Re: Acceptance and growth

In article <Yn8Sj.8780$r12.7335@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, jjsargent@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 says...
>
>I don't plan to go on disputing with Matthew Johnson
>when even my side of the argument is lifeless and
>mechanical.

So you say, but you went and did it anyway.

>  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."

It is unfortunate that that is the _only_ response you chose to make. For
it
shows that you missed the point.

>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.

And judging from your posts over the past several months, I would say that
you
are misplacing the blame. It is not Christianity per se that is
responsible for
this. Unfortunately, judging from those same posts, you do not _know_
"Christianity per se". You know only a tragic distortion of it. Whether
that
distortion is due to the bad influences around you or to your own heart's
ability to pervert the call from God, I cannot say.

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

And your thinking this is another error, a fundamental one.

>
>Jesus did not say, in John 17:3, that eternal life
>consisted in knowing a great deal *about* God,

What? You think I don't already know this? Why? Of course I know it. That
you
_presume_ I do not is a sign of presumption on your part -- in both senses
of
the word.

>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?

You should be asking that question of yourself, since the 'God' you
describe is
such a monstrous perversion of the Christian God.

People who _do_ know God say as St. John Chrysostom said as he was dying
in
exile: "glory to God for all things". They do not wilt under suffering and
blame
God for their distress.

[snip]


-- 
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Subducat se sibi ut haereat Deo
Quidquid boni habet tribuat illi a quo factus est
(Sanctus Aurelius Augustinus, Ser. 96)