Question: How Can We Know One Belief Selected for By Evolution is Superior to Another?

_{Barry Arrington

March 2, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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Theist: You say there is no God.

Evolutionary Materialist [EM]: Yes.

Theist: Yet belief in God among many (if not most) humans persists.

EM: I cannot deny that.

Theist: How do you explain that?

EM: Religious belief is an evolutionary adaption.

Theist: But you say religious belief is false.

EM: That’s correct.

Theist: Let me get this straight. According to you, religious belief has at least two characterizes: (1) it is false; and (2) evolution selected for it.

EM [looking a little pale now, because he’s just figured out where this is going]: Correct.

Theist: You believe the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis [NDS] is true.

EM: Of course.

Theist: How do you know your belief in NDS is not another false belief that evolution has selected for?

EM: ___________________

Our materialist friends are invited to fill in the blank.

Comments

,,,And as a spiritual affair we do have a mechanism within our makeup, which affords us a cursory commitment to truth, Interesting that it isn't our brains, but our conscience - our sense of right and wrong. So truth is also moral. it appeals to our conscience. When a person says something that we know they know to be untruthful, we not only appeal to logic, but to morality. To lie knowingly is morally wrong. The absense of a sense of morality is said to be characteristic of a sociopathic personality - and if you've ever worked with sociopaths as I have, one thing becomes clear - their mistakes are at the most logical lapses rather than moral ones. So when one sociopath chides another for what we would normally perceive as a moral lapse, there isn't a 'shame on you' rather more of a 'what were you thinking?' The point in all of this is that what lies inside us is our inherent sense of right and wrong, which we have the ability to turn off. What we don't have the ability to turn off is...CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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...and this may come as a shock to some, but the rules of right reason do not lie in the brain as though the new ager can find them simply by looking in their 'inner knowing.' So both the new ager and the materialist simply have no basis within their particular claimed means of knowing, to know if their thinking is defective, that is apart from laws, which lie outside the physical, and also outside a peron's own inner reasoning. So our ability to know truth really is a spiritual affair.CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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...adherents. The reason it can't break through, is that you cannot appeal to logic from without when people are committed to truth only from within, for one reason or another such as that it sounds good, or that it makes them feel good, or because...... Truthiness is not truth. Truth appeals to laws that lie outside of the inddividual - the laws of right reasonCannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, ...What he's essentially saying is that you don't need any authritative source to know what's true and good and right, because such an authority is in your 'inner knowing.' In other words, we ourselves are the authority for what is true and good and right. The reason this is blatantly false is the fact that you need the book to understand what he means by it: whereas if we ourselves are the authority for what is true from our own inner knowing, we should already know the content of the book without having to read it, I imagine myself here on Operah's show discussing the book, and after she's lavished praise on the author for helping her and so many others to think, I have the opportunity to raise my objection, to which Opeah responds: 'Interesting.' We'll be right back after.......' The point being that this new age spirituality lives in a vacuum of it's own truthiness, and any attack from without is contained due to it's inability to break through the commitment to truthiness of it's.....CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, When using a mobile phone it's not as easy to block quote if it can be done at all, so bear with me while I paraphrase. In a recent post you stated that God says in the book to not believe in anything in the book, but rather to use your 'inner' knowing to decipher what is true. Now here's the thing - if that is what is to be done, why is the book even necessary? I think what this guy is espousing something that is extremely and blatantly deceptive, and in my own 'inner thinkink,' I've been able to decipher that just from what you have mentioned,...CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, When someone espouses something that is so obviously contradictory, ridicule is often the only appropriate response. I'm not ridiculing you so much as an idea, which you apparently espouse. Surely if you are at all thiking person, you can detect the incongruence of what you stated. If by your philosophy you cannot, perhaps it is thephilosophy that is defective, and not so much peoples' reaction to it, such as mie and other's here. You will notice that I've also commented where I agree with you, and have given you credit. But I cannot for the life of me abandon logic for some sort