Datheron

DaveJes1979,

No - who says that this God killer must follow the rules that God laid down? Is it conceivable that God killer is even more powerful? Sure, why not? I declare by definition that God killer is able to destroy all properties that God may hold, thus rendering him non-existent.

Point? Definitions don't mean anything.

The problem is, Christian Scripture must go through interpretation, and there is where the thousands of denominations come in. Some like their Bible literal, some prefer a brand of errancy, some like to add more books, some would rather supplement it with a healthy dose of tradition. Not so simple now, is it?

Ah, but I can. After all, much like you, I can provide tons of definitions to bullet proof my deity. I hereby pronounce the teriyaki chicken to be both material and non-material, to not follow any rules of logic and physics, and to be generally beyond your understanding. It holds no requirement for contingency (by definition), and thus your God is false. Any objections?

DaveJes1979

datheron: No - who says that this God killer must follow the rules that God laid down? Is it conceivable that God killer is even more powerful? Sure, why not? I declare by definition that God killer is able to destroy all properties that God may hold, thus rendering him non-existent.

Point? Definitions don't mean anything.

Dave: if you posit that there is someone more powerful than God, then you have once again divested the term "God" from any meaning. The line of reasoning is literally nonsense.


daemon: The problem is, Christian Scripture must go through interpretation, and there is where the thousands of denominations come in. Some like their Bible literal, some prefer a brand of errancy, some like to add more books, some would rather supplement it with a healthy dose of tradition. Not so simple now, is it?

Dave: ahhh, but I never told you to look to denominational interpretations, did I? Can you actually derive the historical atrocities of the church from the pages of Scripture?


daemon: Ah, but I can. After all, much like you, I can provide tons of definitions to bullet proof my deity. I hereby pronounce the teriyaki chicken to be both material and non-material, to not follow any rules of logic and physics, and to be generally beyond your understanding. It holds no requirement for contingency (by definition), and thus your God is false. Any objections?

Dave: actually, the defenitions you have heaped upon your chicken do you a discredit. If it does not follow "any rules of logic and physics", is logic then an intrinsic part of its nature? If it is, then your chicken seems to be acting inconsistently. Such arbitrariness destroys any hope for coherent knowledge on our part. If it is not, then how does your chicken account for logic? It falls either way.

Secondly, your chicken who is "beyond understanding" falls prey to my criticism of Islam's Allah - that is his hypertranscendence. If Allah/chicken is unknowable, how can you even begin to construct a meaningful theology - much less an interpretation of reality based on that theology??

Dave Gadbois

Datheron

DaveJes1979,

????

My very point is that we do not know whether there exists a God or a God-killer. I did not already agree to give you the presumption that God exists - if I did, then you can make the argument that I have agreed to the definition of God and that God-killer would not exist. However, since it is the existence of God itself that is in debate here, the existence of God-killer is all it takes to disprove God.

A quick note - I'm DATHERON, not DAEMON.

Anyway, I did not comment on the atrocities either. That comment referred to your suggestion that "one must look to the Scripture to find a constant expression of Christian faith", and arguing against that very suggestion given the multitudes of interpretation that exist for your Scriptures, hence making it non-constant. Since that is the case, you cannot claim to have a "superior" or even a coherent moral system.

You're assuming that the chicken needs to account for logic. I'm saying it doesn't. Seeing that you have no base whatsoever to even begin to disprove the existence of this chicken, you have already lost the battle.

This is interesting - you've hit on the nail on why religion is so irrational, yet you leave out your own religion in the sleight-of-hand.

God, by its nature and definition, cannot be comprehended by mortals such as ourselves. We cannot hope to know the meaning of omnipotence, omnipresence, etc. - we can abstractly define these terms, but we do not know them. Furthermore, (I hope) you do not claim that you know God. If so, can you explain his reasoning, his motives, his desires, his powers? To do so would make you god of God himself, which is by definition a contradiction.

Then again, I did a quick search on "Christ unknowable", and came up with many Christian denominations who believe in this doctrine. Once again, this only shows that all you have are definitions and interpretations.

DaveJes1979

Datheron:

My very point is that we do not know whether there exists a God or a God-killer. I did not already agree to give you the presumption that God exists - if I did, then you can make the argument that I have agreed to the definition of God and that God-killer would not exist. However, since it is the existence of God itself that is in debate here, the existence of God-killer is all it takes to disprove God.

Dave: you have already ruled out God's existence, though, if you make the term "God" into a meaningless term as you construct such an argument. In other words, the argument reduces to little more than "God doesn't exist...unless, of course, he exists."


datheron:
Anyway, I did not comment on the atrocities either. That comment referred to your suggestion that "one must look to the Scripture to find a constant expression of Christian faith", and arguing against that very suggestion given the multitudes of interpretation that exist for your Scriptures, hence making it non-constant. Since that is the case, you cannot claim to have a "superior" or even a coherent moral system.

