Oh My.

Ad-hoc reasoning isn't called 'special pleading' for nothing, one presumes. Definition = inserting new arguments to validate flawed notions.

Moving onto the next fallacy, Personal Incredulity is still the inability to understand facts. Putting lippie on a pig is really what's afoot here.

>>The insistence that God is the cause of the world creates all sorts of logical problems.<<

Peter, no doubt a significant amount of thought went into this article, but I find myself firmly agreeing with bushbashers point of a Strawman fallacy. You've flagrantly attributed skills to, and taken away from, authors of texts you seek to defend. Strawman cum Non-Sequiter which leads into your primary False Dichotomy: that Creationism is fact and it is [in Sells hindsight] verified by modernity - not science.

Indeed, your entire approach is clever, but a litany of logical fallacies wherein Reducto ad absurdum rules. You're arguing that Creationism can now usurp science because of "the Word", still permitting Creationist notions today, because after Jesus died the Trinitarian scheme [a medieval human construct] permits the Spirit to continue the word of god in the world today.

Appealing to authors of ancient texts in a way that supports your argument is basic Ad Ignorantiam resting on Argument from Authority, & conveniently allows you to argue on False Continuum. Namely, these primitive, ignorant humans held superior wisdom which you internalise as [paraphrased] "belief is a way of knowing different to science, because it doesn't rest on evidence... It begins with assent rather than scepticism".

Great yarn. Until: >>To the scientific mind it is absurd that human marriage lies at the heart of creation<<. And >>This does not, however, vacate the idea of creation; the emphasis shifts from the material world to the world that men inhabit, that world of husband and wife being paramount.<<

... reveals your acceptance of human ontology is suppressed by Biblical Homophobia, yet you manage, "The Word of God gives the world ontological status."

You argue the scientific view forces believers to "think more deeply... creation and redemption must be held as one".

Let's check progress;

http://blip.tv/file/2707012

Trinitarianism, “is affirmed by the church councils of the fourth century after some controversy, is central to the theology of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Rhaner and about any other mainstream theologian that you can name.” - Sells

As Wells notes, Jesus was a prophetic teacher. He was a mendicant whom was “not” of the priestly type, “not” of the style well known to history from Sumer to the present.

Alternatively, Sells’ Nicaean Christianity is priestly, demonstrating many of the methods of worship, existing thousands before and thousands after Constantine, with priests, temples/churches, altars, councils and authorities on doctrine. Moreover, as I have posted on other threads, trinities are known to other religions: e.g. the Egyptians and the Hawaiians.

“A very important thing for us to note is the role played by the emperor in the fixation of Christianity. Not only was the council of Nicaea assembled by Constantine the Great, but all the great councils, the two at Constantinople (381 and 553), Epheus (431), and Chacedon (451), were called by imperial power.” (Wells)

Constantine and Theodosius I imposed Nicaean Christrianity on the people, top-down, leading to the persecutions of the Pagans and Christian run death camps. “There was to be no rivalry, no qualification to the rigid unity of the Church” (Wells). It is this tradition, which became, the legacy inherited by the scholars cited by Sells.

Besides, until 1054, all Nicaean Christians held that the Holy Ghost/Spirit proceeded from the Father. Only then, was “Filique” (and from the Son) added by the Latin Church. The probably orchestrated split between the Latin Church and the East Church, allowed for the Pope of Rome to consolidate power as pontifex maximus, to the exclusion of other players from Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem.

All this political power, within the frame of a priestly church, is human and has little to do with Jesus. The trinity is merely a contrivance by the same people. Priscillian is correct.

George,

I will reply to you. Above, I didn’t intend such a long post from the onset.

Sells,
since you have entered this debate, after having instigated it, it seems to me that you are obliged to enlarge on your position. We all get taken to task in this forum. It's not good enough to cast of a few deprecatory remarks to challengers. Your trinitarian theology has been engaged with vigorously, and I for one wish to hear from both sides. I've been reading your namesake, Robert Bellah, and have a genuine interest in his and your line of reasoning. If your position is reasonable, then its defensible ....

squeers:

are you *really* interested in the trinitarian debate? don't you sense that it's pretty much like astrologers arguing over the status of the outer planets? but of course, i'm just an amateur ...

in any case, of course people are free to debate such matters. i obviously couldn't care if god is One, or quintuplets. *however*, what seems to happen with sellick is that he talks deep (or "deep") theology, and then all of a sudden comes out totally unsupported weirdness: his "rampant secularization", his "man and woman" stuff. his weird theology goes god knows where, but then a stray tentacle appears out of nowhere, attaching its suckers to the real world. and my objections (and others') to the tentacle are dismissed or ignored, because i'm a theological amateur. that's when i get the irrits.

bushbred:

thanks for the kind words though not quite sure what inspired them. as for my nom-de-blogger, i chose it noting the ambiguity, but it refers to my desire to bash Bush (the dumber one). as it happens, i'm just another inner city pontificator.

but, speaking of Bush the Dumber, i'll note not just the existence of his spooned-on, self-serving, poisonous version of christianity, but that this revolting god-on-his-side nonsense was politically successful. just something to keep in mind as all the theological subtleties are being discussed.

Bushbasher...as you described Bush the Dumber, I had a Kodak snap of our PM, Mr. Howard Rudd, flash past my eyes, "the existence of his spooned-on, self-serving, poisonous version of christianity, but that this revolting god-on-his-side nonsense was politically successful", addressing the Australian Christian Lobby later this year.

Opening it no less, and happily announcing that he was granting the wish of his auld pal and spiritual equal, General Jimbo Wallace, ex SES commando and now Soldier of God, who is busy begging yet another $300m of our hard-earned tax dollars, to go largely to the Scripture Union of Qld, to help build the Empire Sells still dreams of.

That is indeed a real Trinity: tax monies, smoke-and-mirror deceit and Hillsong style humbug

Nope, not getting more mellow in his old age. We are still not worthy of Sells, according to Sells.
Oliver et al. has the right of it; there really is nothing new in your trinitarian religion. Catholicism and the Vatican in particular, with the pagan symbols, statues, ceremonies and splendour is still as barbaric as ever.
It really is a shame. In my reading of the Gospels, I see a man who genuinely tried to get rid of all that guff, and provide a Humanitarian form of religion; based on a couple of very simple rules.
What would that mendicant, who wandered around with just the clothes on his back think, to see the most grand palaces and glorious 'houses of worship' erected in his name, amidst poverty and squalor?