Ya, I wasn't referring to that as a means to prove existence, but rather to indicate how a theist would counter your objection that "that the 'agreed' meaning of god may in itself be biased and manipulated to favour religion".

He'd simply say: Meh - show me a more coherent, objective and unbiased definition of the term "God" that is at least as strong as id quo maius cogitari nequit. If you can do that - I'd have no issue using that instead."

You're saying that because the logic(s) that 'prove' the existence of god seem to rely on god being great, excellent and perfect etc, that if he exists, we can take our understanding of his nature from that? It's implied?

What about the logic that suggets that he exists simply because he must? Defitinions of his behaviour would then fall to us to create, no?

You're getting too fixated on the "existence"-part.

The only reason why I referred to Anselm was his definition of god as "that beyond which nothing greater can be conceived." He's not saying: There is a god, and god is suchandsuch. Rather, he's trying the other way around: Suppose we simply take our notions of the meaning of the word God and formalize it. Id quo maius cogitari nequit is Anselms suggestion.

With that formalized definition of the meaning of the term God he now makes two further arguments, one merely implicit because it's taken for granted among anyone he was debating at his time, one explicit. The implicit one is that a conception of god that entails, for example, God being mischieveous would allow you to conceive something more perfect and complete that that - namely a notion of god that does not entail being mischieveous. Etc. etc. etc. Id quo maius cogitari nequit is basically Anselms short-cut of saying "Dude, let's not quibble over semantics - we're talking about the meaning of the word God. OF COURSE God is perfect in every way. wtf!?"

Now, Anselm makes a second argument - but we're leaving him before he makes it.

We came here by me pointing to the possibility of reductio ad absurdum to counter your "What if..." re Lemonzest. You replied that there's some sense in that and that perhaps it's better to question the notion of God as being all-just, all-loving etc. as being in itself biased.

All I'm saying in response to that is: Well, what better, less biased and tendentious definition of the meaning of the word God would you suggest?

You missed an x. Your edit doesn't match me not having a point since my only point was it was popular and people didn't refrain from it, many when given the choice chose it.

I am sure many Rabbi's recoil at the thought of the NT. The NT isn't a rewriting of the OT it is more like an expansion pack. Much of the OT revolves around predictions of a Messiah coming and the NT puts forth Jesus of Nazareth as this Messiah.

Christianity is not a rewriting of Judaism but a fulfillment and continuation of Judaism - Part 2 if you will.

You are correct though that almost all religous Jews reject the NT and Jesus as Messiah.

In your heart, do you really believe that the bible is either accurate or not actually just a product of the times in which it was written and that has little bearing on the modern world?



You have no verifiable reason to think this,

You are correct.

Is the bible accurate?

Many NT scholars would argue the Bible is accurate in the sense of the actual words that are written down.

If you are referring to whether or not the events actually ocured then that is a different discussion.

Was the bible just a product of its times with little bearing on the modern world?

I obviously disagree (in my heart) otherwise I wouldn't be a Christian.
I believe the bible is inspired by God and relevant to the modern world and the future.

I should add, it is not that I hold to the bible as a static set of rules. The bible is a sign post to a real God. The bible is just something to direct us toward a relationship with Yahweh and provide some context.

Sigh...This is the quote i commented on.
It says nothing about rewriting the bible.

It says to change the massage is bad. Many Jewish people would consider the NT a changing of the message. The reality is there was probably a rabbi or two who made a similar statement about the NT.

I don't think I was saying that there's a less biased meaning that should be used instead so much as that basing any premise on the assumed character of god might not be justified.

Do you take any, or all of it literally? There are several christian sects that believe the bible to be metaphorical are there not?

But I'm not talking about a character - I'm talking about the meaning of a word... That word - in my world - refers to an existing being, but that's neither here nor there.

So debating these matters between believer and nonbeliever hinges on us both finding a patch of neutral ground, so to speak. Talking about concepts and meanings of words is such a neutral ground.

Remember how we got here: You asked "But what if god wanted to say something different in the bible and we grossly misunderstand." I pointed out that's ultimately inconsistent with the meaning of the word God by way of reductio ad absurdum. You can now try going: "Is it really? Let's take a formal definition of the meaning of the word. Do you agree with aristotle's notion of 'unmoving mover'? Let's try that!" I might buy into that and run with it.

The thing you can - or rather should - not do (because it'll just lead to me going and the debate not progressing) is saying: "But the meaning of the word god is actually 'Bumbling incompetent idiot.'"

Ok, I think I see what you're saying. I've created a Skeptical regress again in that my premise required another argument before it could suport my conclusion? Before we can find a common assumption we first have to agree on a definition or meaning for god that would support that (my) assumption which in this case would be that 'we can't know whether or not the bible accurately reflects god's intentions since we can't know what those intentions are'.

