Dear John,

I don't believe in being a centrist just for the sake of being a centrist either. I go where the evidence leads me. Sometimes that can be to the center of something and sometimes it can be at the outer extreme or anywhere in between. When it comes to God I hung back for over 22 years while I observed the evidence on both sides. When the weight of that evidence overwhelmingly tilted in favor of God's existence I went where it led me and have found that it only has pointed more strongly in that direction since then. I do agree that there are those who you might find at the center of the group of believers that tend to get carried away and make up their own rules and traditions, etc. that are not in accordance with God's will and teachings. This is made clear in the scriptures even during Jesus' ministry in that Jesus had to point out errors in the teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were at the center of the Jew's religion at the time. The one place that I am sort of a centrist is that, as you say, God is at the center of all things and if you want to be joined to him you have to come to him at the center also. I have found that God desires to have a relationship with us that is closer than any that we can have with each other in this world. It is closer than the relationship of marriage between a man and a woman, which is an image of God's relationship with man when both the man and his wife are perfect, because that relationship is limited in that a man and his wife do not share their thoughts or even their experiences and feelings internally with each other, but God shares his thoughts, feelings, and experiences with us and, of course he can always share in our thoughts feelings, and experiences. I have not seen that he offers to have a permanent fringe or distant relationship with him because he made us to be close to him as members or parts of his body. He has, however, built in a degree of separation between us and him in that he has placed Jesus Christ as the mediator between himself and us. This seems to be mainly because his intents, thoughts and ways are well beyond our ability to understand directly, so he has placed Jesus Christ in the middle to translate his intents, thoughts, and ways into a form that we can understand, etc. There is, therefore, that amount of separation from him (the center). He made things in a similar way in our relationship with the natural world. We cannot connect directly to matter structures and observe their internal information directly, but must observe them through the mediator of energy and sub-energy interactions, etc. If this works ok for someone in this world, he probably will find a relationship with God acceptable also. The natural world cannot love us and care for us as God does though.

Although you could look at God's relationship with man as totalitarian, in that he has ultimate power and control over us, his rule over us is not like that of man's totalitarian governments that are based on satisfying the lusts, greed, desire to forcefully use and misuse subjects for his gain at their expense. Since God is the source of all things, he does not need to take resources from his subjects. Instead he is the one that provides all resources to them. To be high in God's kingdom does not mean that you will be in charge of taking resources from the people to supply the needs and desires of the king, but that you will be in charge of distributing resources that come from God to the people. God's kingdom is based on his love for us in that he created us to be joined to him as members of his body and he demonstrated that love to us by greatly suffering for us, so that he could save us from death and give us eternal life in him. This is one case in which the bodies only pile up in those who do not come to him at the center. He does give everyone that choice, though.

I agree. God has perfectly balanced all things in him.

You are right. Many men have made up stories that are not according to god's word and have misled many. God does give examples in the scriptures from the lives of people (both the good and the evil) to demonstrate how he has made the world to work and what kinds of results can be expected by either going according to his will and working in line with the way he designed the world to work or, on the other hand, going against his will by working against the way the world was made to properly work. Of course, God does not need to use theories because he knows all things concerning the universe, since he made it. There are some things in the scriptures that are presented in what would usually be considered very abstract forms. I have found that at least a large number of them appear that way because they tell us about things that man has not yet come to understand. As man's understanding increases their meanings become clear. Those who don't have the background information to understand them tend to either read them and then ignore them or try to apply meanings to them according to their current level of understanding. I go to the type of forum that God leads me to at any given time. I have found that both truth and error can be found at any type of forum. Only God's word can be counted on.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

    Paul,

    I really don't think you try to understand my point of view. Since I don't follow your theological model, you make a bunch of assumptions about what I think. Having followed religious beliefs over the years, I do have some sense of that top down, paternal deity to which you subscribe and I just find it limited and pretentious, not to mention hypocritical. It may not be authoritarian in the way human governments tend to become, but it does validate top down authority. I suppose the female side of the spiritual equation is just a form of Adam's rib and incidental to this model, but I think this dichotomy is far more reflective of much deeper spiritual realities. Going through all which you write, the separation of god and humanity, the need to come to 'him,' etc. all speak to methods of social control and direction which serve normal civic functions and while they might well be necessary to have a cohesive society, can also be misused and so don't necessarily need unquestioning validation, since this serves the purposes of those who will misuse them.