of 'spirituality' that is not based in logic, To me spirituality is foremost concerned with truth. One cannot really have truth if by one's spiritual or logical perceptions, one cannot decipher truth from lies. In my view such is a false spirituality. But in the interest of meaningful discussion, I'm willing to suspend what you have found offensive, without suspending the reason behind it.CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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CannuckianYankee "I get it now. I’m not to believe anything in the book because God said so in the book. That makes sense now. Thanks." Do you recall how when one is in a discussion with a Darwinist and they resort to ridicule instead of actually grappling with the points you make, how foolish they look? I just mention this in case you might want to rethink your approach. But in any case, any usefulness I may have had in this discussion is clearly at an end, so I'll say, "Goodbye" now. Goodbye. BruceBruce David_{March 10, 2011
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How Can A God Of Love Send Anyone To Hell? - audio Ray Bradley vs. William Lane Craig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiRjRc0Tuosbornagain77_{March 10, 2011
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lolSonfaro_{March 10, 2011
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Sonfaro, Oprah spelled backwards is Harpo. I.e., what is espoused is laughable. :)CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Continuing... Which brings us back to the OP once again: With materialism, how can we tell that a lie is a lie? There's no way to tell. So there's not much difference between materialism and this particular and peculiar manifestation of new age 'spirituality' in this regard, Both are self-refuting.CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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@CannuckianYankee, Aww come on. It's Oprah. :) - SonfaroSonfaro_{March 10, 2011
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It's the Catch22 god in conversation. What he says cancels out what he says, Incidentally, I did hear about this book on Oprah (not that I actually watch her show), but that fact alone should make anyone suspicious.CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, I get it now. I'm not to believe anything in the book because God said so in the book. That makes sense now. Thanks. :)CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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CannuckianYankee: "I couldn’t help but notice that at the same time that you shiver to the idea of the inerancy of scripture, you seem to warm up to the inerency of one book ‘Conversations with God.’" No, that is not correct, and at one point above I say so. In fact, God Himself says so in the book. He admonishes us not to believe anything that is written there, but rather, look within our own inner knowing for what in the books resonates to that. I don't believe absolutely everything in the books, but my inner knowing resonates to almost everything there. To the rest of you: You're just rehashing old ground now. I have only this to say: reason is obviously useful in discovering mathematical truth, and the fact of near perfect agreement among mathematicians regarding the truth of the body of mathematics attests to this. When it comes to religion and philosophy, however, the fact that virtually every sect of every religion as well as every school of philosophy claims to use reason to arrive at truth, yet they all reach different conclusions attests to the fact that in that arena, "reason" is only useful to support what you already want to believe. During the course of this long discussion, various of you have attempted to convince me of the truth of what you believe (or my own error) with reason. In every case I have pointed out the flaws in your logic, and in every case, you either ignore or cannot understand my reasoning. It's time to take Sonfaro's advice and agree to disagree.Bruce David_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, I couldn't help but notice that at the same time that you shiver to the idea of the inerancy of scripture, you seem to warm up to the inerency of one book 'Conversations with God.' I must ask by what measure you determine that one man's peculiar writings are to be preferred as more authoritative regarding specifically God's nature and purpose than the time tested authority of scriptureNCannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Kuartus (Bruce and others) Continuing... ...ia proscribed in scripture. *Note. please forgive my posts being broken up in this manner. I recently moved and my internet connection is not set up yet. I'm using my mobile phone, which has a qwerty keypad, but my service only seems to allow a limited number of characters, So Im forced to split it up. Anyway, back to the discussion. In my view, if there is no justice as proscribed in scripture, then the perpetrators of all the evil in the world, in the end, get off scott free. A loving God does not allow evil to exist as though it is good - with the same ending consequence as that which is good....CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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of related interest to the spiritual aspect of man; This is very interesting, especially since quantum entanglement/information is now found in molecular biology: Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - March 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. Physicists Samuel L. Braunstein at the University of York, UK, and Arun K. Pati of the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, India, first proved the no-hiding theorem in 2007. Until now, however, the no-hiding theorem has been a purely theoretical concept. Now for the first time, a team of physicists consisting of Pati, along with Jharana Rani Samal (deceased) and Anil Kumar of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, has experimentally tested and confirmed the no-hiding theorem. