Keiran,
I do not know how “can humanity collectively ensure a continued appreciation of the beauty of existence” but what about starting with respecting other people’s world views, instead of denigrating them as you seem to be doing with your constant reference to a “teddy”, e.g. in this paragraph? I read it as a statement not about religion, Christianity, science, theology or what, but about you, your psychological disposition. You must have been hurt by somebody or something that was associated (in fact or just in your perception) with traditional religion. And that is regrettable, irrespective of where the fault lies.

I do not comment when people attack (or defend) neo-Darwinian theory because I am neither a biologist nor a geneticist. However, my understanding of what models of mathematical physics are about (and for) tells me that your understanding of the big bang theory (today widely accepted by cosmologists) is rather naive, although this is not the place to explain why. Neither do I think calling contemporary scientists pre-Copernican needs any further comment.

On the other hand I agree that Love (as the term is usually understood) and not the worship of the golden calf (as it is understood in the Old Testament, meaning worship of material things) leads to discovery of ... well whatever you had in mind. This is more or less the topic of the present pope’s first encyclical (Deus Caritas Est). Most higher religions speak of love in this or that form, it is also an essential part of the Christian message, but nobody, not even Christians, have a monopoly on it. And, I am afraid i have to add, neither have you.

relda,
Thanks for the kind words. I always thought the Trinitarian doctrine was an indispensable part of any version of the Christian message, Catholic or not, so there was no disagreement with Sells’ point of view. I only wanted to emphasize that there was another, albeit “entirely this-worldly”, perspective of the concept of God, that complements the Hebrew, or Christian, before the Greek heritage, both Platonic and Aristotelean), had its influence on it. So I welcomed the pope’s emphasis (in his Regensburg lecture) on the need not to neglect this contribution to the Christian (or at least its Catholic version) model as it evolved through history.

I can also see what csteele means when he quotes Rabbi Kushner seeing the advantages of “no central authority“ declaring “one group correct and the other in error ... partly because of the relatively minor role that theology plays in Judaism,” This is also due to the fact, that there is only the Hebrew but not the “Greek“ approach to (model of, as I like to say) God. Rabbi Kushner‘s speaks also from my heart when he says that “statements about God are not so much about God as they are about us”: this is what I tried to explain to Keiran in my previous post. However, I have to admit that when interpreting Judaism I am a complete dilettante.

Of course, I agree completely with what you say about Carl Jung.

I was uneasy about Keiran’s reference to Love only insofar as he posited it in opposition to the rational aspects of faith. You cannot have flowers without the plant and its roots, you cannot admire a beautiful body, of which you see only the smooth skin and soft muscles, if there were not an “uncuddly” skeleton to hold it together. And we cannot have a faith talking about love, satisfying our heart, without being aware, and accepting, the rational framework it is built on, that satisfies our brain (which in 21st century is very much oriented on science).

Surely ontological arguments for the existence or being of God are tautological. To describe the cosmos or universe as a whole as CREATION is to beg the question – who is, was and ever shall be the uncreated CREATOR? “GOD” is a word with which to “name” or label the mystery beyond all other mysteries in one [?] who alone can truly say “I AM.” I can and do say “I AM” but “God” alone can truly say “I AM”. All else exists because “God” is and because “God is Love.” “God” revealed as “the Father”has loved the basis stuff of the cosmos into creation primarily for the incarnation of the Total Christ or the Perfect [complete] Man (Eph.4:13). That means all mankind and all creation centred on Christ and informed by his indwelling and all-embracing Holy Spirit of love. Moving on – whereas the “gospels” of Paul and John focused on the “history of Christ” as the PANTO-CRATOR or Lord of All – Matthew, Mark and Luke focused mostly on the “Christ of history” as the NAZARENE. After Maximus the Confessor (580-662) died – 30 years after Muhammad (570-632) – there was an eclipse of the cosmic dimensions of Christology – at least in Western Christianity. “While the revelation of God to the individual soul is the essence of all religion” (R.H.Tawney), it seemed for centuries that the rest of creation didn’t really matter. Then Pierre Teilhard SJ (1881-1955) revived the Cosmic Christology and Christic Cosmology of the early Church. He infuriated Peter Medawar and others because he persisted in putting together what the 18th century Deists had insisted on putting asunder – namely CREATION and its CREATOR linked in Christ (2 Cor.5:19; Gal.6:14). Thus there has been, is now and ever shall be only ONE BODY – the cosmic body of the Total Christ. And we – having been chosen in Christ before the world was made (Eph.1:4) – are each given an ever-changing part of that one body for the duration of our own earthly lives.