    I could go on, but I realize you are not going to listen and what you say isn't anything I've haven't already heard by others wishing me to join their church.

    Regards,

    John

    Dear John

    Nice reading your essay, well written and concise. You touch several delicate topics, such as economy, politics and even religion. I would avoid talking about God in science groups. I think science and God are irreconcilable. Anyways, religion also plays its role in society. You also ask some philosophical questions difficult to answer. You are a mature man and have a lot experience in life; that's what your essay reflects. According to your experience, what do you think humankind is seeking? Shall we arrive at stable state in the future? What is your vision for the future of humanity?

    I'd be grateful if you could take a look at my essay and leave some comments.

    Best regards

    Israel

      Israel,

      I did read your essay and went back and reviewed it. As you say, the situation is overwhelmingly complex when we start considering all the actual details. A big part of the reason why I like discussing physics, rather than history, politics, sociology, etc. The secret seems to be to find the patterns and processes within all those details. For one thing, we really are not looking for stability as an overall state. There has to be inherent ebb and flow. It is just when it gets out of the acceptable and manageable ranges and those vary, according to perspective. Otherwise stability eventually leads to stagnation and then disruption, as that stable state decays.

      As for science and religion, they actually evolved as two sides of the same coin. When you go back to the ancients, it was a matter of both describing natural order and explaining it. This description became mathematics and science. Think cosmology. Meanwhile religion grew out of the entirely natural impulse to explain this order as intentional and assign personality to these natural forces. Beauty, anger, fear, ego, attraction eroticism etc. can all find, with a little imagination, parallels in the natural order of things. The premise of monotheism is essentially knowledge and wisdom as a form of platonic ideal. Given the inherent dynamic of intellectualism is to distill signals from the noise, this reductionism is a logical progression. Christianity is actually a bit of a step back, with the concept of the trinity, to the inescapable complexities. Essentially it is a personification of past/father, present/son and future/holy ghost, since it grew out of a schism in Judaism and so the son was projected as a renewal, but after suffering centuries of persecution, hope for the future became its selling point to those who where persecuted, which is a big audience.

      Islam was actually a much more politically successful movement for its first seven hundred years (and largely coasted for the next six hundred), compared to Christianity and as such, was able to project a more monolithic vision and only in the last hundred years, have the downsides of this, in its lack of conceptual diversity and thus social inertia, come home to roost.

      We are taught good and bad are some cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, but they are in fact the biological binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken and there is no clear line where the chicken ends and the fox begins. Between black and white are not only shades of grey, but all the other colors of the spectrum.

      What might be good for the individual, expansion and reproduction, might be bad for the group, if it uses up all the resources, so like any computation, the factors are many. The fact is that reality is bottom up and we only see it top down from our particular limited point of view.

      So analyzing religion really must be part of any full scale review of humanity and its options, since it functions as the core and vision of societies.

      As for our immediate situation, I just wrote a comment on Don Limuti's entry, which I think lays out the immediate situation and where to go from here. I've given this topic a fair amount of thought over the years, but tend to have trouble finding forums willing to discuss it in real depth, so I don't get a lot of feedback. Since I submitted my entry with the very first batch, I have been getting enough feedback to think it through even more, so this comment reflects that slightly more complex view. I'll post it here anyway;

      "Don,

      A spot on and logically focused article. I've been castigating various entrants for their 'out in space' entries and so it is nice to have such a well centered and reasonable one. I think though, that the possibility exists to be far more radical than you might think possible. Significant change is only possible when the old order breaks down, but right now the current status quo is coalescing in upon itself and only re-enforcing its own increasingly disfunctional methods. So all the various sectors of society mostly seek to hold onto what they have and further antagonize other parts of society. In this situation, even your reasonable proposals would meet considerable resistance from those who are more focused on holding onto what they have, than gambling on a better outcome.

      The result would normally be a state of slow stagnation and increasingly stratified and compartmentalized future society. Yet I think that the monumental nature of these issues provides a potential relief.

      The enormous tumor of financial excess can only keep growing at this exponential rate and will blow up when it reaches some totally unsustainable level. The result will be the equivalent of a massive heart attack on society, as the economic circulation system siezes up. While this will be potentially catastrophic in some quarters, it is not as though monetary regimes haven't collapsed before and had forms of local exchange rise in their place.

      My proposal is that we begin treating money as the contract which it is, rather than the commodity we have been led to believe it is. While this might seem a minor conceptual issue, it has the potential to change the paradigm by which society functions.

