Why not believe in Thor or Leprechauns?

[Stranger]

Clearly we are all exposed to it.

Which kind of undermines your previous arguments. You were exposed to Christianity, so, when you had a 'religious experience' you interpreted it in those terms. As has already been said, if you'd been more exposed to another religion, it's likely you'd have interpreted it differently.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Something else you've never provided the slightest hint of a scintilla of evidence for.   

You provide most of it. I just flag it up.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which kind of undermines your previous arguments. You were exposed to Christianity, so, when you had a 'religious experience' you interpreted it in those terms. As has already been said, if you'd been more exposed to another religion, it's likely you'd have interpreted it differently.

Other religions do not have Christ, you are either divine yourself or the mediator between God and man are commandments and written word.

[Stranger]

You provide most of it. I just flag it up.

Mindlessly repeating it like a mantra (as you do with 'philosophical empiricism') isn't 'flagging it up'. You actually have to give some credible reason to think that it's happening.

Nobody has to dodge anything when no reason has been given to take it seriously in the first place.

[ekim]

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God is pretty clear cut to me.

Perhaps for the benefit of others, you could explain what that means.

[ProfessorDavey]

You were, in your own theory brought out of the oven too early Ha Ha.

Eh - err, what on earth are you on about Vlad.

My argument is that a cultural christian environment or even a PROPER CHRISTIAN UPBRINGING in culture and in heart and home does not a christian make. Only a commitment to Christ can do that.

Yet more not true scotsman non-sense.

My point (one backed up by extensive evidence) is that virtually no-one ever becomes a christian as an adult (regardless of whether they meet your Vlad-imposed criterion for a TRUE-CHRISTIAN) without having a christian upbringing. So a christian upbringing it pretty well necessary for someone to be a christian as an adult. However it isn't sufficient, as nearly half of people brought up as christians choose to become non-religious as adults.

[Stranger]

Other religions do not have Christ, you are either divine yourself or the mediator between God and man are commandments and written word.

The details of the religion are of no relevance to what I said.

[ProfessorDavey]

Not much of an argument, Vlad: presumably you'd have to be exposed to Christianity first in order to decide that you want to make a "commitment to Christ", since it seems unlikely that any one would make this "commitment" without first having been exposed to Christianity - which does seem rather circular.

I'm guessing it is the exposure to Christianity, plus the requisite amount of gullability, that is the key stage - and of course not everyone who is exposed to Christianity accepts it, but these days fewer are perhaps being exposed in the first place (the 'unchurched' I mentioned previously)

Absolutely spot on. Had Vlad not had the christian upbringing he did (faith school, Sunday school, attending christian worship etc) the likelihood that he'd be a christian now, as an adult, is vanishingly small.

[ProfessorDavey]

Clearly we are all exposed to it. We know this due to the lavish amount of Goddodging.

Vlad - no-one here is 'dodging god' as you cannot dodge something that doesn't exist.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Perhaps for the benefit of others, you could explain what that means.

Yes. At the beginning was what the writer of John's Gospel called the logos translated as the word. The word is God the son who was to be incarnated as Jesus. Now, the universe comes at the instruction of God i.e. the word, Christ or logos. This word or logos actually is God.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yet more not true scotsman non-sense.

An appeal to something that has it's limitations. No true human can ever be an orang utan is not a fallacy for instance but patently the case.

All you are arguing is for a definition that satisfies you.

Committed spiritual Christianity has to be delineated from cultural christianity, Churchgoing and sermon tasting not least to warn people that they may not have saving faith.

The question is therefore, which categories of 'christian' are you seeking to conflate?

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes. At the beginning was what the writer of John's Gospel called the logos translated as the word. The word is God the son who was to be incarnated as Jesus. Now, the universe comes at the instruction of God i.e. the word, Christ or logos. This word or logos actually is God.

Pure assertion and without a scrap of evidence to support it.

