>I appreciate your devotion to Christianity and your anger about working
with
>people of different persuasions for a better world.
I'm not angry with the world. I wish the world would come to saving grace.
All Christians do.
>Surely you know that the majority of folks in the world are Islamic or
Buddhist or something
>else.
To their detriment.
>Refusing to work with them would be a poor way to get along in the world.
Or in the
>United States, too.
If the goal is to "get along in the world," do good science, work in an
office, promote world
peace, save the whales, etc., then at times we do what the world does. But
no question
compares with: Where will you spend eternity? If we are right, then you
are terribly wrong,
and so are they.
And if we parry a bit on whether God can be detected in the evolutionary
process, it is
because we are interested and have differing ideas. But if all of a sudden
you had a medical
situation, and if we knew of it, many on this forum would pray for you.
Now, why would we
do that? Because we love you, Will, and we love others who are not of our
faith.
But if we were not convinced we were right about the essential elements of
Christianity,
evolution aside, we would be silent about it, and you couldn't tell us
apart from any of
the others.
>If you met me, perhaps you would change your mind, and want to work with
me rather than >concentrate only on converting me.
I would enjoy meeting you. And I would not expect a conversion for either
of us. But, if you
asked me a leading question ...
>Many very religious people are very open and glad to have atheists working
for many of
>the same moral goals.
There are some similar moral goals. But if we could be "moral" all on our
own, we
did not need a savior to set the example and then die for us. But also the
world teaches
patterns of behavior that are contrary to Christian teaching. The world
teaches self
reliance. The Bible says depend on God. The world teaches that we can be
moral.
The Bible says all our righteousness is as "filthy rags." "There are ways
that seem
right to a man, but the ways thereof lead to death."
Dick Fischer
"The Origins Solution"
http://www.orisol.com