Dave: interpretations are certainly a non-constant, but the Scriptures ARE a constant. Thus, I do have a coherent moral systems, which I myself (and other Christians) are oftentimes inconsistent with. I am only "right" insofar as I conform myself to the Scriptures. And I am willing to defend my actions and beliefs (as well as conform them) on the basis of Scriptural arguments.

datheron: You're assuming that the chicken needs to account for logic. I'm saying it doesn't. Seeing that you have no base whatsoever to even begin to disprove the existence of this chicken, you have already lost the battle.

Dave: if the chicken does not need to account for logic - then is logic a valid tool of knowledge? Strange- considering that you are trying to tell me that it is LOGICAL for me to believe certain things about a chicken.

datheron: This is interesting - you've hit on the nail on why religion is so irrational, yet you leave out your own religion in the sleight-of-hand.

Dave: not at all. Christianity does posit a TRANSCENDENT God, but not the unknowable, hyper-transcendent Allah of Islam. The Christian God is both transcendent AND IMMANENT. God is so immanent that He has revealed Himself through revelation, through His incarnated Son, and through His Spirit who dwells in us. Islam knows of no such deity.

datheron: God, by its nature and definition, cannot be comprehended by mortals such as ourselves. We cannot hope to know the meaning of omnipotence, omnipresence, etc. - we can abstractly define these terms, but we do not know them.

Dave: we do not "comprehend", but we do apprehend certain things. We have true knowledge, although our minds do not exhaustively penetrate truth.

datheron: Furthermore, (I hope) you do not claim that you know God. If so, can you explain his reasoning, his motives, his desires, his powers? To do so would make you god of God himself, which is by definition a contradiction.

Dave: I can explain some things about God. I can explain what God has revealed, anyway. But I do not have (nor need to have) comprehensive knowledge about God. I have true and sufficient knowledge. If you want to know his motives, desires, and powers - I suggest you read the Bible. Or read some of the great Christian creeds - like the Westminster Confession of Faith. Or read any of our theologians. Or read the thread "What is God trying to achieve", where I explain some of those things.

datheron: Then again, I did a quick search on "Christ unknowable", and came up with many Christian denominations who believe in this doctrine. Once again, this only shows that all you have are definitions and interpretations.

Dave: interested, I did a similar search. It seems that these people are mostly Bahai or mystics. Hardly a crowd known for their biblically-based doctrinal rigor.

Dave Gadbois

Datheron

DaveJes1979,

....which is precisely what God is. "God" is a meaningless term unless we can enforce some definition on it - and I'm showing, quite successfully, that one can use one definition as well as the other. The fact that perfectly valid definitions contradict show that it takes a lot more than what you define God to be for him to actually exist.

So would most Christians, on their interpretations of Scripture.

But the point is clear - all you have is that underneath all that messy interpretation and subjectiveness lies an objective book. Great; that doesn't do us any good. Unless you can demonstrate that you can, in fact, derive an objective moral system from your book, you cannot make any such claim (which you imply when you say that your moral system is superior to that of the atheist's). Thumbing through history, we know that the Bible can be interpreted in a lot of ways, so I might as well say that I read the stars to derive my morals and get the same argument across.

Very strange indeed, yes; which is why the chicken is not bound to logic, therefore one doesn't need it to believe in him. Oh, wait; I just stole the definition of "faith". Whoops.

And rather poorly, I might add.

BTW, I would like to add that there are more religions beyond Christianity and Islam. If you're trying to argue for your God by denying all other Gods, then you have a long way to go, for there are tons of Gods that you'd have to disprove before showing that yours is somehow better.

I.e. walking that thin line between unknowing and knowing, which is of course a fuzzy and contradictory position. Lemme ask you - what do you know of God? Can you tell me what he's going to do, say, if you pray? If you do, then you can predict what God does, and therefore is greater than God. If you cannot, then you admit that he is unknowable and incomprehensible. This "apprehend certain things" really makes very little sense.

Heh - whenever I read the Bible, I have this picture of 500 different denominations trying to tell me what a passage means. No thanks.

But anyway, how much do you know of God? Like I mentioned above, if you know enough about God to be able to predict his actions, then you're already beyond God. On the other hand, if you cannot do that, then God is by all means unknowable and incomprehensible. You wish to go in between and say "well, I know some things about God, enough so that he becomes a 'little bit' knowable". Fuzzy ground, hm?

