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Friday, February 01, 2008

John the Bookseller sets me straight

You may well be bright, you may well be nice, you may well have all the best intentions but whilst you quote one particular book thinking it the word of a god, indisputably so, you will do more harm than good.

You quote on your page - John 14:6 Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If this kind of egoism is good for Jesus surely it is good for your friendly neighbourhood bookseller?

Having been to your site, and having seen what it is you do, and understanding that you have made a great personal investment in this path, made it your career etc and are unlikely to throw it all in, even if, unlikely as this may seem, I was able to convince you of your error, I have concluded that any further discussion with you, on any subject, would be, for me, time wasted. Ta ta.

Fair enough. John doesn’t actually want a conversation, he only wants to speak to people who already agree with him. That’s a shame from someone who claims to promote proper thinking.

Anyway, here’s my reply…

John,

thanks again for condescending to reply to me, although I have to say I was quite surprised that for a man of such learning and openness you didn’t want to actually have a proper conversation.

It’s intriguing to me that you brought up Jesus, after all I never mentioned Him. As it happens your question about Him is a good one:

You quote on your page - John 14:6 Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If this kind of egoism is good for Jesus surely it is good for your friendly neighbourhood bookseller?

Well, quite possibly it would be good enough for a friendly neighbourhood bookseller if he could deliver the goods like Jesus could. Changed any water to wine recently? Or, perhaps, healed the sick? Come back from the dead? I don’t want to discount your claim to equality with Jesus but I think you’d have to have some cash in the bank to back up that huge cheque you’d be writing.

On the flip side, the thinking man must, at least, acknowledge that a claim such as that which Jesus makes might have some credibility if He could also deliver on His words. Whether than same man would think for himself and consider the matter further is something that you would know more about than me - you are, after all, the thinker and I belong to the great unwashed mass on non-thinkers. Thinkers engage their brains to consider matters such as these, non-thinkers stick their fingers in their ears and pretend the outside world isn’t there because they’re happier thinking their non-thinking thoughts.

Having been to your site, and having seen what it is you do, and understanding that you have made a great personal investment in this path, made it your career etc and are unlikely to throw it all in, even if, unlikely as this may seem, I was able to convince you of your error, I have concluded that any further discussion with you, on any subject, would be, for me, time wasted. Ta ta.
Well, that’s a shame. I thought you weren’t like all those people who don’t think. Do you only have discussions with those that you hope will agree with you? I’m sure in your OP you castigate people who would do the same. Someone comes along and says “hey, you might be wrong” and you shut them out rather than think through the process with them.

Do you just leave the unthinking to their hopeless ignorance or do you have a word of hope for them?

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