Re: political


"Bart Goddard" <goddardbe@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns997E6ECE56505goddardbenetscapenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Miss Elaine Eos <Misc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:Misc-
907FC2.20053530072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:


...Because faith requires some sort of guiding teacher?

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: "Faith" should be "in something."
Pop religion talks about "having faith", but it's usually a
dis-embodied faith. It's some sort of emotional state, rather
than trust in such-and-such. It's not faith that's important,
but what one has faith in. If a man is walking across a frozen
lake he might have great faith that the ice is thick enough to
hold him. But if the ice is very thin, no amount of faith
makes a difference. OTOH, if the ice is very thick, it hardly
matters how confident he is. The ice holds him whether he exactly
trusts it or not.

My objection is not that one ought to have faith IN something. Rather, it
is the demand to have faith in something with very, very particular
specifications which I, as the prospective faithful, am not demeed qualified
to evaluate and set out for myself.



So how is a person supposed to have faith in something, if
someone doesn't tell him about the something? St. Paul said:
Romans 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

Assuming that this person is literate, give him a copy of the Bible and let
him get on with it.

That is not the issue here, Bart.
The issue is that if I give 100 preachers/pastors/Fathers/popes the same
passage to base a sermon on, I will get 100 different interpretations with
one common unifying theme: that each will insist theirs is the only correct
path to a truthful exegesis of His Word. In years past, such insistence
went so far that Christian preachers/pastors/Fathers/popes pretty much
behaved towards each other as Shhites and Sunnis do in Iraq today.


The main distinction is that one doesn't achieve salvation by
dint of a good life. Rather, a good life is a response to
being saved.

Which circular route brings us right back to my point: that one's state of
salvation is judged differently by every sect, church, denomination and
order.


.

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