Really? I used google.com, and this is what I found, which is not of Bahai or mystical origin:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/8364/jwarticle18.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/8364/jwarticle18.html</a>

<a href="http://www.graveworm.com/occult/texts/sophia.html" target="_blank">http://www.graveworm.com/occult/texts/sophia.html</a>

<a href="http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/cranmer_cole.htm" target="_blank">http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/cranmer_cole.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.firstchurchucc.org/s022899.html" target="_blank">http://www.firstchurchucc.org/s022899.html</a>

<a href="http://www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/orthodox_christian_faith.htm" target="_blank">http://www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/orthodox_christian_faith.htm</a>

....and so on and so forth. Remember that the purpose of this is to show that there are many interpretations of the Bible which say that God is unknowable. Even if they argue against such a case (like the Angelican church), they argue because someone had made the interpretation that he is, which is precisely what I want. In any case, go ahead and look around - you wish to believe that Christians really can conform to some rough doctrine, but that's hardly the case.

DaveJes1979

Datheron
Dave: its not "perfectly valid" to empty a given word of any semantic content. If you do so, then you are no longer referring to God at all, and thus you cannot possibly be arguing against His existence in a meaningful way. It boils down to "God doesn't exist...unless, of course, He exists." How is that helpful?

Dave: of course the Bible can be interpreted in alot of ways. But the relevant question, is whether it can be CORRECTLY interpreted in alot of ways. The answer is no.

Secondly, I should point out that simply since the subjective element of human knowledge is fallible does not entail that the objective element (Scripture itself) is somehow defective or useless under the providence and guidance of God.

Dave: actually, logic is an attribute of God. You're going to have to do better than that.

Dave: Islam is the only other major monotheistic religion besides Judaism and Christianity. Polytheism cannot provide the preconditions for knowledge, since there are only competing deities, with no authoratative, unchangeable, unique, eternal, all-good God.

Dave: well, prognostication of the future is not a necessary part of Christian knowledge, concerning prayer. But one does not have to know everything that God plans on doing in order to know God. Your charge simply doesn't follow.

I don't know what is so confusing to you about the meaning of limited apprehension.

Dave: well, you should certainly let those outside of you scrutinize your interpretation of Scripture, but the interpretation itself should not be encumbered by denominational baggage. But ANY serious study - whether it be biblical, scientific, or whatever - requires that the individual scrutinize the source data himself, while marginalizing outside biasing influences.

[quote]
But anyway, how much do you know of God? Like I mentioned above, if you know enough about God to be able to predict his actions, then you're already beyond God. On the other hand, if you cannot do that, then God is by all means unknowable and incomprehensible. You wish to go in between and say "well, I know some things about God, enough so that he becomes a 'little bit' knowable". Fuzzy ground, hm?[QUOTE]

Dave: how is God "by all means unknowable" if I can't predict his actions? We have plenty knowledge about God. As I said before - we can know what God has revealed of Himself in Scripture. Or read the creeds of the church. For instance, I apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity. I acknowledge that God is one being and three persons, and I understand that assertion. But I do not fully comprehend such a truth, since I don't know everything there is to know about it. I don't know HOW God is ontologically triune. But I know THAT HE IS.

I don't know why it is hard for you to understand that Christians simply claim to know some things about God, but not all things.

[QUOTE]
quote:
Really? I used google.com, and this is what I found, which is not of Bahai or mystical origin:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/8364/jwarticle18.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/8364/jwarticle18.html</a>

<a href="http://www.graveworm.com/occult/texts/sophia.html" target="_blank">http://www.graveworm.com/occult/texts/sophia.html</a>

<a href="http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/cranmer_cole.htm" target="_blank">http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/cranmer_cole.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.firstchurchucc.org/s022899.html" target="_blank">http://www.firstchurchucc.org/s022899.html</a>

<a href="http://www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/orthodox_christian_faith.htm" target="_blank">http://www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/orthodox_christian_faith.htm</a>

....and so on and so forth. Remember that the purpose of this is to show that there are many interpretations of the Bible which say that God is unknowable. [QUOTE]

Dave: these denominations you listed are Bible-believing, but not Bible-based denominations. The "unknowability" that they speak of is the result of mystical theology- which itself is foreign to the Scriptures.

Although some who use the word "unknowable" do not use it in an absolutist fashion - I should note. In this sense, I would agree with them.

Dave: either that, or there simply exists some who formally attach the name of Christ to themselves, all the while being, in reality, an aberration of Christendom.

But as I pointed out before, Bible-based Christians hold to certain fundamentals, as is espoused in our creeds, and in the doctrines that I listed off above.