      Any society above a few hundred people needs a medium of exchange. If there is not some readily available commodity with universal applications, such as gold, silver, salt, grain, etc. then a debt based monetary system is quite effective. Yet we forget it is essentially a form of public utility and social contract, not private property. We no more own those bills in our pockets, than we own the section of road we happen to be driving on, yet it is very much in the interest of those controlling this system for us to believe that it is personal property, much as it is in the fisherman's interest for the fish to think that worm belongs to it. This way, every aspect of exchange becomes denominated in this medium and everyone wants as much as possible, further empowering those controlling it.

      Money functions like blood in the economy and as such it needs to keep flowing. Since everyone wishes to obtain as much as possible, this naturally creates excess. If we simply take it out of circulation and store it, it means more must be issued and then there becomes more than necessary, so that if the value started to go down, people would try dumping these stores, further decreasing the value.

      Otherwise it must be invested, ie. loaned to someone else who can effectively spend it in ways to make even more and then pay off the debt and still earn enough to make the effort worthwhile. The fact is there are far fewer of these opportunities, then there is money seeking worthwhile investments.

      This then leads to various unsustainable feedback loops, such as that once speculative investing, ie. greater fool systems, start, it can quickly become possible that money can be borrowed into existence cheaper than these bubbles grow and thus building on theselves, as is currently happening in much of the investment world

      There is also the need to create ever more debt to feed the production of this capital and so lending standards fall. Not to mention the innumerable ways further leverage is added.

      Now if people wish to gamble, this should be perfectly legal, with the understanding that it is gambling, not disguised as safe investment.

      So in reality money is a form of debt. One person's asset is another person's obligation. When those with large piles of these surplus bills gain functional control over the government, then they can effectively have the government, ie. the public, buy this notational wealth as public debt and so sustain its value, since the public is required to pay it back, with interest. Then this money has to be spent and often it is in ways which further enrich those in control.

      Now if we were to begin to understand that money functions as a necessary social contract and we don't actually own it, then most people will start to be far more careful how much they are willing to pull value out of personal and social relations, as well as environmental resources. This would then make the community and the environment natural stores of wealth, not just resources to be mined for value, in order to compete and gamble in the financial system.

      Since stores of currency would be recognized as potentially unhealthy to the system, methods would be devised to reduce them. Most people store wealth for such needs as elder and youth care, education, housing and other large expenses. Now if we started storing value within our communities and relations, the normal, organic systems of exchange and reciprocity would emerge. We would start caring for the old folks and kids like nature intended, as part of life, not just services bought and sold. Much of primary education could also naturally fall into this system and more naturally integrated systems of secondary eduction might evolve as well. Then there could be forms of mutual building societies, much as the Amish do.

      This is not to say a normal and extensive monetary, or even various overlapping monetary ststems wouldn't still function, but they would be built with full understandings of how they best function and for more liquid forms of exchange. Then local public banks would use their profits to fund services and projects within the communities that produced those profits. They would then serve as shareholders in regional systems, in a bottom up system.

      Much as the body has both a heart and a head, society would naturally keep this function of circulation of wealth somewhat distinct from its public management, as a natural distribution and separation of power.

      So this is how I think humanity should be steered; When this current financial system does break down, which seems imminent, but has been for a few decades, but they keep patching with ever more public debt and the resulting surplus credit, we simply have to open our eyes and understand this stuff called money is not, in and of itself, a form of commodity, but a contract which a community is making with its members and those caught abusing this system will naturally have their benefits penalized, not be allowed to profit from this abuse.

      We need to educate people how it all works!!!!

      Regards,

      John Merryman

      I

      John,

      Time grows short so I'm revisiting and rating. Your response to my questions before: "We really won't know what will rise from the rubble, but I'm naturally optimistic. As I point out, the larger issue is that the earth's resources can't sustain the current economy indefinitely, so having what amounts to a self induced heart attack will be a serious monkey wrench in that process and who knows how it ends up."

      My essay has a solution of "looking beyond" -- to dark skies and sustainable actions and "looking within" to a mind that is a microcosm of our universe, using it for transforming actions. I still wonder if we have doomed our world's environment, something that will hamper real recovery.

      Jim

        Jim,

        Nature is constantly building up and tearing down. We are seriously disrupting the biosphere, but even a cleared stage eventually is creating opportunities for whatever has the capacity to fill it. At the very least, it will be an interesting few decades.