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html notes: Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA & Protein Folding - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5936605/ Further evidence that quantum entanglement/information is found throughout entire protein structures: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/rescue-proteins-leave-evolutionists-in-the-ditch/#comment-373214 Does the fact that indestructible quantum information resides in molecular at such a foundational level of molecular biology provide conclusive proof for the eternal soul of man??? Well maybe not 'conclusive' but it certainly makes the whole conversation A LOT more interesting! Further notes: The ‘Fourth Dimension’ Of Living Systems https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Gs_qvlM8-7bFwl9rZUB9vS6SZgLH17eOZdT4UbPoy0Y It is very interesting to note that quantum entanglement, which conclusively demonstrates that ‘information’ is completely transcendent of any time and space constraints, should be found in molecular biology, for how can quantum entanglement, in molecular biology, possibly be explained by the materialistic framework of neo-Darwinism, a framework which is predicated on the presupposition of being constrained by time and space, when Alain Aspect and company falsified the validity of local realism (reductive materialism) in the first place with quantum entanglement? It is simply ludicrous to appeal to the materialistic framework, which undergirds the entire neo-Darwinian framework, that has been falsified by the very same quantum entanglement effect that one is seeking an explanation to! To give a coherent explanation for an effect that is shown to be completely independent of any time and space constraints one is forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to time and space! Probability arguments, which have been a staple of the arguments against neo-Darwinism, simply do not apply!bornagain77_{March 10, 2011
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Kuartus, Continuing... I think I should be clear. God's justice is not the same thing as His love. They are separate but harmoniously engaged. What I find insightful in light of Bruce's perspective is that he apparently rejects materialism, yet his view on the love of God seems to stem from a materialist perspective. Only Bruce's perpective is a reaction to the materialistic tendency to separate love and justice into two distinct culturally evolving spheres. I think he is righ in rejecting the materialist perspective, but I perceive that he' doing so at the expence of a cler understanding of what it means to be loving. He seems to believe that love supercedes justice. Although I understand if he doesn't see it that way. He wants the kind of love that do not place a consequence on wrongdoing to the extent mandated in scripture. In my view, this cannot be done while maintaining any meaningful remnant of what justice truly means. In my thinking, if there is no justice such as is...CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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---Bruce: "I have already explained, in detail, the source of my certainty that there is no Hell, and why I don’t accept the Bible as an infallible source of truth." Jesus Christ did, indeed, teach that hell is a reality. Your response is to deconstruct the passages to make them say something else or to question the veracity of those who reported on the teaching. ---"As for the Matthew 25 passages, the reference to the “everlasting flames” I regard as simply wrong if interpreted literally." The context makes it very clear that eternal fire means eternal punishment, very clear indeed. ---"He could have been speaking metaphorically of the Hell that we create within when we do not act in accordance with our oneness with each other," Well, no, that is not possible because he also said that it was the same place of eternal punishment that was prepared for the Devil and his angels. Also, we cannot, as you say, act in accordance with each other if, as you also say, we are all the same person, which would mean that there is no other. You need to make up your mind one way or the other: Are we all the same person or do we have separate identities. Please come to a final decision on this matter. ---"(if the Kingdom of Heaven is within, then the Kingdom of Hell should be also)" The kingdom of heaven and hell are within in the following sense: Sow a thought; reap an act Sow an act; reap a habit Sow a habit; reap a character Sow a character; reap a destiny We will all find ourselves in a final state of existence that represents the extent to which we loved or refused to love, and that love must be rooted in truth. Anyone who refuses to accept the truth, cannot root his love