(Continued from 24 hours ago) Maybe, Oliver, you are right that Peter should have called his article “ How does God exist? A Christian view” or something like that, however I doubt he would have received less hostile and irrelevant responses; after all this article we are supposed to discuss carried that extra “in Christian theology”, and it did not seem to help. Why do you not offer another article titled “How does/do Gods exist?”, along the lines of the recent postings of yours? It would be an interesting reading for me, and I am sure not only for me. It might attract some outraged reactions from all sorts of religious fanatics, though I am sure not as abusive and offensive as many of the reactions from anti-religion fanatics that Peter’s articles attracted. I think only that you should not use your position and findings to denigrate those of Peter’s or even Christian theologians in general. Like I would not mind if you reminded me that I shared 98% (or is it now just 95%?) of my DNA with a chimpanzee, but I would not like it if you denigrated me because of that, if you wanted to conclude from this fact that there is no much difference between me, my ideas, and those of a chimpanzee.

You certainly know more about the bible, OT and NT, than I. This knowledge is very useful, however it reminds me of the anglicist at our Mathematical institute in communist Czechoslovakia in the sixties. There was no censorship on maths books, we only could not afford the price of English language monographs. So when the Institute ordered the advanced monograph I wanted to read, I was very happy when it finally arrived. However, I had to wait for a couple of days that it took our anglicist — the lady who corrected the English in our maths publications — to peruse the book looking for new mathematical terms and expressions. (ctd)

(ctd) She “read” through the book that would take me months to work my way through. She knew all the words and expressions that were in it, but, of course, not being a mathematician she did not have a clue what it was about. But nobody complained, her work was valuable for the mathematicians in the Institute. So “Someone wanting to see ‘How does/do Gods exist?’ needs to step away from worship” sounds like the anglicist saying “Someone wanting to read this book in 3 days needs to step away from being a mathematician”.

When you say that you could investigate “how gods may have been created, by humans”, you surely mean “images of god(s)” since nobody believes humans have created gods like they did e.g. computers. And this is exactly where I entered this debate: to show that the religious statement “God created humans” and the cultural anthropologist’s statement “humans created images of god” can be compatible in the same sense as the statements “mathematicians CREATE mathematics” and “mathematicians DISCOVER mathematics (which was just out there, ‘created’ or not).

Kerian, I am very sorry but I cannot understand much of what you said here. The same as I cannot understand much of what postmodernists say, which of course does not imply that this is not my fault. I do not even know whether the association with postmodernism is not just my personal impression. The quote from Claude Bernard seems to me to hint at the undesirability of cognitive dissonances which occur, e.g. with people whose faith is too irrational and hence clashes with what they know (is known) from science, history, etc. Also, does your ‘good gardener’ stand for an eclectic philosopher in the “garden” of many systems, or approaches to philosophy?

Your last sentence reminds me of my favorite joke: pure mathematicians know many questions but don’t know the answers, applied mathematicians know many answers but don’t know (how to formulate) the questions that go with them. Could one extend this to modern (analytic) vs. postmodern philosophers?

Seeking God and seeking Christianity are not the same. God and Jehovah and Jesus and Isis and Horus are separate constructs. Were one to build a structural equation, one would been need to define the constructs and, test for internal consistency and discreetness and shared attributes. Just how clean is the construct, can be asked?

Peter and other Christians, whom take “a priori” posits manage their data inappropriately, I contend. Someone worshiping Aten is in the same boat. One “does” need to stand-back to achieve understanding. [Objectivi Forensic history and anthropology are the tools, in-so-much-as mathematics is required to understand the stresses placed on a bridge.

Peter defends Christianity; He seek not seek God. He does not forensically analyse the subject-predicate form of God exists. He accepts the generalised proposition, but, adopts, “a priori” [those words again], Jesus atomically as the [sole] subject, with out testing the subject of the subject-predicate form. Poor logic. Poor forensics.

Mathematicians do have valuable insights but manipulating symbols representing deeper latent entities. Perhaps, closer than your anglicist friend, but being able to work an equation does not represent understanding. Paul Davies touched the later in The Confessions of a Relativist [or similar title.]. In the 70s, psychologists would cite, the example of six-graders and parallelograms: The teacher sketched a typically-oriented parallelogram on the board. The children computed the correct answers. The teacher and children all smiled. The psychologist turned the parallelogram 45 degrees. The students froze. “Miss! We haven’t done this yet”. The kids could work the equation but did not understand, the idea of area.