        Regards,

        John

        Hi John,

        Appreciate your links to state public banking and to Ellen Brown.

        I was in the process of replying when you post just disappeared !?!?

        The post was reply to a Jonathan D. post I made.

        The links were very informative and appreciated.

        Could you post again?

        Don L.

        Dear John,

        My attempt to extract convincing arguments from your essay was not very successful. Why did you not give an abstract? What the heck means hack human history?

        Your musing around philosophy might be appealing to many who share your half-digested questions how to cope with their personal perspective. You are focusing on money and you predict a belonging catastrophe. I agreed with you on that money is not a commodity. I should also agree on that money is said ruling the world. Should I invest money in India after the election was won by Modi? Hm.

        My wife asked me what does oligarchy mean. My dictionary told me: a small group of people who control and run a particular country or organization. India could definitely be a huge market. However, it suffers from lack of true democracy in the sense that most people (the demos) are utterly poor while those oligarchs of India who live in London are incredibly rich. Most people I know in Europe are neither very poor nor very rich. The oligarchs will perhaps try and prevent both a new worldwide war and the worldwide collapse of the monetary system that you seem to envision. Discoveries, inventions, and other contributions to progress will perhaps prove stronger than military or monetary maneuvers. Modi was almost an underdog. He might or might not achieve a lot. However, I see India's problem rather than its strength its young and still growing poor population. They will like to live as do we and as Modi promised to them.

          Anon,

          The contest question was a bit broad and so the idea of packing everything into 9 pages isn't possible, thus the reference to the essay being the abstract. Unfortunately one of the areas left on the cutting room floor was the impact of these points on Indian politics, especially those which occurred after the essay was submitted.

          As for oligarchies, it is also difficult to explain political form in such a short piece, so I did stick to abstractions, such as energy/the dynamic and information/the form. Necessarily oligarchy is a form, so your questions might possibly pertain to the historical dynamic by which it came to be and the potential dynamics by which it might be disrupted. Now this might not necessarily be a good thing, given the tendency for established social orders to crumble when disrupted, rather than quickly assume a more ideal form.

          I prefer to stick to physical abstractions and not have to explain all their potential manifestations, as the result tends toward clutter, rather than clarity, even if not everyone is able to think abstractly and apply it to their personal situation. Have you had similar reactions to many of the other entries? This is more of a physics forum, than a strictly political one.

          Regards,

          John

          Dear John

          Thanks for your reply. You almost wrote another essay. I have some minor disagreements on some of your points. That I would like to make some comments.

          You: stability as an overall state... Otherwise stability eventually leads to stagnation and then disruption, as that stable state decays.

          In my opinion, stability does not necessarily imply lack of movement, progress or stagnation. This would depend on the collective goals a nation or group of nations have.

          You: As for science and religion, they actually evolved as two sides of the same coin. When you go back to the ancients, it was a matter of both describing natural order and explaining it.

          Strictly speaking science was born with the work of Newton in 1687. Before Newton there were philosophical doctrines, mathematics, natural philosophy, etc. but not science because there was no model of doing science. So, at that time we had philosophy and religion as two ways to approach the truth. There is a debate whether religion is some kind of philosophy or philosophy some kind of religion. Some have tried to claim that because science is a descendent of philosophy it is some sort of religion. I see religion, science or philosophy just as ways of perceiving life. Moreover, science and religion have opposite principles.

          With respect to the money issue, I don't consider myself an expert in economy. It is evident that you have given a deep thought on that topic and I'm afraid I cannot not offer much valuable feedback. However, I think that your idea is quite good and sound. So, I would like to make some comments.

          You: Significant change is only possible when the old order breaks down... and ...

          The enormous tumor of financial excess can only keep growing at this exponential rate and will blow up when it reaches some totally unsustainable level...

          This reminds me of the book written by Thomas Khun, on the structure of scientific revolutions. He argues that science is done in several stages. The stage that corresponds to normal science, which is a STABILITY stage, where most scientists work happily following certain principles, where theories are tested and confronted with experiments. Then, as time goes by anomalies start to appear that challenge the establishment. This stage marks the set for the development of new and fresh ideas. Then, more and more experimental and theoretical evidence piles up that demands radical changes and set the landscape for a new revolution. As the pressure on the orthodoxy increases, those maintaining the status quo hold and resist as much as possible until new and bold people put forward a new theory. The next stage is the revolution in which there is competition to introduce the new theories and ideas. In the final stage the new theory is accepted. Then the cycle repeats again.

