Christian faith is a purifying force for reason...

Originally posted by jaywill
Speaking of mother's advice, more often than not, I find that hard core evolutionists are also athiests and don't honor their parents very much.

In what way don't they honor their parents?

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In what way don't they honor their parents?

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I knew of a very smart brother and sister who called their father only by his first name. Both were very skeptical of the Bible.


I knew of another two brothers, very hip on all manner of new age philosophy. They treated their mother as an naive necessary nuisance with jestings.

In a lot of little ways, I have seen this kind of slighting of the parents.

It stands to reason that the commandment to honor your mother and father has to do with tracing your origin back to God. Since the atheist doesn't believe in God I think their conscience is less bothered by not honoring thier parents.

Asian athiests, I think, may be somewhat of an exception.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Whether Bacon was a Christian or not is frightfully irrelevant.

My point remains that the Christian religion has invented itself a position where no argument whatsoever can ever be used to prove it false. At that point, there is no intellectual argument for religion, because there can be no true debate - it is an assertion, nothing more.

So, as far as I can tell, your presuppositions are:

1. The Christian religion invented Christ
2. That the Christian religion cannot be proven true or false

Your first presupposition is illogical, since you do not know that the Christian religion invented Christ or any of its "positions." Second, no one is claiming (at least I am not) to be able to prove that God exists or that the Bible is God's word. The best anyone can do is present what evidence there is.

I agree, the fact that Francis Bacon was a Christian is irrelevant. I beg your pardon.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Precisely.

Every answer is "Goddunnit" irrespective of any evidence. How can anyone suggest that this could be any kind of intellectual endeavour - it is not! It is excuse making at its most extreme.

It is equally misguided to disregard Christianity's claims irrespective of any evidence. Wouldn't you agree?

Originally posted by kirksey957
If the goal is to prove it true (on the Christian side), then what are we to make of "mystery." In my opinion, when this is lost, you've sold out.

Agreed. That is partly why I think that “sacrament” may not be a good substitute for musterion (and does not really translate it at all). I particularly liked the same quote as Jorge—

Nor is mystery another name for a spirituality so vague that it cannot distinguish between John of the Cross and Max Lucado.

And append this one from further down in the article—

Such loss of awe and mystery, such commodification of God into the service of our own needs, flattens the imagination of wonder and otherness.

Dealing with the mystery in conceptual terms requires imagination. Attempting to wall-paper it with concepts so that it less awesome is fundamentally idolatrous, whether those concepts are (mis)appropriated from scripture or creedal formulations, or not—or, rather, appropriated and misused. All religious language ends up being either iconic or idolatrous: in the former case, pointing beyond itself, and all our conceptualization, to the mystery; in the latter case, denying the mystery in favor of the concepts themselves, and demanding allegiance to the conceptualizations. The mind-bending awe of the mystery is sacrificed for the seeming security of conceptual understanding.

Which brings in the next quote—

Yet I wonder whether childlike beginners in a dumbed-down, user-friendly Christianity will ever grow up-whether such seekers will ever become finders and keepers of the faith once delivered to the saints. It is more likely, I fear, that they will subject themselves to apostolic wrath. St. Paul warns against a permanent infancy in faith. He pronounces fierce judgment on the Corinthians who remain milk-drinking believers, never learning to eat the rich meat and to quaff the good wine of the gospel.

>> NRS 1 Corinthians 2:1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. 6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7 But we speak [/i]God's wisdom, secret and hidden[/i], which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

>> NRS 1 Corinthians 3:1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?

Now the word translated as “secret” in 2:7 is musterion. And there is, contextually, the implication that Paul, in this letter anyway, is still not articulating that mysterious wisdom (“Even now you are not ready...” ).

With that aside, however, I would suggest that those who remain “milk-drinking believers” are those who, being still “people the flesh, as infants in Christ” need the religious reassurances that are used to clothe the mystery, without really disclosing it. It is the same in other religions, and there can be no denigrating judgment; indeed, I would suggest that we all sometimes need just “chicken soup for the soul”, because we can only imbibe of the mystery for so long. Hopefully, as we move back and forth, we can hang with the mystery longer and longer, leaning less and less on our conceptual security blankets. (How many metaphors can I mix in here!)

In that process, I think it is critical to remember that icons point to the mystery; idols seek to circumscribe and define it. Scriptural language itself should be taken as iconic, always.

“Every concept formed by the intellect in an attempt to comprehend and circumscribe the divine nature can succeed only in fashioning an idol, not in making God known.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa)

Originally posted by kirksey957
Read this here article and see if it won't make a Christian out of you.

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3579

"Christians are called to name these Antichrists and to refuse them our fealty-even as we are also required to disbelieve those dogmas that have ossified into lifeless propositions. Yet Christian disbelief does not mean a principled doubting of everything. Such radical skepticism soon slides into a cynicism altogether as sentimental and self-serving as the easy optimism it rejects. Christian disbelief is, instead, a positive testing of what is true and false by a single criterion: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God" (1 John 4:2-3).

There are many so-called Christian "spirits" now at work in our churches which deny that "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh." These gnostic and discarnate forms of Christianity are especially evident in the sappiness of what passes as contemporary Christian culture."


Excellent article. It supports everything I've said concerning how anemic the "popular church culture" of our day is. And why!

Originally posted by scottishinnz

Every answer is "Goddunnit" irrespective of any evidence. How can anyone suggest that this could be any kind of intellectual endeavour - it is not! It is excuse making at its most extreme.