Dave Gadbois

Datheron

DaveJes1979,

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

ALL YOU ARE DOING IS TRYING TO ATTACH EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE ONTO THE DEFINITION. Words are nothing without definition, and I have shown that definitions are nothing without support for those definitions. There isn't some "ultra-definition" that you can appeal to which I'm not allowed to overrule, since your definitions are based on exactly where mine are based - i.e. nowhere.

Oh? So, given that all we have are subjective interpretations, you claim to be able to find an objective (and thus correct) interpretation? And you dare make a claim against atheists having objective knowledge when you do the same with your book?

Once again, you seem to fall back on this invisible and intangible "it's true, even though we're getting it all wrong" factor. Like I said, such a book is useless when you cannot even give me its meaning. If I give you a million dollars and left you stranded on an island, how are you financially superior to the guy that makes $40,000 a year when you can't do anything with printed paper?

Definitions are cheap. Of course, my chicken doesn't even have to follow logic, while God does, so it's obvious that God is less powerful. Chicken wins again!

What does major, minor, monotheistic, polytheistic Gods have to do with anything? How do you know that polytheistic Gods are in competition, whereas your Trinity isn't? How do you know that various "minor religions" aren't true? (remember that Christianity also started from nowhere in the Middle East)

I don't know why you're trying so hard to avoid the obvious.

Being God means being the most powerful; in doing so, it is implied (and shown repeatedly in the Bible) that he is not controlled by any other entity.

Yet, if you are able to tell us how God will act, you are essentially telling us that you can predict and thus have some control over how God acts. Saying that "God will be merciful" is a contradiction in terms, for you have no clue whether God will actually be merciful. If he is, then he's just a machine run on a simple set of rules. If not, then the claim is obviously wrong.

Right. "Serious study", which still has resulted in multiple interpretations on the exact same passages. No doubt you'll try to tell me that everybody else just didn't study close enough.

Or, in other words, you accept the words, but you have no clue what they mean...I would think that probably because they are meaningless. How 1 = 3 is somehow logically coherent is beyond me, but you're showing that you mindlessly believe in whatever drivel is shovelled from the Bible; hardly "in-depth study".

Because by definition, you cannot know anything about God, and still have him be God!

Actually, much is foreign to scripture...as a matter of fact, I believe someone has pointed out that the concept of the Trinity is not Scripture-based. I'll go try to find that source, but you chew on that for a while.

And once again, you show satisfaction in defining fuzzy terms that really have little meaning.

More No True Christian (tm) fallacial thinking.

The fact that these people can basically do whatever and still attach themselves to Christianity speaks unbound volumes on the ambigouity of the religion.

All that "Bible-based Christians" should be able to agree on is that Christ came and died for our sins. Pretty much everything else is up to interpretation, and bad ones at that.

Then again, I note that to "scholarly study" the Bible, one must necessarily go beyond it.

Or are you one of those Biblical inerranists?

sotzo

Dath:

ALL YOU ARE DOING IS TRYING TO ATTACH EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE ONTO THE DEFINITION. Words are nothing without definition, and I have shown that definitions are nothing without support for those definitions. There isn't some "ultra-definition" that you can appeal to which I'm not allowed to overrule, since your definitions are based on exactly where mine are based - i.e. nowhere.

Definitions are meanings given to words, such that semantic content can be conveyed and dialogue is possible. You say that you have shown that "definitions are nothing without support for those definitions". In the current context, you are asking for support for the way in which God is defined and then you say that there is no final definition that can be pointed to. As DaveJes has pointed out, you are self-refuting because you simultaneously hold that A) God cannot be defined and B) God does not exist. You refute yourself since B makes a truth statement about the reality of "a nothing". Indeed, you can search these pages and find what I call the Dan Barker fallacy, where the skeptic says that the word "God" conveys the same semantic content as the word "Blark". The skeptic then goes on to make an existential statement about God (ie, He does not exist)- a statement which presupposes a definition.

So...are you going to hold that a definition of God is impossible? If so, let's go ahead right now and chalk up as meaningless any discussion about the existence of God. On the other hand, if you continue to debate this issue, you are presupposing, to some degree, a definition.

Oh? So, given that all we have are subjective interpretations, you claim to be able to find an objective (and thus correct) interpretation?

Yes, though not objective exhaustively.

And you dare make a claim against atheists having objective knowledge when you do the same with your book?

I don't think many atheists would claim they have exhaustive objective knowledge about any one thing and a theist who claims they do about the Bible are just as guilty as any atheists who do claim they have exhaustive objective knowledge. (Sorry about the run-on sentence there!)

Of course, we are all subejctive interpreters of reality, but that does not require a view of truth which makes reality uninterpretable.

Once again, you seem to fall back on this invisible and intangible "it's true, even though we're getting it all wrong" factor.

