[pf] Re:Christianity/ black and white

by Bill Ellis

06 December 2000 23:30 UTC

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Nan Says:
 >folks have various ideas about how the world works.  Some
> believe in the "cold, hard, mechanical world".   Some within that group
> believe that winning is more important than being moral,  in short, that
> might makes right.
> Other Americans believe in the Christian worldview which says morality must
> guide our decisions because the unjust will be punished by the Mysterious
> Power.   "He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives
> gifts to the rich--both come to poverty."  Proverbs 22:16 (NIV)

BE:
Nan, this is not two different categories.  They overlap and intermingle.
There are almost as many defintions of Chrisianity as there are of
economics.
The basic economic tenets following Smith dictum is that the world works
best when each person works in is how self-interest.  Self-interest is taken
to its exreme in the Chicago School of Economics that hods that all human
decisions should be based on one's own economic self-interest.  This goes to
prostitution and the sale of babies in some economists' minds.  Yet many of
these same economists are card carrying Cathooics, Christian Fundamenataliss
and other defitinition of Christianity.
>From the other end of the spectrum there are Christians who believe in the
Power of Jesus to win our football games, and change the laws of physics and
a whim.  Some believe in the literal birth of the earth with Adam and Eve.
Others lie, Fr. Thomas Berry believe the creation story told by science. The
cosmos emerged with a Big Bang from an infinily small point as is ever
evolving and expanding.  Others Like Bishop John Shelby Spong do not belive
in the divinityu of Jesus.  To him Jesus is jus a human being who belived
strongly that love would change the world.  And who lived a live of love.
Loving all the evil people he met prostittues, theives, Samaritans,
homosexuals, and even those who tortured him.
IMHO like Einstein I accept no personal god or formal religion.  I believe
in God the Cosmos and the Reveleation of Science.  The grand and mysterious
Cosmos fills oben minds with awe and wonder.  The more deeply one searches
for the truth the more wonderous in appears.  All of God's creations are
wonderous and worthy of our highest respect, honor and love.  "Belonging" to
respecting, caring for and being cared for by God's creations gives each of
us the responsibility to advance our own well being by advancing the well
being of all.  That moral code, some thime called the Golden Rule, "love thy
neighbor as thyself," is revealed to us by God the Cosmos by the science it
lets us discover.
There is not black and white only a beautiful, mysterious, awe inspiring,
rainbow.
Bill Ellis