Comments on: Your Golden Square Triangle

By: Phil Stilwell

Phil Stilwell — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:36:27 +0000

Correct. There are other definitions in those premises for which christians will need to offer consistent definitions. The syllogism is a starting point for a rigorous treatment of redemption with christians to show inconsistencies in their application of terms such as “substitutionary”. I’ve found that christians most commonly end up admitting that they are defining terms differently for god and humans, and/or are arbitrarily adding/expanding denotations in an ad hoc fashion rather than with a cohesive system of causation/explanation.

I often ask christians whether a judge who offered up his own son to die as a “substitution” for a murderer condemned to death, then who simply jailed his son for 3 days would be a “just” judge. I then add that to parallel the biblical account, this 3-day incarceration of the son of the judge would need to cover the “deserved” deaths of billions of criminals. That’s a pretty good starting point for demonstrating the absurdity inherent to biblical redemption.

There is a deeper issue here centered around the equivocation on whether redemption is an appeasement of god’s wrath, or a product of his “justice”. Christians will have to choose one. Both lead to incoherencies. If redemption is appeasement, then you have god unforgivingly wrathful towards the very humans that he demands forgive each other without bloodshed. If redemption is a product of god’s “justice”, then anything other than a balanced substitution of a life for a life cannot be defended.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:47:25 +0000

I can see how definitions of justice can be relevant to P1, but not to P2 or P3 – and it’s in P2 and P3 that I see the flaw in this approach.

By: Phil Stilwell

Phil Stilwell — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 11:30:33 +0000

Unless the definition of fairies requires that fairies weigh less than boys. I often simply ask theists to define their notions of justice with human scenarios, then demonstrate that, in order for their god to be just, they’ll have to abandon their human standard of justice to salvage their attribution of “justice” to their particular deity. They can choose to abandon conventional definitions, but this will create a cognitive dissonance based on a realization that they have employed a double standard for a single term.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:23:12 +0000

I don’t think you can prove the non-existance of fairy dust by saying that fairies weigh less than boys who don’t want to grow up.

By: BigHouse

BigHouse — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 22:13:06 +0000

That’s the whole point, Thomas. Many christians want to say that their belief is logical. This is one example that shoots that notion down. If someone is a “fairy dust” kind of Christian then obviously logical arguments won’t sway their thinking.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:35:45 +0000

Of course it’s begging the question. I don’t see the point in convincing you one way or the other, and I don’t have to convince the believers.

At the same time, the OP could skip the whole thing (P1-P5) and just say that God doesn’t exist and be done with it.

Doesn’t it just make sense that fairy dust can make you fly and superman blood can wash more sin than moral blood?

By: BigHouse

BigHouse — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:54:36 +0000

After all, if one divine death can be propriation for all of humanity, there must be /some/ difference between the two.

This is begging the question.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 15:24:00 +0000

By no means did I redefine death. I just double checked my Great Encyclopedic Dictionary and the first definition is the same as the one I used. The second definition is the same as the one Phil seems to be using in the OP. I didn’t read any further definitions because I’d already seen enough to know that even dictionary writers (with no vested interest) can see botth interpretations – perhaps with a slight lean in the favor of my interpretation.

As for the difference between divine death and human death, I will leave that as an exercise for the reader. I contend that this difference will be intuitivly obvious to any beliver. After all, if one divine death can be propriation for all of humanity, there must be /some/ difference between the two.

By: BigHouse

BigHouse — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 12:56:30 +0000

Maybe adjectives was the wrong word. You redefine “death” and introduce a differentiation between human and divine death without explanation of why or sourcing your reasoning. I’d ask you to defend why you did that.

By: Phil Stilwell

Phil Stilwell — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 12:49:45 +0000

I agree that some believers will manipulate the bible in all its vagueness to paint themselves farther back into an ever-shrinking corner of logical possibilities. But it is while they are consciously engaged in this process of applying ad hoc fixes to the incoherency of their god that provides us the opportunity to point out to them what they are actually doing, and appeal to their intellectual honesty.