in the truth. --"or it could have been that Matthew misremembered what Jesus said,"or it could be that the scribe who eventually wrote it down got it wrong," or it could be that error has entered through the process of translation from Aramaic to Greek to English. No, none of these things are possible. All of Christ's apostles, his disciples, the early church fathers, the patristic fathers, all the Church councils, and the history of common teaching, both oral and written, confirm Christ's teaching about Hell. It's all on the record. Either your sources are not very well educated on the matter, or else they, like you, have problems facing reality. --"In any case, since Hell does not exist, Jesus clearly could not have been saying that he was going to send anyone there. It’s quite simple, really." You can have your pantheism or you can have Christ as a good teacher, but you cannot have both. If Hell doesn't exist, Christ was not a good teacher. If Hell does exist, then pantheism cannot be reconciled with Christ's teachings. There, see, I answered the question that you refused to answer. I often have to accept that burden. ---"As for the rest, the passage from Matthew clearly contradicts your interpretation of the other part of the Bible." It is obvious that my interpretation is correct and that your interpretation has been forced. It is also obvious that nothing I said contradicts anything else I said, which would explain why you didn't specify which contradiction that you had in mind. --"You can’t get around it by saying that the other parts just add to the meaning of that passage. Jesus could easily have said that the sheep were the ones who were kind to their fellow human beings, believed in him, AND followed the commandments. He did not." Did you really think about that comment before you wrote it. I have already explained that the Bible does not, nor could it, provide a comprehensive explanation of God's plan of salvation in one set of passages in one limited context. That is like arguing that if Aristotle did not say anything about rhetoric in his book on metaphysics, it must not have been important to him. --"So this passage is either a parable, in which case it is not to be taken literally," You are confusing a parable with a metaphor. ..."or it contradicts the other parts of scripture (as you interpret it). You can’t have it both ways." No part of Scripture contradicts any other part, nor does Christ's teaching on Hell contradict any of his other teachings. ---"I say you are the one who is force fitting your interpretation onto the words that are there." You may say that, but it is clearly not true. I read "out of" Scriptures what is there; you read "into them" your notions of pantheistic "oneness" in areas where it isn't even close to being relevant.StephenB_{March 10, 2011
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Kuartus, Re: 139, I appreciate your comparisons regarding God's goodness and the necessity of hell. I perceive, however that Bruce disregards hell for moral reasons , As such, I think a moral rather than a sort of yin/yang approach will receive a more receptive ear. Hell exists because God is loving, and not simply because there needs to be an opposite to heaven. Since God is loving, He is also just. Justice goes along with love. If there is no justice, there is no love. I'm thankful that there is indeed justice. With God neither justice nor love precludes the other. They both go hand-in hand. This is directly related to the OP in this way: The materialist compartmentalizes jusice and love, because they are perceived as outcomes or processes of cultural evolution, such that there can be justice without love and vica versa.......CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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CannuckianYankee: Here is my source on the subject: http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/jesusteachingonhell.html What I have noticed is that each person who quotes scripture is generally certain that they know what it means, and usually acts as though their interpretation is fact. However, I have also noticed that there are usually many varying interpretations of a given passage. Frankly, I see it as a blind spot among Christians (and most other religions as well) that they are unable to see the degree to which scripture is subject to (nay, dependent upon) interpretation, and the degree to which the interpretation can vary among the faithful.Bruce David_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, Continuing,,, Of course you will always find detractors, and this may lead one to perceive ancient writings as a matter of interpretation. It is not simply a matter of interpretation when enough is known about a particular word usage within a culture. In this case we have enough understanding of the word's usage to make a reasonable claim to its meaning, even if we don't currently understand all of the pariculars of how that meaning developed within it's cultural context.CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, Continuing... Regarding Gehenna - try to imagine that the ancients of Jesus' time - including Jesus himself, did not have 21st Century sensibilities in mind whenever they spoke a word whose meaning is currently hampered by 2,000 years of history and changing universes of culture. I don't think the matter is as simple as taking the word Gehenna and insisting that it only means a