keiran,
I guess calling an argument you cannot follow confused apparently gives you the same warm feeling as when you call a metaphysical and cultural concept of a Being you cannot relate to a teddy. There is nothing wrong with that, except that it cannot lead to the broadening of one's own world view through dialogue.

Your arguments about "honest science" and "good scientific knowledge" in rejecting (or just criticising?) big bang and indirectly other findings of cosmology and mathematical physics, reminds me of the creationists' arguments criticising neo-Darwinian or other evolution theories. I do not think there is a need to repeat all the counter-arguments of which there is an abundance also on this forum.

Thanks again for a good example supporting my contention that divorcing the concept of God as provided by revelation theology based on the Bible, from that hinted at by natural theology based on a certain interpretation of scientific knowledge, leads to a rejection of the very Reality that is behind both these Western models of God.

Quite right George, '...rocking boats is, on its own, a negativist approach' - but its something I've neither suggested or inferred. What I said was, '..to rock the boat ... in the hope of reform or restitution..'

The term "Dark Age" (as you infer) is a bit of a 'wooly' axiom - Its generalisation tends to ignore and appreciate cultures that arose in Europe after the fall of the western Roman Empire. However, the phrase as first coined by Italian Scholar, Francesco Petrarca, laments not only a lack of secular Latin literature, but within recognised religion there was an intitutionalised moral hypocrisy where Popes ruled as kings and pagan superstitions promoted the relics of its saints by a celibate priesthood. In other words, there was a grave inconsistency with the system of religion as presented in this particular age with that of its original basis. In our 'post-modernism' we bear similar inconsistency.

The curbing of this magisterium has meant even a "good Catholic" can no longer be forced into assent. Bishops, certainly, may encourage their flock to follow this 'infallibility'. Today, our freedom suggests decisions are made more on the basis of personal conscience - for those in the West..

It is important for the secular to be cognizant as to what might 'inform' this morality. Our 'progress' from an age of darkness may yet become more a myth than reality.

Sells is not a Christian, Boaz is correct.

If I’m an Australian Liberal Party MP who believes Communism is the true creed I’m obliged to leave and join the communists I’m not free to speak as some hero fighting against the wrongheadnesses and persecution of my fellow Liberal MPs.

What is so sad is that the science he thinks renders orthodox Christianity incomprehensible solidly supports a transcendent cause of the universe - a first cause that by Sells lights somehow excludes personhood or immanence.

Orthodox Christianity is ALL about the eternal God entering into a universe and human history instigated by Him. If the author has a problem with that story he ought to join the atheists not pretend to be a Christian.

Daniel Dennett in a recent debate accepted the premise that the universe began to exist at the Big Bang, and the second premise that it was caused, but then said that the universe caused itself. An incredulous Dr William Lane Craig brought his attention to the minor problem of how something could exist before it existed! To which Dennett in stunned silence, said he would have to go back to the premises (the ones that lead to an unsought conclusion). We’re talking about a Tufts University Professor of Philosophy here. So natural science explains everthing - except the entire universe. This supernatural (transcendent) character pervades the whole material universe and it takes many years of education to wipe that most basic of understandings out of the human soul.

The tension between immanence and transcendence is a creative one, it posed no insurmountable problem as far as Origen or Augustine were concerned. General revelation and special revelation are not incompatible but complimentary and the author has not added anything to the virtually two thousand year reflection on how the God of the Athenian philosophers is reconciled with the God of Jerusalem.

Martin,
If you are going to call up the spirit of Origen you should be aware, Origen's ideas were in direct opposition to the earlier orthodox writers, Justin and Irenaeus. For example, while Justin called 'heretics' so-called Christians who forsook the Jewish idea of an earthly physical Kingdom of God, Origen called the idea of an earthly Kingdom 'fables.' He thought the hope of a physical Kingdom was absurd, and also denied the resurrection of the body for the saved, same as the Gnostics.

Catholic theolgian Karl Rahner had the grace to even say, '... a Buddhist monk… who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian'. If Sells has the temerity to actually admit his Christianity, whether you agree with it or not - it is not for you or any other individual to deny it.

Origen complained of the literalists of his day, and, quite ironically these laments apply today, "Literalists," he said, "believe such things about [God] as would not be believed of the most savage and unjust of men". These 'Literalists' misunderstood the meaning of poetry, metaphors, parables and figures of speech and had no concept of the need to understand what the original author of the text was seeking to express to his audience - i.e Martin and David Boaz, go back to your bibles before condemning another's Christianity.

You'll notice relda I said nothing about Sells salvation, only that if we are to communicate words must retain their commonly understood meaning. Someone who believes God did not create the universe and is not transcendent and who is not the source of all being is simply not a Christian, the person may be correct but they are not Christians. This is not controversial :)

Aren't we lucky these great men, (Augustine was the greatest mind of the Roman Empire) fully versed in Greek philosophy sorted out these major issues in the first six or so centuries of Christianity. What sells wants to do is bypass that history and its fruits and remold Christianity in a way that better suits his own prejudices and preferences. To pretend that they are NOT settled is unhistorical and bad metaphysics.

What the coming of the Kingdom would actually look like was an open question 1800 years ago - not now mate.

Scoundrels find refuge in the new 'f' word, fundamentalism. You seem to be calling orthodox Christianity a fundamentalist creed, the irony is the authorities you use in your exegesis have to be read literally.

I rely on the authority of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church to interpret scripture for me (see Dei Verbum) I'll stand here you may use your own authority, but we must not call each other names we must argue.

I hope you're a literalist when you read the label of a can of rat poison and a can of soup.

Martin,
Firstly, as I take the Bible to be neither rat-poison or a bowl of soup so there's no sense in taking it literally - those who do tend to fall into two main doctrinal sources of fundamentalist thought - millenarianism and biblical inerrancy. Unless you deny Biblical scholarship with its historical-critical method you are probably trapped into either (or both) of these approaches.

Secondly your statement, "..the person may be correct but they are not Christians" is an absurdity, especially so if in the next paragraph you determine the early Church fathers were incontrovertibly correct. Or is it that you assert Christians now days are above being correct.? If such a fait accompli did in fact exist, all philosophy and theological thinking that followed becomes irrelevant - which seems a little tenuous to say the least.

Finally, I'm not calling the Orthodox creed Fundamentalist but I do suggest there are some who take it literally.