Re: Acceptance and growth

I don't plan to go on disputing with Matthew Johnson
when even my side of the argument is lifeless and
mechanical.  The only response I will make to the
specifics of his April 10 posting is that I agree that
Ayn Rand was mistaken in one way, and she
exposed this mistake at the end of her novel
_Anthem_, when she referred to "this god: EGO."
I don't want to be a god; it's too much pressure.
I just want to be a healthy, happy human being,
and I can't say that Christianity has been much
conducive to that.

But there's something else I need to say to
Mr. Johnson, and I think he needs to hear:

Jesus did not say, in John 17:3, that eternal life
consisted in knowing a great deal *about* God,
even if it's written by a great many people both
famous and obscure, over many centuries, in
several languages.  He said that eternal life was
to know *God* and Jesus Christ, whom He had
sent.  I have to ask Matthew Johnson, despite
all his knowledge and otherwise admirable
erudition *about* God:

Do you actually know God?

(supposing for the sake of this discussion that
He's there to be known).   It was, quite possibly,
about those who would consider themselves
His most vociferous partisans that Jesus said
in Luke 18:8, "When the Son of Man comes,
will He find faith on the earth?"

-- Jeffrey J. Sargent