literal place near Jerusalem any more than say, to suggest that Watergate only refers to a certain hotel in Washington DC. Biblical exegesis requires more than a cursory unerstanding of such words. It requires that we carefully allow such words to speak to us within their cultural-historical context. It's not like this hasn't already been done countless times by biblical scholars and scriptural translators, and the consensus seems to be consistent that when Jesus refers to Gehenna, he means something other than a particular valley outside Jerusalem.CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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CannuckianYankee and anyone else who is interested: Conversations with God is a series of books by Neale Donald Walsch in which God speaks to him through automatic writing. I regard them as genuine revelation. Everyone else, of course, will have to judge for themselves.Bruce David_{March 10, 2011
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Interesting thoughts, folks. SB....as clear and well thought out as ever in 142 Bruce, I hope you don't feel that I'm singling you out or anything (well I sort of am, but I mean well by it) :) Anyway, I gather by your reference to 'Conversations' that you don't mean your own conversations with God, but perhaps a book or someone'S philosophy of which I am currently unfamiliar. What you are saying though, sounds like something that is often popularized on Oprah - the notion of 're-imagining God, which sounds like something new, but is actually as old as the heavens. It's a new idiom only, of the ancient idolatry - creating one's own image of God, that is in fact not God, I'm not saying that you are doing such, but the practitioners of what you seem to be suggesting are in fact doing so. If God can be re-imagined to be what we desire Him to be, then that image is not God. 'CannuckianYankee_{March 10, 2011
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StephenB: "Jesus taught that Hell exists and that we should take every precaution to avoid it. So, which is it? Did Jesus Christ tell the truth and set a good example, or did he lie and set a bad example?" I have already explained, in detail, the source of my certainty that there is no Hell, and why I don't accept the Bible as an infallible source of truth. That should answer your question. I'll expand a little, just to be clear. Jesus uses the word "Hell" in the English versions of the Bible in some nine different passages. In every case, the Greek word from which it was translated was Gehenna, the name of an actually existing valley outside of Jerusalem. So Jesus did not say Hell, as the English translations aver. Some Biblical scholars interpret that word to mean that Jesus was referring to Hell; others do not. In any case it is not certain that Jesus was referring to Hell; it is a matter of interpretation. As for the Matthew 25 passages, the reference to the "everlasting flames" I regard as simply wrong if interpreted literally. He could have been speaking metaphorically of the Hell that we create within when we do not act in accordance with our oneness with each other (if the Kingdom of Heaven is within, then the Kingdom of Hell should be also), or it could have been that Matthew misremembered what Jesus said, or it could be that the scribe who eventually wrote it down got it wrong, or it could be that error has entered through the process of translation from Aramaic to Greek to English. In any case, since Hell does not exist, Jesus clearly could not have been saying that he was going to send anyone there. It's quite simple, really. As for the rest, the passage from Matthew clearly contradicts your interpretation of the other part of the Bible. You can't get around it by saying that the other parts just add to the meaning of that passage. Jesus could easily have said that the sheep were the ones who were kind to their fellow human beings, believed in him, AND followed the commandments. He did not. So this passage is either a parable, in which case it is not to be taken literally, or it contradicts the other parts of scripture (as you interpret it). You can't have it both ways. I say you are the one who is force fitting your interpretation onto the words that are there.Bruce David_{March 10, 2011
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Bruce, it seems that your opinion that a loving god would not create hell is based solely on your subjective feelings and not on reason. But of course it is a moot point since you have created your own god which suites your ideology, whoever your god maybe. If I'm not incorrect, you're a pantheist.kuartus_{March 10, 2011
