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Re: is there a beginning
Posted by caf - July 29, 2002 at 10:31:12pm
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In Reply to:
Re: It has been awhile.
Posted by fm - July 28, 2002 at 0:41:49pm:

As per fm's comment, there is a beginning point to being a Christian, having a relationship with God, receiving the Holy Spirt, being forgiven. That beginning point is Biblically defined and described, a free offer of life from God. I'm reminded of two things by your response, Mike.

One is an unhappy joke (purely fabrication). A fellow was in an area threatened by flood waters, and evacuation notices were given. A deputy sherrif stopped by his house to offer assistance with evacuation, but the man declined with the confidence that "God will take care of me." Nevertheless, the waters rose and his street became a river. A rescue boat came to remove the man from his home but again he confidently affirmed, "I have faith in God, he will help me." Hours later as the flood waters rose still higher, the man climbed to the roof of his now flooded house, and a helicopter approached to lift him from the roof and take him to safety. Once more the man insisted, "I shall continue in faith that God will provide for me." Well, the waters carried the house away and the man drowned. When the man found himself before the Lord, he protested that God had not been worthy of his faith. "I trusted you, and you let me drown. Why didn't you help me in my time of need?" God's reply? "I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter to save your life, just what kind of help did you have in mind?"

And then too, I am reminded of the Greek paradox, which is basically what you've tried to form. I remember in long ago math classes the idea of a paradox as stated by an ancient Greek, basically that in order to start a journey you must first take a stride. To take a stride you must first take half a stride. To take half a stride you must first take a fourth of a stride. To take a fourth of a stride you must first take an eighth of a stride, and so on to the point of absurdity. The idea being it is impossible to ever start on a journey, because as you break the necessary movement down into ever smaller components it becomes evident that movement itself is impossible, since there is no smallest definable movement, but always a divisible unit.

The paragraph's below are quoted from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, regarding these kinds of paradoxes... but word games aside, remember that words do have meaning, and movement does occur, and God did command baptism, and being a Christian does have a beginning point.

The sorites paradox is the name given to a class of paradoxical arguments, also known as little-by-little arguments, which arise as a result of the indeterminacy surrounding limits of application of the predicates involved. For example the concept of a heap appears to lack sharp boundaries and, as a consequence of the subsequent indeterminacy surrounding the extension of the predicate ?is a heap?, no one grain of wheat can be identified as making the difference between being a heap and not being a heap. Given then that one grain of wheat does not make a heap, it would seem to follow that two do not, thus three do not, and so on. In the end it would appear that no amount of wheat can make a heap. We are faced with paradox since from apparently true premises by seemingly uncontroversial reasoning we arrive at an apparently false conclusion.

This phenomenon at the heart of the paradoxes is now recognised as the phenomenon of vagueness. Once identified, vagueness can be seen to be a feature of syntactic categories other than predicates, nonetheless one speaks primarily of the soriticality of predicates. Names, adjectives, adverbs and so on are only susceptible to paradoxical sorites reasoning in a derivative sense.

The name ?sorites? derives from the Greek word soros (meaning ?heap?) and originally referred, not to a paradox, but rather to a puzzle known as The Heap: Would you describe a single grain of wheat as a heap? No. Would you describe two grains of wheat as a heap? No. ... You must admit the presence of a heap sooner or later, so where do you draw the line?

It was one of a series of puzzles attributed to the Megarian logician Eubulides of Miletus. Also included were:
The Liar: A man says that he is lying. Is what he says true or false?
The Hooded Man: You say that you know your brother. Yet that man who just came in with his head covered is your brother and you did not know him.
The Bald Man: Would you describe a man with one hair on his head as bald? Yes. Would you describe a man with two hairs on his head as bald? Yes. ... You must refrain from describing a man with ten thousand hairs on his head as bald, so where do you draw the line?

Are there bald men and men who are not bald? Yes. Are there Christians and people who are not Christians? Yes.


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