Worth noting that this was written way before our current understanding of the universe was developed through evidence that indicates that the universe is many billions (probably 13.8billion) of years old and that time itself isn't a constant. The writer would have been basing his thinking on earlier bible passages that compacted the whole universe-time prior to humans emerging into 7 days (or dismissed within the first 500 words). So that is dismissing 99.998% of the time the universe has been in existence into 0.016% of the words in the bible. Somehow I think he didn't really have any perspective nor any clue what was going on in 'the beginning'.

[Outrider]

As Outrider has said the age of polytheism is largely over Monotheism not so, Hinduism has developed it's own monist monotheism.

No, that's pretty much exactly the opposite of what Outrider said, that's what you tried to argue in response without actually addressing the argument. I pointed out that Christianity is a polytheistic belief system trying to claim monotheism, perhaps as an attempt to distances itself from 'primitive' earlier belief systems. I'm not that familiar with Hinduism, but I'm led to believe that whilst some interpretations see the array of godheads as manifestations of a single divinity that only one school of thought amongst many.

One that is able to cross cultures

But not all cultures. Sometimes it encounters cultures where it just withers - cultures with advanced education and social welfare systems that mean people don't need to try to find a philosophy to help them endure strife they don't really need to.

The abrahamic monotheisms

Islam and Judaeism?

and Buddhism have been able to do this and that is why they are referred to as world religions.

They are described as world religions because they have significant purchase across the world; you might choose to interpret that as something related to monotheism, but then you'd have to explain why Paganism and Christianity are also world religions.

Christianity has been going for 2000 years and has survived where geopolitical and geoscivilisations have failed and has even survived the upheaval.

So has Shinto, and other Animistic belief systems, to one extent or another. So has Judaeism. Christianity isn't special in that regard.

Cosmology and science starts with religion and proceeds with the idea that laws govern a reasonable cosmos.

Neither Cosmology nor science more broadly 'starts' with religion; they start with questions that religion hasn't been able to satisfactorily answer, and then go on to demonstrate why many of the questions religion thought it had satisfactorily answered it had actually got wrong. Religion - Christianity, at least, and many of the others - does not proceed with the idea that laws govern a reasonable cosmos, it starts with the idea that god is the magic that can overwrite the reasonable laws to perform 'miracles'.

O.

[jeremyp]

I don't think my distinction is artificial. Satan and the angels are not of the divine substance.

The trouble is that "divine substance" is defined in terms of gods. Something is divine if it is "of God" or "godlike". If you define a god as something made of divine substance, you have a circular definition.

They are created, Constructed rather than birthed. You are turning your ignorance of that into some kind of virtue I feel. That is what makes Christianity monotheism. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God is pretty clear cut to me.

If they are constructed by God, then they are "of God" i.e. divine i.e. gods in their own right. Satan is a deity. He even has worshippers.

[jeremyp]

the mediator between God and man are commandments and written word.

Why would you need a mediator if you have a personal relationship with God?

[jeremyp]

Yes. At the beginning was what the writer of John's Gospel called the logos translated as the word. The word is God the son who was to be incarnated as Jesus. Now, the universe comes at the instruction of God i.e. the word, Christ or logos. This word or logos actually is God.

When you analyse this without the confirmation bias of Christianity, it's obviously nonsense. Words are not sentient beings. Words don't become people or gods. It's just poetic gobbledygook.

[ekim]

When you analyse this without the confirmation bias of Christianity, it's obviously nonsense. Words are not sentient beings. Words don't become people or gods. It's just poetic gobbledygook.

There seems to have been a lot of confusion over the meaning of the word 'logos'.  This Wiki article gives an indication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

I don't know why one should believe what the author of John's Gospel has to say.  It might be of interest but still just an opinion.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

When you analyse this without the confirmation bias of Christianity, it's obviously nonsense. Words are not sentient beings. Words don't become people or gods. It's just poetic gobbledygook.

It's poetic metaphor. Put simply the universe exists only on God's say so.
It also tells us that every divine action is done by or through God himself, God is never impersonal. The opening of John's Gospel never talks about the ''word'' becoming God. The word is God. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Why would you need a mediator if you have a personal relationship with God?

You can only have a personal relationship because of what Christ did on the cross that is God taking on sin on himself in Jesus Christ.

[ProfessorDavey]

You can only have a personal relationship because of what Christ did on the cross that is God taking on sin on himself in Jesus Christ.

Baseless assertion. There is precious little credible (i.e. contemporary, independently verified, non-partial) evidence that Jesus even existed, still less how he died. And there is, of course, no evidence even for the existence of god so until or unless you can provide credible evidence that god even exists the whole notion that this chap or that chap did this on behalf of god, or that god did this on behalf of us is ... well ... entirely moot.

[Stranger]

You can only have a personal relationship because of what Christ did on the cross that is God taking on sin on himself in Jesus Christ.

Which just underlines the total absurdity of Christianity. We all get punished and separated from god by god, because somebody ate the wrong fruit ages ago (or whatever the hell that's supposed to represent), then god turns into a man and makes sure to get tortured to death (but not really, really death because he's back with the living again after three days) and that magically makes things okay again, but only if we are mad enough to accept this bizarre, sadomasochistic bullshit.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Neither Cosmology nor science more broadly 'starts' with religion; they start with questions that religion hasn't been able to satisfactorily answer, and then go on to demonstrate why many of the questions religion thought it had satisfactorily answered it had actually got wrong. Religion - Christianity, at least, and many of the others - does not proceed with the idea that laws govern a reasonable cosmos, it starts with the idea that god is the magic that can overwrite the reasonable laws to perform 'miracles'.

O.

You are wrong the earliest modern western scientists worked on the assumption that God ordered the universe and such order made it worthwile for ordered systematic study People like Newton , Kepler et al.

Physicist and Atheist Paul Davis acknowledges the christian paradigm implicit in natural law. Your last paragraph is probably the biggest load of antireligious twaddle ever shat out on this message board.

[ProfessorDavey]

You are wrong the earliest modern western scientists worked on the assumption that God ordered the universe and such order made it worthwile for ordered systematic study People like Newton , Kepler et al.

I don't think we can really be sure of that at all. Certainly it is likely that they believed in god and specifically christianity but I suspect their scientific research (as for most scientists) is simply to understand more and the notion of whether what they found out was, or was not, directly attributed to god was a key part of their motivation is speculation. Actually I think there is a long and (ig)noble tradition of theist scientists 'compartmentalising' - effectively placing their religious belief in one box and their scientific understanding in another so that they don't really have to address the issues of conflict one with the other.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which just underlines the total absurdity of Christianity. We all get punished and separated from god by god

That is not Christianity. Adam or man is the one who spoils the relationship, his legacy, Human society is despoiled as a result of it and all humans suffer from the acts of humans who come before.....say that ain't so

then god turns into a man and makes sure to get tortured to death

In order to take sin on himself

(but not really, really death because he's back with the living again after three days)

His humanity is resurrected by divinity. Was Dead now risen from dead

and that magically makes things okay again,

Not magically that would be the case if God just magickly waived the consequences of sin away without taking it on himself.

[Outrider]

You are wrong the earliest modern western scientists worked on the assumption that God ordered the universe and such order made it worthwile for ordered systematic study People like Newton , Kepler et al.

I appreciate that wikipedia isn't necessarily authoritive, but a quick check shows me that they're both dead.  Individual scientists, historically, might have proceeded from that start point, but modern science does not take that as a start point, and certainly Cosmology - which is a relatively new field if we're considering Newton and Kepler - hasn't started from that point.

Physicist and Atheist Paul Davis acknowledges the christian paradigm implicit in natural law.

He might, on a personal level, but it's not science when he does, even if he's professionally a scientist.

Your last paragraph is probably the biggest load of antireligious twaddle ever shat out on this message board.

I look forward to your detailed explanation of how Christianity doesn't rely on stories of magic by a magician to try to generate authority for its multiple sky-fairies with bated breath, and how it does not rely on (literally) deus ex machina explanations for existence.

O.