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---Bruce: "Well, this is an interesting question. The passage where Jesus talks of deviding the sheep from the goats is Matthew 25:31 – 45. There are a few things I notice about this:" Forgive me for cutting you off too soon, but you also need to know that Jesus Christ speaks more about the existence of hell than any other subject. So, Matthew is, by no means, the only reference. ---"1. There is no mention of believing in Jesus, loving and worshiping God, not committing adultery, etc. Only whether we have been kind to one another." You expect that one passage alluding to the final judgment would also contain the entire Christian moral code? Excuse me again, but do you have any familiarity with the Bible? --"So it seems that he is saying that all it takes to be a sheep and have eternal life in paradise is to take care of one’s fellow human beings. Since this contradicts much of what Christians tell me is in the rest of the Bible, there seems to be some inconsistency here." Do you realize the extent to which you "read into" passages meanings you wish they contained and strive mightily to avoided "reading out" of them what is really there. It really is a remarkable phenomenon. Like the ancient Procrustes, who stretched his victim guests until they fit his iron bed, you stretch Scriptural passages until they fit your world view. It's called the "fit, damn you, fit" syndrome. --"2. In my observation, most people are not always kind to others or always cruel or heartless. Most are in between, including myself. What does Jesus do with vast majority of us who fall in between the two seemingly absolute criteria?" He leads them on a path of moral growth, of course. The goal has been made explicit: "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." "He who loves me will keep my commandments." That, by the way, is why the Sermon on the Mount goes beyond the Ten Commandments and introduces intentions and motives--what we do is important, but why we do it is even more important. The idea of Christian morality is to become so loving that you have no need of commandments. However, the Ten Commandments are to be transcended-- not bypassed. It is not possible to love while bypassing the Ten Commandments. ---"3. I would interpret this passage as a parable about oneness. I think he was pointing out that we are all connected." So you think that separating sheep from goats forever is an example of "oneness?" [Fit, damn you, fit]. --"In fact, we are all One, so that what I do for or to another I do for or to myself." If you and I are the same person, then that one person is clearly schizophrenic. ---"The part at the end about the everlasting fire and torment, I can only conclude is a mistake, since I know that the concept of Hell simply makes no sense*. Probably Matthew or the scribe who finally wrote it down got it wrong." So, are you suggesting that the other references to Hell were all mistakes as well--- all 55 of them? [Fit, damn you, fit] So, let's get back to my question (which, in spite of it all, you didn't answer). You wrote: --"I believe his mission [Jesus] was to show all of us who and what we are by his example.” Jesus taught that Hell exists and that we should take every precaution to avoid it. So, which is it? Did Jesus Christ tell the truth and set a good example, or did he lie and set a bad example?StephenB_{March 10, 2011
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To all of you: Interesting. I appears we have had an audience. I assumed it was just me, StephenB, and Bornagain for these last 40 or so comments. Here's the deal. I have before me two competing sources of revelation: the Bible and Conversations with God. In some ways they are consistent (given a particular interpretation) and in some ways they conflict. For example, as I understand them, the statements, "We are made in His image and likeness," "The Kingdom of Heaven is within," "Have I not said, 'Ye are Gods,'" and "These things and greater shall ye do." are all consistent with the view of reality presented in Conversations. On the other hand, God states quite explicitly in Conversations that there is no Hell except that which we create within ourselves by believing in separation, that Satan does not exist, and that there is no right and wrong (in the moral sense), only what works and what doesn't depending on what you want to be, do, and have. He also says that He created us out of Himself, that He loves us unconditionally, always, and in all ways, and that He will never punish us, ever. You must understand that these statements do not occur in isolation. They are part and parcel of an overarching explanation of everything, including Him, us, our relationship with each other, the true nature of reality, and the purpose of the creation, woven into a consistent whole. So which of these two semi-competing sources of truth am I to believe? What authority is there that can tell me unequivocally which is correct? (And of course I'm not even addressing all the other sources of revelation the exist in the world--the Koran, the Buddhist scriptures, the Hindu holy texts, the Bahai teachings, the Tao Te Ching, etc.) What authority is there other than my own internal sense of truth, my own inner knowing? I must, as everyone must, ultimately choose for myself, and there is no authority other than my Self by which to make the choice. And I choose Conversations with God as the most reliable source of truth I have yet found. Why? Because my head and my heart both cry "Yes! Yes! Yes!" So when I say I KNOW that there is no Hell, it is because the God who speaks to me through Neale Donald Walsch in Conversations would never, ever, create such an unholy place, and every fiber of my being affirms it. The God I have come to know and love simply would not do such a thing. And by the way, Conversations with God is not alone. There are many, many other sources of truth in the world that agree with it to a greater or lesser extent and more or less completely. I focus on this particular text because it is the most thorough, complete, and clear that I have yet encountered.Bruce David_{March 10, 2011
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