george and reida, thanks. i think my questions and your responses to my questions make the status of dawkins "nonsense" and "crass mistakes" about as clear as one could imagine.

George,

1. Any anthropologist, theist or otherwise, would classify civilizations, tools, myths and religions, often applying some kind of classification system. Christianity, for example would share a creation myth, direct and indirect (messengers) communications from God and a trinity with other religions. A suitably interested anthropologist could take Christian and its thousand-fold peers and sort religion markers, as one could sort cards according to colour, number and court or non-court set. What I think what would confront the examiner is that Christianity, along with many other alternatives, could readily be categorized like elements on the Period Table. It would be unclear whether the Christians are right about Jesus, the Romans about Diana or the Egyptians about Ra. What be evident is that advanced religions evolved in many forms from more primitive ones and that priesthoods and churches/temples/mosques evolved many with alters: The same game with different labels.

2. I did recognize the Daoism. I was suggesting that contrasts can exist without recourse to extremes. Because we might prefer have more savings rather than less savings, it does not follow we need debt.

When one programmes logically engineered generic units developing Artificial Intelligent software the designer can parameterise the allowable conditions so, the latitudes of movement are variable with constraint. If a lowly analyst-programmer can establish guided conditions with flexibility (too), why not god?

3. You might not have previously thought about it, but given you have had time to reflect, do you see similarities between Sells and Dawkins? Moreover, here, the Protestant and the (near) Atheist are opposed to the kernel of Catholicism. For example, neither two would hold to the five “extra” sacraments (I think the number is correct.)

George,

I liked the verse (which I understood) and enjoyed the joke :-).

Martins S,

Good reply on good-evil contrast discussion … Satan’s evil was contrasted with perfection in heaven.

George and Martins S,

You both seem to be settling-in on a "necessary" contrast having to exist between good and evil. Is evil "necessary" for the complete the fulfilment of a good god? If not god, then god's creation?

Was Satan evil in heaven?

Reflecting on my reply (2) to George, could God have not created Satan with (constrained) free will (it is not a tautology) and not have allowed evil to emerge? We have the capacity to run faster that an ant but a horse can run faster than us and cheetah is very swift indeed, but as fast as some birds.

Reference Bibles with many alternatives aside, I think you will find most translators use the English word “evil” in Isaiah 45:7 verse in common bibles.

Cheers,

O.

Dear david f,
Something from your heritage, which I find particularly applicable to the idea of justice and the consequence, if not spoken to:

“According to the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets, the People of Israel were expecting to demonstrate its loyalty to God not merely by worshiping Him, but mainly by practicing justice and righteousness. These are called ‘the way of the Lord’ (Genesis 18:19). In the light of that teaching, failure to walk in that way has brought untold suffering on the People of Israel. Unrighteousness is the offspring of pride, which takes the form of rebellion against God, or playing the god. Translated into universal terms, that teaching implies that the religion of a people has to find expression principally in the practice of righteousness in its political, economic, and social affairs. That is the divine law for every people. Violation of that law is bound to lead to failure and disaster.”
- The Greater Judaism in the Making, Mordecai M. Kaplan, p. 477

As you would say, expressed here is more a hope in the justice to be achieved through an ongoing battle (fought against “the offspring of pride”), if you like. But one would wonder the point of it all, where there is no ultimate 'achievement', at some point in time, rather than the eternal cycle of “failure and disaster”.

Justice, as a fait accompli, is promised by all manner of religion - one may even suggest empirical evidence, showing a deterioration of the human condition since the death of Christ, rather than an improvement. Redemption, as Martin Buber never tired of pointing out, will mean Die Vollendung der Schöpfung, a fulfillment of the creation which will amount to the re-creation of the whole world. And as you would agree, that particular redemption surely has not taken place.

Dear Relda,

The idea of individual or group reward and punishment may be comforting, but I don't believe it is true or even reasonable. It is denigrating because it puts righteousness on a childish level. "Be good, and you'll get candy." It is wrong because we are not atomised individuals. We are part of our family, the groups we are connected with, humanity, all life, the earth and ultimately the universe. If we behave righteously we may make everything a bit better, and that is reward enough. There is no reason we should get candy. We may make things a bit better, but we can't be sure of that because what we think of as righteous may be completely wrong-headed. We can only try.

I think Buber had grandiose ideas. I think it more reasonable to try to behave well to those we know than to concern ourselves with Die Vollendung der Schöpfung. I think the idea of an apotheosis of humanity or creation is a harmful one. The attempt to achieve messianic visions brings suffering whether it is the eventual classless society of Marx, the millennial visions of a dominant Nazi Reich or any other eventual pie in the sky.

Kaplan shares that arrogance. Who is he to prescribe 'divine law for every people'?

I believe we can try to show love for those we know, behave as righteously as we can and expect nothing for it.

Matthew Arnold said it well in “Dover Beach.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

There must be a lot of Godly people on this site.Mention God and we have a plethoria of comment.Realise this.If you knew for sure ,life would not be worth living.

In truth we all live in this twilight world of harsh reality and the aspiration for a perfect existance.When we stop evolving,we stop growing,so the perfect world is unattainable.

Live for the moment.