionable like "God cares about us", you had better first prove that God exists. Which you cannot; at least not to this crowd of godless heathens.
>So far, the odds of God caring are 3/4,000,000
>A specific set of behaviors expected: 4/15
>That's 1 in 5,000,000
Dare I ask, what if God DIDN'T care? I mean, that doesn't even make sense to me. What would be the purpose of Jesus Christ and all that jazz if God didn't give a rat's ass about his devoted followers? I don't even see why this an issue to begin with. If God gave his "only son" Jesus to die for our eternal sins, then why would you have to prove that he "cared"? Do you need a Hallmark card from Him? "Thank you for always believing in Me, my child. May I bless you, and hopefully I'll answer your prayers."
>You'd think, wouldn't you, that I'd be too discouraged to send such a mail,
>admitting that I'm wrong. Just the same, 1 in 10,000,000 don't scratch the
>odds of evolution, which this list takes for granted. (Since I don't
>believe that science will prove either way, I'd appreciate it if you didn't
>see this as a Creationist comment, simply a comparison of statistics.)
Takes for granted?!
Okay, so far I haven't been tangled in the tentacles of argumentation with you yet, but I cannot let this go. I refuse to dispute the existence of God, or even discuss it. That is a personal choice, and I have friends and family members that believe in God and are religious. I accept their beliefs as long as they accept my lack of them. I do not try to "un-program" Christians, and am only offended when someone tries to convert or condemn me. But when someone, especially middle-aged or elderly people tell me that they don't "believe" in evolution, I react as if they just stated that contrary to fact, the Sun does indeed revolve around us and Earth is the center of the universe.
That said, I have always had a major pet peeve of being told that Evolution is false. It's not a case of "believing" in it or not; it's a choice of being ignorant or not. And what ESPECIALLY sends me over the top and ranting (although you haven't done this yet), is when someone says, "What? You think we all came from monkeys?! Don't be ridiculous; we aren't animals." First of all...we are animals, although lead-headed individuals choose to ignore Nature. You don't need to spend your life researching lobe-finned fishes and trilobites to know this. Look at yourself...you have hair on your body, right? And are warm-blooded? Bones, a brain? Sexual organs, and mammary glands, right? Compare yourself to a sea sponge and you'll conclude that we are quite similar to our fellow primates, not only in structure but in behavior and origin.
And why are people so offended to think that we are related to apes? I admire animals and Nature; I think it's a great thing. It really tweaks me when stupid humans are arrogant enough to think they are better than any other animal because we can walk upright and speak Swedish. I don't want to sound all New Age-y, but get it through your skull that we share this earth, and it does not belong only to us. Non-human animals are not "dumb". What does the existence of sitcoms and talk shows tell you? Obviously, we are not a very intelligence species after all.
I wouldn't classify myself as an 'atheist', 'agnostic', or anything like that (save, 'squid-groupie'), but I have already decided that if the Xtian God really *did* exist, his worshipers would not act the way they do. It's as simple as that. It's my personal truth, accept it or not.
~kjs, who would rather discuss the memetics of hanky panky than halleujah