Not to come to DaveJes' defense, but I don't see where he/she said anything about "we're getting it all wrong". All he/she said was that multiple interpretations does not ipso facto exclude the possibility of getting to the truth of Scripture.

Like I said, such a book is useless when you cannot even give me its meaning.

The meaning of the Bible is, in a nutshell, an outline of redemptive history with Christ as the centerpiece of that redemption. Now, as for the subject at hand, you can a priori reject my view (or anyone else's for that matter) of the meaning of the Bible on the basis that there are other interpretations of its meaning out there. Or, we can evaluate my view alongside other views to find which, if any, comport with the text itself.

It's sort of like the difference between the college professor who acknowledges every single interpretation of a poem as valid and a college professor who aims his students at trying to get at the intended point of the author. The latter professor would make my tuition payment worthwhile.

If I give you a million dollars and left you stranded on an island, how are you financially superior to the guy that makes $40,000 a year when you can't do anything with printed paper?

The guy on the island would not be financially superior because of the context of your analogy. But the analogy fails because it suggests that the subjective interpreter (ie, the castaway) is not able to arrive at truth (ie, spend the money) although he has the tools to do so. Your analogy actually argues for our ability to arrive at truth in a given context (ie, live somewhere where the money can be spent), which if true, argues against your view that since there are multiple interpretations of the Bible, its meaning is forever elusive.

Definitions are cheap. Of course, my chicken doesn't even have to follow logic, while God does, so it's obvious that God is less powerful. Chicken wins again!

Interesting that you've agreed to at least one attribute of God here, which suggests you are presupposing a definition of Him , contra your first paragraph above about there being no definition available.

Further, the whole chicken diatribe misses the challenge of the transcendental argument that DaveJes has presented. The metaphysical issue is this - there seem to be immaterial, immutable and invariant laws of logic which are not conventions, but just that - laws. What is the basis on which we can account for such a thing as a law of logic? The all too famous "pink unicorn in the closet" nor your scrumptuous chicken can fit the bill since they are both material and finite. They can only be subjects of (or subjected to) those laws and not originators of such laws.

The originator of such laws must have different attributes. God is an answer to that metaphysical question, certainly better than any materialist answer. Suddenly the Blark just got attributes!

What does major, minor, monotheistic, polytheistic Gods have to do with anything?

Because you said: "BTW, I would like to add that there are more religions beyond Christianity and Islam. If you're trying to argue for your God by denying all other Gods, then you have a long way to go, for there are tons of Gods that you'd have to disprove before showing that yours is somehow better." In short, you made a claim that there were more religions that needed consideration and DaveJes provided an answer. You are seemingly aware of this since you next ask:

How do you know that polytheistic Gods are in competition, whereas your Trinity isn't? How do you know that various "minor religions" aren't true? (remember that Christianity also started from nowhere in the Middle East)

Apart from the fact that all of these questions, unless asked in a sarcastic vein, presupposes that we can get at the truth, again contra your first paragraph above, your question has already been answered. In short, the preconditions of something such as a law of logic cannot be satisfied by polytheistic gods. As for minor religions, bring an example to the table and we'll discuss.


Being God means being the most powerful; in doing so, it is implied (and shown repeatedly in the Bible) that he is not controlled by any other entity.

The Blark begins to take even more shape here! Seems you are doing a pretty good job of stating the definition you said didn't exist!

Yet, if you are able to tell us how God will act, you are essentially telling us that you can predict and thus have some control over how God acts.

How does it follow from being able to tell how God will act that we can have control over how God acts. If I say that from my knowing Joe I know he is a wreckless driver does that mean I in some way cause Joe to drive wreckless??? Further than that though, we are not able to tell how God will act in total. What we do know is that he will be faithful to His promises to act where he has indicated he will (since He cannot lie).

Saying that "God will be merciful" is a contradiction in terms, for you have no clue whether God will actually be merciful.

"God will be merciful insofar as it accords with the rest of his character" and "God will be merciful according to how humans define what merciful is" are two different statements. The former is not a contradiction in terms since it permits His justice to work in tandem with his mercy to bring about internal consistency in His character (since he cannot be unfaithful to Himself, ie, lie). So, again, we don't need to "have a clue" about how we will carry out every instance of his mercy in order to say that "God is merciful" - you are setting up a false dichotomy. Further, we have seen one example of his mercy in history (ie, Christ's redemptive work). However, the points you raise against that claim are probably off topic for this thread.

If he is, then he's just a machine run on a simple set of rules.

Actually, the trascendental argument would actually challenge you to explain how "rules" can exist without God in the first place. Therefore, you're actually in deeper water than you think!

