From: bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig)
Subject: Re: Is it good that Jesus died?
Organization: Starfleet Headquarters: San Francisco
Lines: 42

jburrill@boi.hp.com (Jim Burrill) writes:
>Brian Kendig (bskendig@netcom.com) wrote:
>: 
>: Can you please point to something, anything, that proves to me that
>: the universe cannot possibly be explained without accepting as a fact
>: the existence of a god in precisely the way your holy book describes?
>: 
>: Can you please convince me that your religion is more than a very
>: cleverly-constructed fable, and that it does indeed have some bearing
>: on my own personal day-to-day life?
>
>Would you consider the word of an eye-witness (Peter) to testify to the
>events surrounding Jesus' life?

No.  There are two problems here:

(1) Peter died two millenia ago.  The original letters he wrote have
long since decayed into dust.  If he were alive today and I could
question him, then this might lend credibility to your claims (but
probably not much, because after all, I've heard people claim with all
sincerity that they've spoken with Elvis recently).  But after his
death, Peter's writings were transcribed by monks for centuries, and I
find it hard to believe that one of them somewhere didn't decide to
change the wording of something to make it (in his opinion) a little
easier to understand.

(2) Even if Peter did witness the miracles of Jesus two millenia ago,
that doesn't mean that your deity is what the Bible says it is (God
might just be Satan, trying to convince everyone that he's a nice
guy), or even that your deity is still alive and active in the world
today.

Nice try, but it just isn't enough to convince me, especially since
your wild claims about your deity seem to fly in the face of the way
I've observed the world to work.  Please find something more compelling.

-- 
_/_/_/  Brian Kendig                             Je ne suis fait comme aucun
/_/_/  bskendig@netcom.com                de ceux que j'ai vus; j'ose croire
_/_/                            n'etre fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent.
  /  The meaning of life     Si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre.
 /    is that it ends.                                           -- Rousseau