George,
Whether one ascribes to Christianity or not, the Trinitarian doctrine was certainly not a part of the original message. At best, it is dogma by implication. No Apostle would have dreamt of thinking that there are Three Divine Persons, whose mutual relations and paradoxical unity are beyond our understanding. There is no 'mysterium logicum’, no intellectual paradox, no antinomy of’ ‘Trinity in Unity'. There is simply no place of it in their testimony.

The baptismal words, 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit', as ascribed to Jesus in Matt 28:19 were, as mentioned in my previous post, added centuries later via Church magisterium. Roman Catholics are perhaps able to be more consistent through believing established Church traditions being equal to the authority of holy scripture. Protestants, however, suffer an inconsistency with Trinitarianism where they need to honour their sola scriptura (scripture alone) principle. The breakaway, almost cult like groups, such as the JW's for example, or Pentecostal type groups attest to this significance. I would expect Isaac Newton (if alive today) would have belonged to neither of these groups - but have still been recognised as devoutly Christian.

Theistic evolution or our growing models of God (or destroyed models) are, as perhaps our anti-evolutionist friends might suggest - far from proven, nevertheless, they do attest to a reality. Medieval Thomism and Reformation Protestantism held that God intervenes as a direct cause of particular events, in addition to his more usual action working through secondary natural causes - a model now largely rejected. From Newton we have, God the divine clockmaker model - still disputed. Through the Christology, as suggested by Roch, we obtain Christ as the exemplar in the Christian paradigm - but more than just an historical exemplar; he is a model for God, and expressed through Christian community - often hypocritical in its failure to imitate the perfect model.
Cont'd...

...Cont'd
I also rather quite like the Zen model - which is neither pantheistic nor lacking in moral content - 'If I should say “I am God” it is sacrilegious. No, not that. I am I, God is God, and at the same time I am God, God is I. That is the most important part.'

Where Kieran suggests love, I would apply your same consideration, as love without regard for its justice becomes mere sentimentality (as with the 'teddy' he suggests). In material terms, it is certainly our science leading us to discovery. But on a metaphysical plane the bona fide question is, 'How does love discover us - or more appropriately, (in using a sexual metaphor) what is the agape we require - the 'love' so desperately desired?

If in our acts of 'love' (where we might feed the hungry or help the poor) and don't reflect agape, our love will appear as paternalistic, arrogant or self-centered. The spirit of agape also expresses a universal concern - a sense of surpassing our own ego. When Christianity interprets and distinguishes the relationship between agape love and the more ego-centric group love, it transcends any pious irrelevance. For many, I would hope, the figure of Jesus Christ has done just this.

Peter,

You present your extreme liberal version of Christianity as the outcome of modern biblical criticism but you know this to be false.

Your idiosyncratic understanding of Christianity and frustratingly arrogant belief that you can see through the text to find its ‘real meaning’ is a heresy as old as Marcion. You only pay lip service to our understanding that the spiritual stands on the natural, that meaning stands on real events and that Jesus’ miracles are not arbitrary but illuminate the connection between Grace and nature and His Lordship over it. Instead any reading of the New Testament that retains any hint of the supernatural you call fundamentalist.

CS Lewis’ ‘Fern Seeds and Elephants’
http://members.tripod.com/orthodox-web/papers/fern_seed.html

You have nothing to say about the fruits of modern biblical criticism as explained by NT Wright in the article I linked to, nor John Meier, Luke Timothy Johnson, Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, etc. Which would include as nuanced an understanding of Scripture as Dei Verbum which is authoritative for the entire Catholic Church!

You persistently invent false oppositions – the real meaning of the Gospels vs the literal meaning, the God of human liberation vs the God of Creation, to induce in the reader the idea that yours is the sophisticated reading when it is simply a refusal to do proper business with the Gospels and decent philosophy.

"Substance dualism is the correct Biblical position and not a Greek intrusion into Biblical thought we need not opt for a facile Christianized physicalism. The over-stated false dilemma between Hebraic holism and Greek dualism is one of the worst ideas in western thought since Descartes claimed that animals were mere machines."
JP Moreland

I have zero respect for a someone in an official teaching role within an organization writing to an audience of amateurs about that organisation’s beliefs but who then proceeds to present beliefs overwhelmingly and explicitly rejected by that very organization. With no mention of this fact