Humans “create” characters all the time. Alexander Meinong argued the “Medusa” and “Hamlet” are real entities: As a performance in which we can “indwell” (Polanyi). The proposition that “Hamlet killed Polonius” is true (Meinong) to an audience (Polanyi). Bertrand Russell developed Meinong’s posit, wherein, characters, “subsist”, rather than exist.

Herein, according to these philosophers, even to an atheist, Zeus and Jesus, subsist. They are characteristics in a performance. To a Christian; Jesus exists, Zeus subsists. To a believer in Zeus: Zeus exists, Jesus subsists. Both require forensic investigation.

cont./

I have never attempted to denigrate Peter. Although, he [and Boxgum] are not so, ahem, Christian. I am just dust under/on (?) their feet, if I recall. They think lowly of me, personally. Aletnatively, I posit, investigate situations in a very limited matter. They produce animous. I product argument.

My position remains that one needs to understand the process of theocrasia [not the theology scool version], before focusing on one's preferred god, say, Mercury or Thor. Thor could be god. But, given correct knowledge, of such a position, the posit should be "degraded". [Degraded does not equate to denigrate].

You are a mathematician: To curious alien coming from another creation landing on Earth, which of the following statements is likely to be most "probable".

-1- God is God, or
-2- Jesus is God, or
-3- Zeus is God, or
-4- The set of gods{all gods worshipped by at least some human}, includes God?

I posit -1- for the alien and also for "faithful" theist. Else, we have religionism or denominationalism. Logically, even an athiest should accept -1-, albeit, the statement -1- would be meaningless. Peter is a Christian, but not a weak theist. Unlike, your Math colleagues, he knows the answers and the questions unto himself,stop.

I have considered writing an article. Two problems. One, I move around the world including Muslim countries and have involvement -at times- on high profile panels, e.g., WTO. Second, I would need not write an article, without thorough research, which would take me away from other endeavours.

p.s. I am happy to be classified [correctly] as a member of the Great Ape family. [I think that readjustment in the percentage of gene shared Chimps has to do redundant/duplicated genes.]

[Busy for a few days.]

Oliver, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree - or rather agree that we talk past each other - and seem to be moving in circles. Let me just repeat that Peter’s articles were about various CHRISTIAN views of the concepts of the Supernatural, Resurrection etc, not about comparative theology, ethnography of religion, philosophy of religion or what. Also, you cannot put Jesus, Jehovah, Zeus, Isis and Horus in one basket since Jesus was a person in history, the others not. You could perhaps compare how Jehovah, Allah, Brahman, God (as Christians see Him) are understood. Or you could compare the historical persons Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius.

Also, Peter and Boxgum did not call you “dust under/on (?) their feet”; you should read Luke 9:5 more carefully.

Another thing, mathematics is not just about “manipulating symbols representing deeper latent entities”, but first of all about understanding these “latent entities”, and mathematicians are not just “able to work an equation”. Manipulation (of symbols, equations) is becoming more and more the work of computers, and one of the problems of artificial inteligence research is to determine at what level, in what sense - if at all - the highly sophisticated computer of the future will also UNDERSTAND the symbols it is manipulating. It is this understanding of mathematical concepts having ties to both our mental and material worlds - not the ability to solve practical engineering problems - that I was suggesting could shed some light on the mental, historical and metaphysical dimensions of (Christian) faith, its ability to be at the same time an ougrowth of our imagination (personal as well as collective) and also reflect some Reality “out there”, independent of our mental world(s).

George,
I would like to congratulate you for your patience on these pages, the long joust with Oliver and Kerin have not yielded much from their side but from yours a steady stream of rationality. It is down to you that I have the phrase “unreasonable effectiveness” written in my brain and have been tempted to use it in relation to the Trinity except I think we understand more about that subject and its reasonableness than some mathematical theories that inexplicably describe an aspect of reality. My absence from the discussion has been the direct result of the abuse directed against me and because of previous attempts to engage the rabid antireligionists with no effect. I got a bit tired of having stones thrown through my windows and have simply pulled down the shutters. I am still willing to engage in conversation in these pages with anyone who will take even the smallest step in attempting to understand what I am saying. Grace and Peace
Peter Sellick