          I think, the case is similar in any revolution scientific, economical, social or whatnot. And now I think we are not close to a revolution of this kind (may be close to world war). Indeed, I think elements are emerging and piling up, but I do not think the economical system will collapse in the following 50 years or so. Although I agree with you that those who have the economic control can steer the future. But I don't think they will be happy with the restrictions you are suggesting. I agree however that we should be informed of how money is handled.

          Good luck in the contest!

          Best Regards

          Israel

          Israel,

          Thanks for the reply.

          I'm not saying stability doesn't exist in the first place, but that it functions in an inherently dynamic context. You might say life is a bit like riding a bicycle. Either you keep moving forward, or you fall over.

          Yes, I certainly agree with your points about the relation between science and religion, but they more clarify my basic argument, than refute it. Yes, they do serve different functions, which is what I said. One seeks to describe the order of reality and the other seeks to explain it. And so as science gets ever more effective at both describing and explaining reality, it seemingly pushes against the realm of religion, but as the old saying goes, the more you know, the more you know you don't know. So now science, specifically physics, is starting to make up lots of explanations, from string theory, to multiverses, to explain all it finds it doesn't know and thus commits the errors of presumption for which religion found itself accused of.

          As for that cycle of speculation and consolidation, it pretty much describes many of the processes in life. As I keep arguing, time and temperature are essentially frequency and amplitude and the two hemispheres of our brains are effectively a thermostat and a clock. The left linear side seems rational, because we can follow that causal chain of sequential events, but the non-linear, emotional, intuitive, right side functions as just such a scalar mechanism, of expansion and then consolidation around the perceived results that are distilled from this larger grouping, be it anything from the insight of a connection not otherwise perceived, or anger and stress from too much information and pressure, causing the 'pot to boil.'

          Scientific American recently ran an article on how speculative bubbles are fundamental to the economic process. Though they were far more circumspect about how they described it, rather that Ponzi schemes emerge naturally and not just as confidence games.

          I also posted a continuing rant on the subject of the financial situation, over on the contest thread.

          Thanks!

          Regards,

          John

          John,

          Perhaps a financial collapse is natural with little or no regulation when the Clinton administration lead efforts to rid us of the Glass-Steagall Act. It assured stability for some 65 years.

          Time grows short, so I am revisited those I've read to assure I've rated them. I find that I rated yours on 5/20. Hope you enjoyed mine.

          Jim

          Dear John

          You: I'm not saying stability doesn't exist in the first place, but that it functions in an inherently dynamic context.

          I agree.

          You: One seeks to describe the order of reality and the other seeks to explain it.

          About more than 20 centuries ago religion and philosophy used to seek the truth. Although science continues with this line, I would not say that religion is about truth. Religion has been relegated to cover spiritual aspects of life but no longer truth. As I said, these two are incompatible.

          You: ...to explain all it finds it doesn't know and thus commits the errors of presumption for which religion found itself accused of.

          You're probably right. In some sense science is behaving as religion.

          The article you cite seems to be interesting. As far as know the Ponzi scheme is fraudulent.

          Israel

          Thanks, Jim.

          That was a major fracture in the banking framework, but it was one in a series. Given the purpose of capitalism has degenerated to the point of merely producing capital, at the expense of virtually every other facet of society, the force of this notational value has burst all bonds.

          Regards,

          John

          PS, Either it doesn't look like I developed my argument very clearly, or a fair number of other entrants don't agree.

          Israel,

          In the grand scheme of things, a few millennia is not such a long time. Monotheism is an extremely powerful concept and fulfills a lot of emotional, social and civil needs. As we have all come to realize, logic comes in a distant second to emotion. It's an ideal and who really wants that bubble popped.

          Truth is the way it is. Answers are what people will pay to hear. Philosophers seek truths, while priests and politicians provide answers. That is why far more people can make a living as priests and politicians, than can as philosophers.

          Regards,

          John

          Hi John,

          Your essay points out that "money is representative of a social contract and as such is a form of public utility" and it shouldn't be treated as a commodity. And I agree that money is not just a token that represents potential exchange for potential goods and services and commodities: money is like a social contract where society agrees that this is so. But as you say: "those running the financial system have lost sight of their larger role". They have a public trust and they need to see beyond their self-interest because "contracts and promises are only as valuable as the integrity of the system on which they are based."

          As you imply, the community and the environment etc. ARE the true wealth, they are where actual value resides. I think that you are right that the disengagement of money-tokens from what they actually represent must lead to the destruction of actual value in the community and the environment.

