>There are no obvious problems unless one presupposes a non-Christian
>reality in which there is no God intervening with human weakness. Your
>objection is question begging.
After I furnished him with the argument in a fuller form, he resoponded;
Luke 12/1
> Besides, as one other contributor to the list pointed out, your premises
> do not state that Satan controls any matter at all, since you wrote that
> either God or Satan has this control, and your disjunction is not violated
> by the denial of one of the disjuncts.
> Having reported my disagreement with the premises, I shall delete
> the implications you make upon these premises.
Rather the intellectual equivalent of non-violent protesters who go
limp when the police ask them to move. Rather than deal with the assertions
themselves, he flops down and insists that until they are layed out with
complete formal perfection, rather more like (I guess) a term paper in one
of his philosophy classes than like the internet postings dashed off between
getting the kids of to school and leaving for my own classes in the morning
(which they are), he won't deal with them.
So I'll play his game for awhile here so we can see if somewhere
behind the philosobabbel there might lurk a genuine argument, or if rather,
like his fellow presuppers what we have is elaborate sophistry defended by
elaborate arabesques of formal logic designed to sound impressive and
confuse those unfamilier with the jargon.
So without further adu, lets lay the assertions out in repetitive
detail, just for Luke:
A1 The Bible presents Yahweh as a supernatural entity.
A2, The Bible presents Satan as a supernatural entity.
A2 The Bible presents us with Yaweh as having supernatural power
over ordinary matter.
A3 Ordinary matter can be manipulated by the supernatural power of
Satan.
A4 The Bible presents Satan as having supernatural powers over
ordinary matter.
A5 Ordinary matter can be manipulated by the supernatural power of
Satan.
A6 Satan is portrayed as an active antagonist.
A7 Satan is deceitful.
A8 The primary source of our knowledge about God or Satan is "The
Bible".
A9 "The Bible" consists of many old parchment, velum and paper
copies of older documents; all of these are nothing but ordinary matter.
This slight reworking removes the quibble about the disjunctive, so
I can move on to Lukes other complaints:
Luke 12/1
> I disagree. The Bible consists of more. It consists of certain propositions
> transcribed on that ordinary matter.
MWF 12/2
If I were Charlie Brown I'd say something like "good grief". Those
propositions are formed of certain kinds of ordinary matter arranged in
particular patterns on the other ordinary matter. The propositional content
exists not on the matter, but in the mind of the reader to who has learned
to interpret those particular patterns as written language. Rearrange the
patterns, the percieved proposition disappears or changes.
And more from Luke:
Luke 12/1
> To fully appreciate the weakness of this premise (A6), however, you need
to see
> . . .I could simply counter that the biblical devil does not have control
over
> all "ordinary" matter. Scripturally, there is no way for you to prove the
contradictory.
MWF 12/2
Oh, picking the earliest reference I can find:
Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of
ourselves . . ."
Christian theologians have danced around that passage for centuries.
Rather than accepting it at its plain face meaning they have contrived all
kinds of convuluted justifications to try and show that it refers to the
trinity, or that its merely usage of the royal collective, or some other dodge.
But the plain language implies other Gods, and a collective
action/judgement of those gods. I see no good reason to treat it as anything
else.
Genesis 11:7 "Come, let us go down and confuse their language . . . "
Exodus 18:11 "Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods . . ."
And to close out the Old testament for now:
From Exodus chap. 20; "You shall have no gods except me . . . For I,
Yahweh your God, am a jealous God . . ."
Again, Christian theologians interpret those passages, in lengthy
tortured languange, in accordance with their predjudices. However the
simplest understanding that does the least violence to the text is that the
Bible is speaking, just as it appears, of other gods IN ADDITION TO Yahweh.
Who seemed to be pretty much co-equals.
And then we can fast forward to the New Testament, to Luke 4:5 where
after "leading him to a height" Satan then "showed him in a moment of time
all the kingdoms of the world". Knowing now that this would have had to
include the Incas, the Aztecs, as well as the "Old Ones" of the American
southwest (can't remember how to spell it), and China and southeast Asia, as
well as Japan, we can justifiably infer that this would require substantial
supernatural powers, and then in 2 Thess 2:9-10 Satan is said to be able to
work miracles.
Thus there is substantial scriputural support, begining in the very
first chapter of the very first book of the accepted canon that Yahweh,
despite later glosses, is far from alone as a god in the universe.
Which only leaves us with the question of just how much that is in
the Bible can then be trusted.
Is it just a work of propoganda, as Luke tried to make my analysis
mean, or is it some kind of authentic attempt to communicate, but which has
been subject to conflicting influences from at least two Gods?
God himself changes his name from El Shaddai to Yahweh. Actual name
change or literary conciet and an attempt to regain control of the narrative?
So now to fix the problem spotted by Gareth.
A9 "The Bible" is ordinary matter.
A5 Ordinary matter can be manipulated by the supernatual power of Satan.
C1 "The Bible" can be manipulated by the supernatural power of Satan.
But we know that Satan is and active adversary of God who is
decietful, so we can add those adjectives to the description of Satan in C1.
"The Bible" can be manipulated by the supernatural power of Satan,
who is a decietful active adversary of God.
And revisiting Sun-tzu's _The Art of War_:
"Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle
of excellence. Thus the highest realization of warfare is to attack the
enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances . . ."
"Warfare is the Way of deception. Thus although [you are] capable,
display incapability to them. When committed to employing your forces, feign
inactivity. When [your objective] is nearby, make it appear as if distant;
when far away, create the illusion of being nearyby.'
"display profits to entice them. Create disorder [in their forces]
and take them."
So having the power, what should an adversary do who can affect the
communications of his enemy?
Ciao.
Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., lawstudent
http://www.sonoma.edu/cthink/Library/intraits.html
* * *
He that would make his own liberty secure,
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates this duty,
he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine