George,

In the present debate it is not the case that I am trying to find the strongest construct as the plausible agent of creation, for myself. Instead, I have been saying Sells et al. would do better to examine a large set of mediators, before choosing one mediator. Likewise, how do humans know if we are the only true mammals, without looking at other species, wherein we might find there are mammals, non-mammals and fictitious animals (unicorns). If you only believe in unicorns, then, by laying many beliefs out on the table, you might discover that unicorns do not exist and that belief in unicorns is not fundamentally different than belief in griffins.

Of course, different theists' understanding of the perceived truth is mediated by theism-in-culture. Just look to the Middle East. If the OT is correct about the Promised Land would it not serve Muslims to know this case? Alternatively, if Moses is a myth or a confabulation, should not the Jews discover the same on moral grounds?

While we use English as a language we do not so believing English is the only language. Besides, occasionally at OLO, we do use other languages, e.g., a priori, is Latin.

My critique of Sells is that he says Christian Trinity “is” god presumably without considering the alternatives. Also, when we write about English we do not do so without denying that there are Old Norse, French, Germanic, Greek, Latin and Sanskrit borrowingss. How could we do this without acknowledging there are other languages. Herein, English is to languages as Amon-Re is to religion.

On the other hand, I have never heard a Christian priest say the Serapis Trinity appears a template to the Christian Trinities. Although, perhaps a few twenty-first century priests might admit Christianity did borrow Mithras feast days, to placate the Romans.

When I point my five converged fingers at the moon, I might miss Venus and Jupiter.

Squeers,

Thanks.

In high school my nickname was “Spock”. There being a 97.6453434232313 chance this reflected the ability to impersonate Vulcan faces over any testimony to logic. :-)

Squeers,

You ask something that anyone bound to a particular religion or doctrine should ask. The Trinity is a theological construct that certainly makes sense within the biblical witness to the nature of God - it is also a theological construction that begins on a secondary level of interpretation.

Interestingly, in viewing in all spectrums of theological thought, the ‘process theology’ movement, whilst initially taking its cue from the more traditional or orthodox, seems to move beyond it, suggesting that as we move into the future, into this ‘Age of the Spirit’, an Age that has similarities to the ‘Age of Faith’, we must understand that we can’t simply reinstall the earlier age. Instead we must seek the jewels among the junk – both from the ‘Age of Faith’ and the ‘Age of Belief’.

What many ‘process theologians’ (e.g. Charles, Hartsone, Philip Clayton) advocate is Christian panentheism – the theological position that God is immanent within the Universe, but also transcends it. It is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe. What is given up from classical theism is the aseity (referring to the characteristic of being ‘un-derived’) and immutability of God: the understanding of God as self-sufficient and unchanging. By trying to meet the ‘‘perfection’’ standards of Greek metaphysics, some Patristic and Scholastic theologians, and some evangelical theologians, ironically, have asserted qualities of God that are estranged from an original biblical theism, drawing away from its own deeper logic and insight.

Oliver,
If it is not the case that you were after the “strongest construct” among the many religions - including the “construct” that they are all just fantasies, hallucinations with no relation to reality (that seems to me to be your preference) - then I do not know what was our bone of contention. Surely, we cannot prescribe Sells the topic he should write about. Why not write an article, or start a general discussion, on comparative religion, yourself?

I am sorry I did not succeed in explaining my position to you. We have already once agreed to disagree, so let us now agree that we do not understand each other on these matters, and hope that on other topics we might have a more fruitful exchange of ideas, since I think we see many things similarly.

Squeers,
The sentence dropped from my previous post because of word-count:

I try to understand people who are frustrated by religion, or don’t know how to read “sacred texts”, by recalling my dislike of post-modernism, also based on incomprehension and frustration, because I know that this cluster of world-views is adhered to also by undoubtedly intelligent people.

Thanks for “outing yourself” as apparently much younger - and at home on the other side of C.P. Snow’s divide - than I. Do you remember the “science wars” of the late nineties triggered by post-modernist abuse of mathematics and physics, involving also Lyotard and Lacan (c.f. Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont, ‘Fashionable nonsense’, Picador 1998) ?

As for Taylor, “how should we live” concerns ethics, not the “structure of reality”, although both are interrelated and part of one’s world-view. I did not understand what you meant by a world-view holding sway. Surely you don’t want a prevalent world-view against which others are appraised. I somehow do not think Taylor’s idea of reality would be similar to Lyotard’s, if I properly understood your terse description.

Also, Jameson would not be the only one who sees post-modernism as a pathology, although I have learned that one can gain valuable insights also from the most weird philosophies.

WHY IS IT SO
we reap..as we did sow/sewed

..the blind/leading the blind..

god/made..the universe/etc
said..its our's..to make it..as we chose

but/THIS IS SATANS/realm...

god built it/sustains it to/live/life
to see god..look at nature/natureal/
life..all nature/natural...god did

what we do..to nature..is being done by man/
collectivly..the embodyment..of satan..
though in gods image..natural/image..unbrazillioned image

..here is the acts of our collective/satan..

What happened/Thursday November..5,2009 was a tragedy....Gunman Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly snapped..and went on a shooting rampage at Fort-Hood in Texas,

is starting to have/earmarks and anatomy/of a disinformation psy-ops story.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/fort-hood-shooter-information-not-adding-up.html

Everything About Nidal Malik Hasan Screams “Patsy”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/everything-about-nidal-malik-hasan-screams-patsy.html

The Empire strikes back/..right when when public support..for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan sinks..to all time lows,.

.an anti-war Islamic extremist/..with links to suicide bombers..goes on a shooting rampage/at a U.S. army base,..reinvigorating support..for the war on terror

and demonizing opposition to it..as anti-American extremism.

The scam would be believable..if it wasn’t so perfectly staged/globally.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/just-like-911-patsies-qurans-immediately-discovered-after-hasan-shooting.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/what-happened-to-the-accomplice-shooters.html

Was Fort Hood Killer On Psychotropic Drugs?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/was-fort-hood-killer-on-psychotropic-drugs.html

Despite the fact that Fort Hood gunman Nidal Malik Hasan..was a psychiatrist,..the media has/failed to even raise the question..of whether he was taking psychotropic drugs..before he gunned down over a dozen of his colleagues during yesterday’s tragic rampage,

a hefty indictment..of how the establishment rushes to blame politics,..religion,..gun rights,..or any other factor for mass shootings..in order to hide..

..the direct link..between such massacres..and the use of anti-depressant drugs.

recall the other recent shootings..attacks on bases/check-points etc etc..just in last few days of news..=dis-info..campain..to put presure on obama..by the banker/industrialists...cleaning up from war..via the dis-info media machine/spin/merchants..latest..

http://www.prisonplanet.com/two-killed-six-injured-in-orlando-shooting.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/swine-flu-panic-in-ukraine-crisis-or-political-ploy.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/chomsky-confronted-on-911.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/our-terrorists.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/as-of-yesterday-the-feds-changed-the-rules.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/now-is-the-time-for-americans-to-be-relentless.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/muslims-fear-backlash-in-wake-of-fort-hood-massacre.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-frightening-insensitivity-following-shooting.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/h1n1-vaccines-too-little-too-late-most-people-already-exposed-and-immune.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/remarks-by-czech-president-vaclav-klaus-on-cap-and-trade.html

nature=god
bu-sin-ness=us

but govt..dont rule for us
it rules..against the natural..over us

Relda,

Do you see evidence of religions as societal memes or similar? Christian pantheism would seem very different to the Christianity before the Great Divergence. The Reformation might be seen as a flowering and branching process, away from, a Holy Roman Empire tethered to Nicaea, which was more doctrinaire than the humanism of a revered mendicant, Jesus. Likewise, in the sweep of a few thousand years, we see Urgatic and Babylonian myths become the henotheism of the Canaanites and ultimately the monotheism of Moses’ Hebrews. And here we have only one path of one of the three Abrahamic religions, among thousands of religions. Herein, we have religions competing against each other, for preservation, whilst adapting to changes in politics and science.

While not wishing to draw the comparison with biology too strongly, it would seem that a religion, especially, a monotheistic religion, is like an academic discipline in that it must balance preservation of its kernel to survive and change to survive: A dynamic oxymoron. Over time, some characteristics are preserved and others change. The idea of a Christian Trinity would be as foreign to the writers of the Code of Hammurabi, or even Jesus, as the notion of melding orthodox Christianity to pantheism would have been to the Council of Kent.

The three big players, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, at times, seem like the three Orwellian superstates in a perpetual war, with periodic changes of alliances, in a fight for survival. Under the Papists and Monarchs the Jews were enemies, yet under the modern Nation State the Christians and Jews fight Islam. At some dark, deep level none want the other two to exist.

George,

Thanks for your reply.

What I am saying is that Sells writes as if the Ace of Hearts is the only ace in the pack and the only court card. There is a bigger picture. There are at least* four aces in a card deck and there are plenty of court cards. Sells certainly doesn’t ask, “What are playing cards or am I living in a card game”?

Lorentz transformations allow for several inferential frames. Had Einstein and Lorentz, stayed within one frame, say Newtonian Mechanics; that decision would have been their right to choose. Yet, consider the consequences?

Likewise, one has the right to not compare Lincoln’s views on the Preservation of the Union vis-à-vis Slavery, and, write as if the Lincoln of 1865 was the same as the politician Lincoln, before the US Civil War. Like Linus (above) and Sells, one can choose not to look at all the facts - yes. On the other hand, should an OLO article writer were to cite; 2, 3, 11, 17, 23, 47, 53, 59, 61, 73 and 89, as the prime numbers between 1 through 100. I suspect you and others might point out the series is incomplete (error by omission).

Moreover, I recall Hawking saying that the Green-Schwarz Mechanism is very attractive, yet it needs to be tested and if found wanting must be changed/dropped. Living (untested) the Green-Schwarz Mechanism is an arrested state.

Also, as stated in more detail above, methodologically, it makes more sense to test for a Creation agent before identifying a specific god. Would Sells have Mohammed in Baghdad never consider Jesus? Should Thaeatetus assume Zeus god, a priori, and not consider alternatives?

If I had a little more time, available I would write something myself. Unlike, Sells I would feel committed to addressing most replies, which would be time consuming. I am still working and usually toggle to make OLO posts/replies.

*A Joker can be an ace in some card games.