a really meaningful conversation I had

extracted from my email recapitulating it:

We had a wonderful time talking about faith, esp. the analogy of TV game.
... let me recapture/ reorganize my view in the following:
1. If all the physical world is but a TV game, religions in the world could be thought of creative views of characters inside the game about what is outside the TV. We have many models of "simulations"/ speculations about the ideal world where the owner of the game lives, like Buddhism, Taoism (and even Communism), but all are rooted in and started from the brain of those characters. Only Christianity claims that their story comes directly from the owner out of the TV (what "revelation" is meant).

2. If scientists can create human beings and even the whole physical world one day (which is a real possibility), we are still using God's given raw materials, we "create" something/matter out of something/matter. Only God create something out of nothing. Here lies two unique concepts of Christianity:
a. what is really meant by creation: out of nothing and the absolute distinction between a Creator and creatures, i.e. even Dolly the sheep looks exactly the same as the original; this is still an experiment conducted inside the TV tube, not out of it (btw, is that Dolly really the same as that "Dolly"? in terms of grown up size, character, and destination etc);
b. men are created in God's image: only humankind has such intelligence -the idea and capability of "quasi-creation" (not to mention the concept of metaphysics/religion). We can never see any other species in this world who will be able to do something similar. This confirms Genesis 1.

Essentially due to 2a, together with Adam's fall, i.e. the sinful nature of human stressed in Christianity, I doubt if men really can play the role of God, to create another TV game and/or to create the environment of the "owner". History told us men use every weapon he's ever made. We often suffer from what we've made though we benefit from it too. Our sinfulness will destroy us. This is seen in our world today: the more advanced our world's scientific technology is doesn't mean the more safe our world is (the terrorists, hatred between countries etc).

The final observation is what our analogy cannot explain: how can we imagine a TV game owner would care about the TV game characters by going into the TV tube -to be born among them, to live with the same limitations and to die for them in order to save them from sin? And say that all is done out of pure love for us???
This is unimaginable!

Pope Benedict XVI and the Real Challenge of Democracy

• truly virtuous:

Pope Benedict XVI:

... If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

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