Posted by Al; on March 14, 1999 at 21:45:00 {MWbp7CDcBo4Qg}:
In Reply to: About this FPP! posted by a7p on March 14, 1999 at 21:02:16:
Nice post A7- Now you're not talking about me when you say atheist, right? Because I am not. I can discuss the existence of God at great length with you, and have with quite a few here. I don't object if someone else thinks the Bible is God's word if they don't use that belief to oppress others, and it doesn't sound like you do. I have posted Thomas Paine before to express my views before-
:It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.
-It is a fraud to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
Some of us are de-programming from the WTS, as I'm sure you can
understand. Most of us, while considering ethics very important, do not consider the belief system of others a cause for concern to us. There are Catholics, atheists, deists, and fundamentalists that get along reasonably well. Only some of
the fundamentalists are concerned with what conclusions others on this forum currently have. I taught the Bible for over two decades. I am not against it. If someone has something to add about it, I'm open. Because one is convinced in
advance that their arguments are not persuasive, that does not mean I am not actually open. I am, but no one has ever defended the Bible to me on this forum. Many times I have posted open questions to the board. No one who supported divine
inspiration of the Bible responded. I don't mind this, but getting us run off is not an impressive argument. It is interesting to see what can be answered and what cannot be answered by the numbers of people that see these posts. I am not
an atheist.
Al