Right. "Serious study", which still has resulted in multiple interpretations on the exact same passages. No doubt you'll try to tell me that everybody else just didn't study close enough.

The "multiple interpretations" equals "no truth" fallacy again. You need to explain how the latter follows from the former in order to continue this line of reasoning. In the meantime, you and I will continue this conversation based on the presupposition that, despite the multiple interpretations of readers of this thread, we can, to a very large degree, know the ideas conveyed by the other party.

Or, in other words, you accept the words, but you have no clue what they mean...

Only if one holds that one needs exhaustive knowledge about a subject in order to make any truth statements about it would one make such a statement like yours here.

I would think that probably because they are meaningless.

I would think not as we'll see next:

How 1 = 3 is somehow logically coherent is beyond me, but you're showing that you mindlessly believe in whatever drivel is shovelled from the Bible; hardly "in-depth study".

Besides that fact that you are misapplying a mathematical contstuct to an ontological construct, you have also committed a gross equivocation. The Trinity is 1 deity in 3 persons not 1 deity in 3 deities nor 1 person in 3 persons. The Trinity you are arguing against is not the one of the Bible. Interestingly again, notice you are further arguing against a definition of this God that you keep saying has no definition (albeit it is not the definition of historic Christendom).

Because by definition, you cannot know anything about God, and still have him be God!

Why?

And once again, you show satisfaction in defining fuzzy terms that really have little meaning.

Actually, you've loaded God with all kinds of meaning during this thread - even going so far as to say that God has such a nature that if we are able to know anything about him he is not God! You seem not to need a theist to do this for you!

More No True Christian (tm) fallacial thinking

Its not a fallacy. There is a CLEAR demarcation between the central fundamentals of Christian theism and aberrations. Most of these fundamentals were worked out in the 2nd century when Gnosticism reared its head - interestingly at a time when MANY viewpoints existed. In order for your fallacy to stand up what you need to show is that these fundamentals are not shared by the majority of Christendom. Let's start with one for you - deity of Christ. How many denominations disagree that Christ was God incarnate?

The fact that these people can basically do whatever and still attach themselves to Christianity speaks unbound volumes on the ambigouity of the religion.

They can attach themselves to Christianity because we are not living in a theocracy - otherwise you would see the clear demarcation which you claim is absent. I've already given the example of the 2nd century Gnostic controversies, but here's another - the burning of Unitarians in the 16th century.

By the way, I'm not advocating what happened to the Unitarians - I'm giving an argument by example against your claim that there is no nucleus to the Christian community as far as doctrine is concerned.

All that "Bible-based Christians" should be able to agree on is that Christ came and died for our sins. Pretty much everything else is up to interpretation, and bad ones at that.

That is not all that Bible based Christians can agree on by a VERY long shot. The resurrection of Christ occured and so ours will too, God created the universe, the Bible is inspired by God, salvation is by grace through faith - these are just a few examples. Notice that the disgreement that does occur in these instances is in details only (ie, postmill, amill, premill, resurection/rapture). But this does nothing to effect the fundamental truth of the doctrine.

Then again, I note that to "scholarly study" the Bible, one must necessarily go beyond it.

Or are you one of those Biblical inerranists?

What you are really saying here is that we cannot know what the Bible says without referring to an outside source that gives the real meaning behind the text - and that if one says that he/she can, then he is not able to discover the true meaning since it is really a secular humanistic hermaneutic that we need to rightly intepret the Bible.

You sure you don't want to change your name to Spong or Bultmann?

But first you must demonstrate that a sec humanist hermaneutic is the proper one for rightly interpereting the Bible - and this presupposes that we can rightly interpret Scripture which is something you have claimed as not possible.

Cheers

jkb

DaveJes1979

Datheron

Dave: I don't know how it is "emotional" to attribute theological attributes to a defenition. In any case, one does not "support" a defenition with some sort of argumentation. Defenitions point to the meaning behind our linguistic conventions (words) that are necessary for communication. If you empty defenitions of content, you lose the ability to communicate with any meaning.

Dave: our defenitions are based on our concept of God, actually. And we believe that such concept is valid - and that God does exist, because He is the necessary precondition for making the universe intelligible, as I have argued.


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Dave: of course the Bible can be interpreted in alot of ways. But the relevant question, is whether it can be CORRECTLY interpreted in alot of ways. The answer is no.
Secondly, I should point out that simply since the subjective element of human knowledge is fallible does not entail that the objective element (Scripture itself) is somehow defective or useless under the providence and guidance of God.

Dave: but our subjective knowledge is not alone, butis based on an objective foundation. Thus, we have BOTH objective and subjective elements - the objective being the ground that makes possible the truthfulness of the subjective element. We ALL have subjective knowledge, but I contend that the atheist has no objective ground to base this on.

