junglecat

I tried to post a video that had a great example of what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, it looks as if it didn't make it past the censors. I love the irony in your quote- "Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?"

So what do you make of all of Molyneux's contradictions? As I've dug into his thought more I have found him to be inconsistent, particularly on the use and support of state power. Or is even calling attention to these contradiction not allowed in this forum?

The god we see revealed in the pages of the Bible is the conception of men through the ages. What you see as contradiction is a process of cultural evolution over a long period of time. By the time we get to Jesus and the Roman Empire there are two very distinct brands of gods. There was a good reason the Christians were persecuted for two centuries. Their god mythology ran completely counter to the gods of the Romans. The modern way of looking at gods is that they are abstract, non-corporeal beings that we can dismiss because they can't be investigated scientifically. This has nothing to do with the cultural context of gods as they evolved in ancient times. Myth and ritual were how people thought about and kept societies organized. If we fail to understand the meaning of ancient mythology, we will never see our own mythology. That's what we see in post-modernism.

Also, when you talk about the god of the Bible it is helpful to contrast it with the qualities of other gods of equal antiquity. The writers of the books of the Bible were writing against those gods. Jesus completes the final deconstruction of the Greek and Roman gods who ruled through violence.

I agree with you. The reason I ask is that I heard a video of Molyneux where he said 'proving moral inconsistencies of a moralist is sufficient cause to reject his arguments as a whole'.

The first definition of faith in the Oxford dictionary is "Complete trust or confidence in someone or something" The Greek word 'pistis' is translated into English as 'faith' and it usually meant trust in the evidence given. One modern definition of faith may be belief without evidence but it's not the only one and certainly not the meaning in the context of the New Testament.

If someone has contradicted one's own philosophy should we then throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak? Doe it make one's philosophy null and void if one is not able to consistently live by it's premises?

Still trying to figure out your reasoning on this one. You say Job is guilty because he was righteous. He's guilty because, being righteous, God bragged about him and the deal with Satan ensued. It's strange that you don't throw God or Satan under the bus but blame Job. What about Job's so-called friends? Are they right in their accusations?

Can you elaborate? I'm stuck in a quagmire of metaphor here.

Aiding the paradigm shift is like forcing a flower to bloom or shaping water. It seeks it's own level. (I hope you don't think I am suggesting watering anything down) A baby is born through the mother's work, not the baby's. If it seems stagnant, never fear. Parturition is just around the corner. Conversion can happen even for the 'elect'. It certainly happened for me with Girard's work.

I think a big reason that snags theologians is the concept of the inerrancy of the Biblical text. On one level it is true, there are universal truths in Job and Genesis, etc. On another level we see a progression. The same in modern science and cosmology. Newtonian physics works fine. Quantum theory seems to contradict the macro-level physics. Thomas Kuhn coined the term paradigm shift in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Theology and science get stuck in the idea that we know how the world works. Now it's just a matter of filling in the details. This cuts us off from the 'eureka' that takes us to the next level, the 'conversion'.

and can the contradiction of thought also be thought of as an evolution of thought? The world is dynamic. Culture is growing and changing. The same can be said of mankind's conception of God. I should hope there are contradictions otherwise we might be still performing human sacrifice as religious rite.

Give me your best contradiction of God.

Forget the "for other people's sin" part for the moment. How would Jesus (or anyone) prove that love is superior to the law. Can you substantiate your assertion?

Prohibitions and sacrifice are the law. As Saint Paul said, "the law brings wrath. Where there is no law there is no transgression" Jesus divinized love, not law. UPB sounds reasonable at a very surface level. The question is always 'what is truth?'. Pilate asked this of Jesus. Jesus remained silent.