Re: Deconversion

Revd. Eric Potts wrote:

Heck, i'm afk for a few days and see what happens! :-)

I promise it's not your fault :-).

In a later post you said:

- I'm not a very emotional person; I think much more
than I feel. This may well be a weakness but, well,
it's how I am.

- My *values* are largely unchanged. I was always committed
to God because I was committed to truth and goodness, not
the other way around. So -- so far, at least -- there's
no great revolution in that aspect of my life.

I can identify with both those statements; I often wish I could feel as
much as others seem to do. But we are who we are and what life has made
us. Sometimes I suspect that it is not so much that we do not feel but
rather that we have found ways of keeping our feelings well below the
surface - occasionally I am shocked by some emotion I hadn't realised I
was feeling; or something deeply buried comes up and for a while seems
overpowering!

Always possible.

I would simply add, for now, that I think it is because I am committed
to truth and goodness (or what I take to be such) that my belief in God
will not permit any concept of god or faith that seems to breach that
commitment. To say, as some appear to do, that I believe in God who is
x, and that x must therefore determine the meaning of truth and
goodness, showing that they are quite different from what most people
take those concepts to mean; such a belief seems to me to a cop-out.

That has always been pretty much my opinion too. I'm also
disinclined to revise the meanings of words like "God" so as
to eliminate the difficulties, which some people seem to be
happy doing.

--
Gareth McCaughan
..sig under construc
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Sam Shepard recognizes Christianitys exhaustion
    ... >> that traditional religion, traditional God, has no life ... >> function of a religion, to give them a sense of aliveness. ... > often refer to the entire 1800s as the century where emotion became the ... Or, to be more precise, what about "TRUTH" with a capital T? ...
    (soc.religion.christian)
  • Re: What Christ says
    ... Thank goodness ... this group is for Christians of all kinds and not just biblicists. ... "It is better to be divided by truth than united in error. ... fail to declare the whole counsel of God. ...
    (soc.religion.christian)
  • Re: The root of all evil? - Dawkins Documentary
    ... active and who intervenes in history is one which it should be ... but the claim that there exists a God who ... it actually can be established as a truth. ... science, observation and experiment must be objective. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The Waldenses.
    ... the light of truth could not be wholly extinguished. ... every age there were witnesses for God,--men who cherished faith in Christ ... as the only mediator between God and man, who held the Bible as the only ... {GC88 61.1} ...
    (soc.culture.palestine)
  • Re: Mahmoud: "Renouncing Islam was the best thing I ever did!" . .. .. ... .. . . .
    ... born in a Muslim home. ... My father was a Muslim priest ... When I was still very young, I started asking questions about God, His ... judgment, His truth, man's eternal destiny, etc. ...
    (alt.religion.islam)