Dave: I never said we're getting it all wrong. I just said that we are fallible.


Dave: why do you assume that I cannot give you its meaning? There is much meaning in the Bible. I have been propounding SOME of that meaning in these threads. Some of that meaning is expounded in our creeds and theological literature, especially the fundamental and necessary tenants it teaches. As a matter of fact, we shall never exhaust the meaning inherent in Scripture.

This whole fallacy is based on the idea that one finds certainty in oneself (the subjective end), rather than that certainty is found in God's revelation (the objective end).

Dave: for you to claim that your chicken can do the illogical is itself a meaningless statement. That which is illogical is philisophical non-sense - it literally carries no coherent meaning. Even if nonsense was conceivable - we would never be able to say or know that a chicken carries this attribute. To ascribe an attribute, such as illogic, to the chicken would be to try to make SENSE out of it in some way. You see how abandoning logic makes all knowledge crumble apart?

I would also say that one is not "powerful" who can violate logic. Power and logic occupy two distinct philisophical domains. This is a misunderstanding of omnipotence (see my posts in the thread on omnipotence).


Dave: well, I already argued that polytheism only lays the groundwork for arbitrary knowledge because of competing "god" authorities. Secondly, the Trinity is no polytheistic. The fact that the doctrine dictates that the three persons are of one divine nature entails that these three are of one purpose. Secondly, I dismiss the "minor religions" because of the fact that they are simply deviations that are dependent on the "major religions" - susceptible to similar flaws as well as strengths.


Dave: indeed.

Dave: I don't know how God's promises entail that we "control" God. This only entails that God has delegated powers and gifts to us. We thus become God's tools or chosens vessels to do His will, but we certainly do not have power over God. And His mercy is dispensed by His promises, but it is dispensed in a relational nature, not a mechanical nature.

Dave: again, you are relying on the assumption that disagreement = no certainty. If that is true, I don't know why you have any certainty in atheism, since so many disagree with you. You have, in effect, made agreement to be normative and the ground of certainty. An epistemological democracy or sorts.

Secondly, my view does not entail that "everybody else just didn't study close enough." I am joined by millions of my Christian brethren who hold to the same fundamental tenants of Christian doctrine that I do. As pointed out before - simply because we disagree with the minutiae does not mean that we have no foundational unity.

Dave: once again, I did not say that I have "no clue" what they mean. I explicitly stated that I don't have exhaustive knowledge of the meaning of the words. But a lack of exhaustive knowledge does not mean that I don't have true and sufficient knowledge. I should also point out that the doctrine of the Trinity does not say "1=3". God is ONE in being, and 3 in PERSON. Those are two different categories.

Dave: that is only if you, a priori, assume Islam's conception of God as hyper-transcendent and unknowable.


Dave: you haven't given me anything to chew on. That charge has been leveled by both Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. I have taken both groups to task from the Bible in times past.

Dave: I don't know from where you derive this "no true Christian" idea. I simply stated that there are SOME who are not true Christians who formally (nominally) claim Christ. I didn't say there are NONE. The fact that people "do whatever and still attach themselves to Christians" only speaks bounds about the power of sin, not the Scriptural clarity.

Dave: historically, Bible-based Christians have agreed on far more than that, as espoused in the early councils and creeds of the church. Today, Evangelicals enjoy even more doctrinal refinement and unity on such matters as justification by faith alone, the satisfaction view of the atonement, and more.

Dave: I agree that we should "go beyond" the Bible. But I am an inerranist, so I believe that everything beyond the Bible is subject to the norms that exist in the Bible.


Dave Gadbois

Datheron

DaveJes1979,

Hm....another post to respond to. But, as we were corresponding, I suppose I'll tackle yours first.

Alright, perhaps it was not a good idea for me to not clarify my statements. I had assumed you knew what I was talking about, but apparently not.

Suppose that we're given a definition. Furthermore, we are given another definition which runs in contradiction to the first (which is our scenario). You are correct in stating that definitions themselves cannot be proven or argued, but what I was trying to get at was the simple fact that having a definition does not automatically make the being exist, nor is it in any way superior to any other definition. For example, here, I come up with "God-killer", whose definition removes the existence of God, whose sole purpose is to run in contradiction of God. You're quite right in stating that it makes no sense to have both exist at the same time - the problem is, who do we disbelieve in, God or the killer? You have chosen the latter, obviously, but there is no reasoning behind it (or, at least you haven't shown it) other than by definition, which was what I was arguing about.

