Maybe if I wait around for a while OzSpen might show up.

Toni Lavis,

Exactly. This ridicule or “contradiction” within Einstein’ theory is based on a tacit assumption of the laws of Newtonian mechanics which are not compatible with Einstein’s theory (in Einstein’ theory they are valid only approximately, and are completely inadequate where higher speeds are involved as your formulae also show).

Similarly with ridicule or “contradictions” with nit-picked tenets of the Christian belief system. They are based on a tacit assumption of the self-sufficiency of natural sciences (scientism?) which is incompatible with a Christian’s world view.

One can doubt everything as long as one is aware of the tacit assumptions on which these doubts are based.

Peter wrote: "Turning away from scientific truth is turning away from God and it results in self murder."

The above is nonsense. Scientific truth and God are unrelated concepts. Roughly 7% of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science believe in God. Peter's statement means that 93% of the AAAS have turned away from scientific truth.

I kind of agree with Peter Sellick's premise "Atheism as self-murder"- but coming from a science background I struggle with these ideas. To me rejecting your own culture- despite all cultures failings- is nihilistic and leads to a loss of meaning in life. There is some complexity here...

According to his bio- Peter Sellick an Anglican deacon working in Perth with a background in the biological sciences.

Even though Mr Sellick has written article "Was Jesus a socialist? ... When we reduce the Kingdom to the "common good" or a lawful and ordered society, it becomes our own project and it is bound to fail. Marxism is the big example of our time."

In this article he says "The right demonises anything that they see as socialist. The left is not brave enough to stand up for refugees, or the increase in the unemployment benefit. Both left and right are stuck by the perceived intransigence of the electorate."

To me it appears that Peter leans to the so called left of the political landscape. In the spirit of Quantum Mechanics- the viewer effects the measurement- many on the so called left perhaps would say that given they view me as so called right everyone left of me is left. I however think the left right dichotomy is a simplification that crosses the line to obfuscation. I call myself a Traditionalist also know as an anti-(Locke- Father of Liberal Democracy, John Stewart Mill- On Liberty, Universalism, Globalism, etc) Liberal- "freedom is not free". To use the "anti" modifier perhaps is interesting however because Traditionalism came first.

I believe that the political landscape is multidimensional in the spirit of Political Compass.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass

The left do a fair bit of demonizing of their own- using Argumentum Ad Hitlerum at fair liberal opportunity- see Paul Graham- hierarchy of argument.

Not that I am a credible expert on Christianity- An interesting thing is Christianity is a very old movement that have roots in Traditional Western Culture- even Anglicanism is five hundred years old.

As someone else mentioned on OLO- there was a rash of new branches of Christianity formed along with the formation of the USA- I guess they can be forgiven for adopting Locke Liberalism being the new philosophy of the time.

Perhaps these new branches of Christian's thought that adopting a liberal visage would attract membership- though there are examples of loosely proto-liberal thought in Jesus's teachings perhaps- "universal love" for one example. Though in ancient times the concept of the world was different for most than in the last 50 or even 20 years. Other philosophies such as Islam perhaps seem to believe in "universal law"- maybe Buddhism is "universal suffering", Confucianism is "universal family", Taoism is "universal opposites". There seems to be a common underlying thread of universalism here.

Computer Science has been used to model human relationships and psychology. In computer programming two methods of problem solving are bottom up and top down- bottom up policy seems to be how human societies originally developed- with the city state periods of human culture there was a move to top down policy. The Roman and later the Catholic model appears to use a combination of the two paradigms- you could call it a "Confederation of City States" perhaps. Some may see conflating of coding with policy as invalid but it makes sense to me.

Many of these paradigms seem related to a sort of "classification or definition problem" often of over generalization or over exaggeration. This seems to also occur in saying that in Jordan Peterson's terminology of God being an "idealized leader" as not only of being "knowledgeable and powerful" but being "all knowing and all powerful". Something that Mr Sellick seems to indicate is characteristic of the beliefs of fundamentalists.

Yes these over generalizations and exaggerations are wrong but they do provide useful rules of thumb for most people- even science in the end uses rules of thumb- Wittgenstein' conclusion was that philosophy is inherently fallible due to the fallibility of language.

http://www.quora.com/Why-did-it-take-2500+-years-of-philosophy-to-reach-Wittgenstein-conclusion-that-philosophy-is-inherently-fallible-due-to-the-fallibility-of-language?share=

Fundamentalists perhaps accuse moderates of being irresponsibly lax- Liberals and Moderates accuse fundamentalists of being disciplined to the point of cruelty. Perhaps both strategies can lead to failures of various types- in times of laxness maybe discipline is ordered. The problem with politics is it's not chemistry- one measure of base doesn't neutralize one unit of acid in politics or policy.

One stand out issue is that policy is often judged on one time failures rather than a better measure such as the average. Yet another case of possibility over probability. Hopefully enlightened opinion is able to see the difference.

Hopefully they will see the prosecutions case as badgering in the court of public enlightened opinion.

Organizations such as the Methodist's and the Unitarian's appear to seem to have adopted more overtly socialist policies over different times. Maybe these policies are the result of historical events and relationships between different Christian diasporas especially with declining patronage in recent times