Why the differences?

All humans, being different from each other, looking at the same thing from a different viewpoint, are being what we are born to be: different, right down to the fingerprints, so that life, which is change, can continue in its exciting ways of expression. May we all truly love and respect differences with appreciation, for all differences are different expressions of the one God-Spirit for the sake of life itself. Life cannot be lived by the one (sameness), until it divides itself into the world of differences (spirit-mankind) for the sake of life itself. Respecting this is true love and understanding. God does not depend on beliefs. Beliefs are child's play of unreality in the world of unreality. Beliefs, before we became so updated with intelligence through the Internet, books, television, phones, etc., were a basic reactive shortcut in one's thinking process.

Belief has served its purpose, and will disappear in time as aware humans realize that what we accept temporarily is not a rigid thought that has to be. Christian heaven is very similar; it is a belief. The soul, upon transition, will reincarnate as any seed of the plant and animal world, into another human body, spiritually.

Armand

Archambeault

San Marcos

Being good not enough to get into heaven

Regarding Armand Archambeault's Faith & Values letter of April 11: Although I agree there are corruptions in churches concerning love and acceptance of all people, I must disagree upon his ideas of Jesus. He says he cannot be the God of love because he is the only way to heaven, but that is because it is the truth. How else will our numerous sins be paid for? God requires sacrifice for sins, and Jesus willingly was marred to the point where he was unrecognizable. He paid the price for our sins. If that is not considered love, I do not know what else is.

Furthermore, God did not create hell for people, it is for Satan and demons. If people do not accept the free gift of salvation and reject Jesus as the payment for their sins, then where else can they go? People send themselves to hell by rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus. Unfortunately, Satan blinds people from the truth and hardens their hearts against spiritual reality so it is difficult for them to understand the fact that Jesus is the only payment we have to offer God.

Being a good person is not enough to get someone into heaven. It takes the precious, innocent blood of a savior.

Larissa Stanley

student,

Chaparral High School

Winchester

Ignorance exposed

Robust and honest debate advances understanding, but not if the participants fail to do their homework.

Davis D. Danizier (Faith & Values Letters, April 18) disagrees with the Christian theory of "sin transference." That is fine, but he goes on to say that only Paul came up with that theory. Actually, the Old Testament (Isaiah 53.4-6) and non-Pauline New Testament passages (1 Peter 2.24) echo the concept as well. By not doing his homework, Mr. Danizier has only exposed his ignorance.

William Gillespie

Poway

Substitutionary atonement has biblical support

Davis Danizier (Faith & Values Letters, April 18) errs when he claims that substitutionary atonement has no biblical support besides "the renegade apostle Paul." Peter commends Paul's letters and calls them "Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:15-16) and the book of Acts shows the first-generation church's stamp of approval on Paul (chapters 11-28). John the Baptist calls Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus predicts that he, "the son of man," will die and rise again three days later, and that this is "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:33-34, 45; Matthew 20:28).

Moses set up the nation of Israel with a system of animal sacrifices to atone for sin and guilt (Leviticus 4-7). The book of Hebrews (chapters 9-10) explains that this was a temporary arrangement pointing toward Jesus' sacrifice "once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself" (9:26).

Finally, centuries before Jesus, Isaiah writes about God's suffering servant: "He was pierced for our transgressions … the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. … The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (53:4-6).

Howard Killion

Oceanside

Evolution brainwashes students

If I got this right, good old Paul Buchman on April 18 says that "evolutionists will agree to give equal time to ID in schools if Christians will give equal time to evolution in their churches." Weird, ID ain't dependent on religion, it's dependent on intelligence. But he's got to be joshin' this old boy! There ain't no evolutionist in this world who would dare allow somethin' that scares them so bad and proves their theory so wrong as intelligent design to be taught to already brainwashed students. The possibility of any kind of a god, much less the God of the Bible, scares the pants off of them.

Evolution has been taught for years in schools, so-called peer-reviewed magazines, museums, by the media and everywhere else, and still most don't believe it. What a hard sell if they allowed even a little pinky of ID to be let in.

Go see the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" to see their response. In a church I visited, they had Hugh Ross tell us about evolution, and there are classes there on the subject as well, both pros and cons, and that sure don't help evolution none. What deal?

George Peabody

Escondido

Evolution isn't about faith

If, as creationists believe, Noah's flood produced the fossil record, we would expect 1. species to be mixed, 2. all fossils to be about the same age and 3. signs of human habitation throughout that record. None of this is found. To explain these failed predictions, creationists claimed that more advanced species ran to higher ground to escape the flood, creating an appearance of evolution in the geological record. However, this entails such preposterous scenarios as every sloth outrunning every dinosaur while rooted, flowering plants outran mosses. Now, if creationists will accept running plants and galloping sloths before accepting evolution, why not flying pigs?

Yet Rick Kellogg howled (Faith & Values Letters, April 10) that talk of flying pigs was personally insulting to creationists â€"â€" as though they haven't already entertained ideas just as wacky! Anyone saying evolution is about faith exposes their incomprehension, not only of the case for evolution but of the difference between religion and empirical science. Evolution is no more about faith than the germ theory of disease is about faith.

Fred Carr

San Marcos

Pope's message is hypocritical

The pope urges that we shield the vulnerable. Just words! The huge expenditure by the Vatican for impressive display could feed thousands. What is the obscenely wealthy Vatican doing to help the poor? And the pope is self-righteously critical of priests' pedophilia. Just words! All of the bishops who protected the priests for decades are living in comfort. Some have even been rewarded by the Vatican with promotions. The pope should take his hypocritical messages elsewhere.

Clay Northcote

Carlsbad