But you really cannot say what would occur if God wasn't here. How do you know that God is a requirement for an intelligible universe, when you've never seen one without (assuming that you're right in that claim)? This is also one of the bases for Intelligent Design, and is also defeated thus.

But as I said before - what good does objective ground do when you are unable to use it? There is no conceivable way for you to do anything with your objective ground other than hold it up as a prize, when the morals that stem from that are completely subjective and oftentimes twisted.

But you have no clue whether you're getting any of it right. That's what it means to be subjective; you have no latch to hang on to.

Let's make this very clear, since I've been pounding on this for a while now.

The problem with claiming anything objective in your worldview is the simple fact that any such claim, and any further interpretation of the claim, is subjective. Certainty would be found in God's relevation, if that relevation itself is objective and the meaning derived objective. But they are not. Biblical interpretation have always been a subjective and touchy-feely thing, the result being that you have no idea whether you're right (you subjectively believe you are), and that the Bible's "meaning" changes every time society's morals change.

No, of course not - by definition, non-sense is not conceivable.

But that's what I'm getting at. The very definition of chicken makes it impossible to refute or prove simply because we'd have no way to understand it. But by the same token, I can also define the chicken to be necessary in order for something, say God, to exist, for, say, logic had to have come from somewhere. (Kalam Cosmological?) The entire point centers around the fact that just as you may start describing abstract qualities of God without actually delving in on what they mean (i.e. Trinity), I can do the same with any object and any definition and still be able to get away with it.

First off, I don't see how having Gods compete makes epistemology any less secure.

Second, as I said above, do you know what it means for 3 = 1? If not, why not?

Third, you really cannot say where minor and major religions come from, and I'm not talking simply about derivatives of Christianity. The Japanese Shinto religion, for example. Or, what of the ancient Greek/Roman Gods? Ignore that they're polytheistic for a moment, but instead concentrate on the fact that they came before Christianity. How can you so easily dismiss them?

Here's a point where I want to get into a bit deeper.

To control and to have power over simply means that we are able to influence how an entity acts.

But, by giving God any attribute, you're either 1) lying, or 2) binding him to that attribute.

It matters not where the power came from - like you said, it probably came from God himself handing it to you - but it is power nevertheless. When you claim that God has mercy, you have essentially bound God to a merciful nature, and he, by your claim, is powerless to be anything but merciful. On the other hand, if God does have the power to break what you set him to be, then he shows that you don't really know him.

Think about it like this: it matters not whether you're holding a gun to a person's head or he hands you a gun to point at his head. The simple fact that you are means that you have power over him.

Quite correct. There really is no objective ground in atheism, but that stems from the recognition that there is no objectivity.

Once again, I have to pull the rug under you and say that the foundation itself is useless. I have already explained why IMO it's futile to claim anything unifying underneath the thick layers of subjectiveness in above parts, so let's not repeat ourselves by the same argument here.

But that's just more abstract concept without any concrete meaning. One being, three persons....explain that to me. I had someone try to tell me that "one being" is like the bondage of marriage, and "two persons" refers to the couple as physical beings, but I was laughing too hard to refute properly (well, one could argue it's self-refuting...).

No - I only need to assume that God is all-powerful. I outlined my argument above.

Perhaps - which is why I only suggested to look it up, rather than make an argument out of it. What material do you have on the matter?

Well, the fallacy itself isn't saying that there aren't any true Christians (Scotsman). Here's a definition:

The "No true Scotsman" argument is an argument of the form:
Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Reply: "But my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge."
Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

This form of argument is a fallacy if the predicate ("putting sugar on porridge") does not follow from the accepted definition of the subject ("Scotsman"), or if the definition of the subject is silently adjusted after the fact to make the rebuttal work.

The problem here is that we don't even have a good definition of "Christian" to work with. If I say that "A Christian only needs to believe in Christ", then you will go "but they must also believe in this...and this....and so and so...", further tailoring the definition to fit your beliefs.

And if you think that having "days" interpreted as "completely and utterly inconsistent periods of time lasting millions of years arbitarily" (I'm, of course, talking about the story of Creation) is somehow a result of sin and not fuzzy descriptions on God's part...

Already, you have sleighted those that aren't "Bible-based". While a legitimate argument would be that those who call themselves "Christians" while not look at the Bible aren't true Christians, once again we hit a wall when we realize that it's utterly subjective as to what you mean by "Bible-based". For example, if I base my views on the Bible, should I be pro or against abortion? I have seen arguments laid both ways based on interpretation of Scripture, and suddenly we are stuck with complete subjectiveness, where an outside observer (i.e. an atheist) has no reason to believe one interpretation above another, and finds the entire farce rather...contradictory.

Eck. Well, this should be interesting. I await your replies.