          Re community banks: the issue of community oversight of what is happening (e.g. in government and banks) will never go away. We can never write a computer program to plug all the potential loopholes and solve all our oversight problems. Because our lives are so complex and busy, we have to sometimes trust that the other person is doing "the right thing", and our trust is often abused.

          I think you are right to remind us that we must deal with these money issues as we attempt to "steer the future".

          Cheers,

          Lorraine

            Lorraine,

            Thanks!

            This contest has been a bit of an eye opener. Usually I discuss these sorts of ideas on economic and social forums, where there is a much higher level of interest. I guess FQXI appeals to a section of the population not engrossed in community issues.

            I thought though that trying to relate a physical description of reality to the way abstract wealth extraction compounds environmentally and socially destructive tendencies would get more interest and there would be more entries focused on what seems to me a very significant aspect of modern life.

            I suppose I should have developed it more, but I know how hard it is for most people to digest many of these entries, so I edited it as much as possible.

            That said, there have been some interesting exchanges and feedback. I did have my hopes up to reach the finalists there for a while, but the reality is another year in the also rans.

            I suspect though that we are going to have another significant financial earthquake soon, possibly by this fall, so I'm sure I'll be discussing these issues on other venues.

            I can't boost your score more, since we can only vote for each once and I enjoyed giving you that ten to put you up on top for a few days, early in the contest.

            Regards,

            John

            Dear John,

            I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you. Several things came up that required my attention, but at the moment I am back.

            I am trying to understand your point of view, but you are right that I have apparently jumped to some conclusions that appear to not be accurate based on some of the things that you said. Let me start from the beginning with those things that seem the most clear to me about your point of view and you can correct me if I am wrong in any of them.

            1. It appears that you believe that God exists.

            2. It seems that you believe that he is so great in comparison to us that we have no hope of ever comprehending and understanding him.

            3. You come from a Christian background and you seem to like and possibly accept some parts of the scriptures because you say that you like the trinity concept that is presented there.

            4. One place that I apparently made an error is that I assumed (based on item 3 above) that you believe the scriptures to be God's communication to man telling us about him, his creation, and how we fit into it all. It now appears to me that you don't believe the scriptures to be God's word because you say that you do not accept the concept of a top down paternal deity when it is clear in the scriptures that God desires us to consider him to be our Father. As an example, when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray he told them to start their prayer with "Our Father which art in heaven". You appear to believe that the scriptures were just made by men with the purpose of controlling other men to get them to do what they want them to do. If that is your belief, I can understand it because when I was an agnostic I came to the conclusion that I would not be able to determine whether or not the scriptures are actually God's communication to man. That is probably the main reason that I did not read them during that 22 year period when I was trying to determine if God existed or not. Instead I looked for indications of his existence in the structure of the world through science. In the beginning the prevalent established scientific concepts seemed to support the belief that God did not exist, but over time they gave way to other prevailing scientific concepts that made the alternative possibilities less and less likely and the existence of God more and more likely. When I received scientific information that no man on this planet knows about, much about the structure of the universe became apparent to me. Like most in such circumstances I began to think that I was really great to have come to understand so much that others had not been able to accomplish. I did not consider that I was just being prepared by God to be able to see that the scriptures could not have been made by men, because it contained this information that man still did not know and certainly could not have known 2000 years ago when they were written. Because the evidence that has been provided to me that the scriptures are God's purposeful communication to us about him, his creation, and our place in all of it is so great, I can no longer reasonably deny or even doubt it. I, therefore, must accept all of it to be God's message to me, so if he says in it that he desires me to call him my Father because he has adopted me to be one of his sons, I rejoice in that he loves me enough to be that way with me and not me only, but all that are his. I do not worry about him being over me in a top down relationship because as my creator and because he is so much greater than me, he deserves that position and I trust him to not mistreat me, but to use that position to work all things for my good as he promises to do.

            5. It appears to me that you have not found such things in the scriptures that would convince you that they are truly God's word. If you believe that God does exist and is great beyond our comprehension, do you believe that we are just something that he happened to make for no real purpose or that he just doesn't desire for us to know our purpose in his creation? Of course, you could believe that he has shown to us his purpose for making us in some other way in the creation. If that is the case, how do you believe he has done that and what do you believe our purpose is? That is about as far as I can go without more information from you so I will close for now.

            Sincerely,

            Paul B.