(376)   Thu 27 Nov 97  9:10
By: Don Martin
To: Fr.Chris Vaillancourt
Re: Reality of God
St:
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Fr.Chris Vaillancourt said "Reality of God" to Don Martin, adding:

 FV> Don, I thank you for your comments. It is quite clear
 FV> that you are not looking for proof of the existence
 FV> of God.

    In this echo, it is customary to quote the material upon which
you are commenting. I would be very interested in seeing precisely
where it is I have asked for "proof of the existence of God". Please
be so good as to _quote_ my words that made this desire of mine so
very clear to you. Either quote the instance of my asking for
"proof" or admit that your animadversions about my character are
based more upon your emotional responses than upon anything I have
actually written.

 FV> You have already determined that God does not exist.

    Again, what words of mine lead you to this conclusion on such a
short acquaintance? Quote them please. Any number of gods, including
yours, may well exist. Despite asking for it repeatedly, I have
never so far been vouchsafed any evidence in support of that
existence, but some may well turn up tomorrow morning (though not,
apparently, from your keyboard).

 FV> Thus, I suspect you are only trying to "score points".

    Points from you? Don't give yourself airs. I suspect that I
_might_ gets some points from others around here if I ever managed
to get a direct answer to a direct question. I can understand how
(and more to the point, why) you might wish to deny me such points
by withholding your explanation of how it is you can be so certain
of the divergence of your ecclesiastical superiors in former times
from the will of God, the substance of an explicit question in
direct response to your confident assertion on the matter.

    If you missed this question and do not know what I am talking
about (FIDO oft fumbles), I shall be glad to repost it.

 FV> I will not debate the existence of God with you.

    Who is looking for a debate? I believe I asked for evidence.
Debate is what lawyers do.

 FV> You are not open to informed sources on the subject, so what
 FV> point in trying to share this information with you?

    Every "informed source" who has ever dragged his knuckles into
this echo makes the same pretences of actually _having_ information,
and the same denial (I won't share it with _you_) on the same
grounds to everyone (not just me): the prospective audience would
not comprehend it (making thereby the implicit admission that the
only evidence he has is visible only through the eye of faith, which
is to say that it is not evidence/information at all). If you
actually _had_ any significant evidence, I suspect you could not
type it here fast enough, despite the skepticism of your audience.

 FV> I do feel very sad that you will not open yourself to Christ.

    When all else fails, smarm 'em with sanctimony.

    In an effort to further your education in the use of this "toy",
I would say to you what I have said to many newbies: _read_ any echo
you may be interested in for a week or so before writing anything.
Doing so will help keep you from falling into any silliness or
ongoing cliches when you do post. So far you have managed both: you
initial chat note to Oliver was silly. It is the sort of thing we
see in here a couple of times a month and twit almost reflexively.
Your rather huffy response to the twitting (I _knew_ what I was
doing, dammit!) is a further silliness: responding to correction
with bluster and denial. Around here, this tends to mark one as
"fresh meat".

    I have been here since around 1990, and I can assure you that
the longest-running cliche we've got is for some WOA to ask for
evidence and for some fundy to evade the issue and respond with the
word "proof". It disturbs me that you have so responded, because I
am a snob. I quite expect fundamentalist protestants to be ignorant
of the difference between "evidence" and "proof", but I cling to
higher expectations for the clergy of the higher churches. At very
least, priests are not home-schooled; rather, they are college
educated as well as inseminated before being ordained.

    Someone here suggested that you are a troll: a frustrated
14-year-old using a handle to play "priest" on the echo to see how
much fuss he could raise. So far, the evidence of your posts points
in that direction. Your intellect better fits you for the football
team of Notre Dame than for the seminary there.

... Through a Jaundiced Eye Darkly--Rheum With a View
             (don@balt-rehab.med.va.gov)

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