What if God did do it?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Whether Bacon was a Christian or not is frightfully irrelevant.

My point remains that the Christian religion has invented itself a position where no argument whatsoever can ever be used to prove it false. At that point, there is no intellectual argument for religion, because there can be no true debate - it is an assertion, nothing more.

My point remains that the Christian religion has invented itself a position where no argument whatsoever can ever be used to prove it false.

There is such a diverse spectrum of Christian creeds. Are you sure that every single one of them espouse the belief that their religion cannot be proved false?

At that point, there is no intellectual argument for religion, because there can be no true debate.

There are other religions apart from Christianity. Even if all Christians believe that no evidece can contradict their faith, that does not mean that people of other religious persuasions are not open to debate. Do you intentionally equivocate?

And despite your claim that there can be no intellectual argument whatsoever, there does seem a lot just on this forum board.

Originally posted by Jorge Borges
It is equally misguided to disregard Christianity's claims irrespective of any evidence. Wouldn't you agree?

Everything has to be taken on balance of evidence. There simply isn;t any evidence for a god of any type existing, therefore, the most parsimonious explanation is that no god exists.

Once anyone can provide a shred of credible evidence that god exists, I'll re-evaluate my position.

Originally posted by Conrau K
My point remains that the Christian religion has invented itself a position where no argument whatsoever can ever be used to prove it false.

There is such a diverse spectrum of Christian creeds. Are you sure that every single one of them espouse the belief that their religion cannot be proved false?

At that point, there is no intelle here can be no intellectual argument whatsoever, there does seem a lot just on this forum board.

Basically, Christian theology goes something of the lines that;

A) Stuff exists (whether it is the universe, people, morality or cheese, it doesn't matter)
B) Therefore, God exists.

The argument is never more complex than that. And, of course, it is a non sequiter.

No Christian cult has yet devised a suitable test for the existence of God, neither have they suitably defined him to make him a useful concept.

For example;
Atheist; "An omnibenevolent, omnipotent being who allows an Earth with suffering and disease is a logical contradiction."

Theist; "Therefore, God must have a greater plan which requires suffering and disease".

Atheist; "But God is apparently omniscient and omnipotent, he could do anything he wants, he doesn't need this. That would be another logical contradiction."

Theist; "Why does God have to conform to the rules of logic?"

Atheist; "He wouldn't, and he wouldn't have to conform to any rules whatsoever. There can be no possible test for god, because he has no definable characteristics."

Theist; "Therefore, God exists".

Atheist; "Whoa there Junior, you still haven't given us any test that God exists..."

And so on ad infinitum. This is not an intellectual discussion. This is Christians making an extravagant claim, failing to back it up, then getting torn to pieces on the grounds of parsimony by Atheists. The Christians promptly ignore this, because they are "saved" and we are "lost". They also tend to ignore physical and logical evidences because of their preconceptions.

Originally posted by Conrau K
What if God did do it?

What if the FSM did it? The evidence for the two existing is equal.

Originally posted by jaywill
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In what way don't they honor their parents?

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I knew of a very smart brother and sister who called their father only by his first name. Both were very skeptical of the Bible.


I knew of another two brothers, very hip on all manner of new age philosophy. They treated their mother as an naive ...[text shortened]... d by not honoring thier parents.

Asian athiests, I think, may be somewhat of an exception.[/b]

Respect should not be afforded indiscriminately. That belittles it.

I have great respect for my father, because he's a good guy. If he weren't a good guy, I probably wouldn't respect him.


Should you respect your parents if they are rapists or murders? The bible says you must. Personally, I would not respect such a person.

Originally posted by jaywill
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Didn't your mother ever tell you, if you've got nothing worth saying be quiet?

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It was worth saying. Yours just happened to be the post that it followed, for someone else to read it.[/b]

No, it wasn't worth saying. It was completely unrelated to the topic.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Everything has to be taken on balance of evidence. There simply isn;t any evidence for a god of any type existing, therefore, the most parsimonious explanation is that no god exists.

Once anyone can provide a shred of credible evidence that god exists, I'll re-evaluate my position.

There simply isn;t any evidence for a god of any type existing, therefore, the most parsimonious explanation is that no god exists.

The problem with this assertion, that no evidence for God exists, is that you would have to know all alleged proofs that exist in order to then state that there is no proof for God's existence.

The question is: if there happened to be credible evidence of God's existence, would you be able to accept it, given that your presuppositions are already opposed to God's existence? What kind of evidence would you be able to accept? If you haven't decided what would be sufficient and reasonable evidence for God's existence, then you cannot state that there is no evidence for God.

If Christianity does not fit your criteria, why not? Is it possible that your criteria for evidence is not reasonable? Does your criteria put a requirement upon God (if He exists) that is not realistic? For example, do you want Him to appear before you in blazing glory? Even if that did happen, would you believe He existed or would you consider it a hallucination or some type of trick?

Are you being as objective as can when examining the evidence that is presented? If you have a presupposition that God does not exist and miracles are impossible, then you cannot objectively examine the evidence, and God becomes unknowable to you.

Do you define the miraculous out of existence? If so, on what basis do you do this? If you assume that science can explain all phenomena, then there can be no miraculous evidence ever submitted as proof.

Once anyone can provide a shred of credible evidence that god exists, I'll re-evaluate my position.

Please define what you would deem credible.

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No, it wasn't worth saying. It was completely unrelated to the topic.

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No, your point was not worth stating. And what I wrote was meaningful.