If the previous paragraph is correct, then doesn't that also apply to Lemon and he should provide an argument for why the bible is in fact an accurate record of god's intentions before he can argue that to change it would be to dishonour god? That being the case, a better response on my part would have been to ask for that argument?

Yes. IoW: "We can't know whether the bible accurately reflects..." under the normal meaning of the word God leads to a deus malignus-argument.

So in order to make your counter "potent", you'd have to show first that there is a way of conceiving the meaning of the term God that allows your hypothetical and does not automatically lead to a deus malignus again.

That is the "counter-side" of the deus malignus: He (or rather I) have already given that argument: We showed that assuming the term god includes notions such as just and loving and omnipontent etc., it's incoherent to assume that the bible is not, in broad outlines, a truthful account.**** So if you wanted to take that approach, I guess you'd have to question our notion of God as that notion is what allows us to argue thus.

Technically, I suppose, you could do that. You're just in a weak position here (strategically speaking) as (a) lemon has philosophical tradition on his side*** and (b) you'd simply play a game of "you go first, no, you do, no u".

***meaning that throughout history theists and atheists alike agreed in rough outlines on the meaning of the term. That doesn't mean that they have all the same conception of God - the aristotelian unmoving mover is something very differnt from the christian trinity and that something different from a supercharged monotheism that's more emblematic for islam - but they commonly ascribe a range of simmilar attributes: omniscience, omnipotence, justice etc. (we could quibble about the specifics here, obv.) So if you were to challenge him conceiving the term God, you're essentially asking "why do you keep your meaning of the term consistent with how the term was conceived throughout history." And while that's technically a meaninful question, you'd nevertheless just get a as an answer.

****As lemon outlined, "truthful account" in itself can be understood in different ways and does not commit one to believing that god decreed he hates the gheyz or some such.

So unless I can come up with an argument that undoes hundreds of years of debate by minds far greater than mine (and let's face it, that is not going to happen) I'm reduced to having to accept a religous person saying that their scriptures accurately reflect their god's intentions/meaning/desires (whatever) and that changing them would be disrespectful.

Hmmm. That sucks. I wonder if on some intuitive level I've always understood that (or recognised my limitations) and it's why I don't like to argue specifics but rather address the issue of why there is religion in the first place. Perhaps I'll stick to the latter and see if I can improve the logic that I hope to use to support it.

lol. That's not all that tragic. You're only accepting that it's coherent to conclude from a certain view of god to a general reliability of scripture. It's just accepting a certain version of language game as being not overtly incoherent. There's no ontological commitment of any sorts attached to this.

MB, I've suggested a few times that you try and find out what arguments have actually been successful in turning theists to atheists. To help you, I've started a thread here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13.../test-1287754/

I was thinking about you yesterday when I was reading about the Availability Heuristic and wondering if that's part of what's at play when Theists are converted to Atheism (and visa versa). I'm wondering if the mind simply works in a way that examples have more impact on most people than more abstract theories. It's a cognative bias that I hadn't previously appreciated maybe.

I'll keep an eye on the thread. thanks.

Do you take any, or all of it literally? There are several christian sects that believe the bible to be metaphorical are there not?

See below article by D.A. Carson an Evangelical theologian (also Canadian ).
Carson makes some excellent points regarding biblical hermeneutics.

In short, some parts of the bible are metaphorical and other parts are to be taken literally.

http://www.uwo.ca/chaplain/crc/artic...st_i_learn.pdf

Has anyone actually read the linked article in the OP?

The italicized part is what is indeed the standard explanation for this. Pseudepigraphy is not a exclusively biblical phenomenon; there are a number of reasons why people did it. It wasn't, however, considered simply lying.

The bolded is new to me and he doesn't give any references for this claim. I've created a thread in the History forum, but so far no takers.

If someone could provide some insight/sources/references - I'd be grateful.

Bart Ehrman discusses pseudepigraphy in some of his lectures. I would be interested to know what consensus biblical scholars have come to IRT OT & NT authorship. Is there confirmed pseudepigraphy of some books?

Take it fwiw, but Ehrman expands on the point a bit in his book "Forged":

The endnote 31 refers to is this:

The truth is elusive when it comes to history. It is so hard to know what actually happened. I have mad respect for Ehrman as a scholar & historian I just don’t know how objective his view point is.

When I say, “I don’t know how objective his view point is” I mean that sincerely. I don’t want to be guilty of dismissing Ehrman simply because he says something I don’t’ like. Conversely, Ehrman seems to have an agenda to undermine the authorship of the NT.

Why does Ehrman have this agenda to undermine NT authorship?

a. Because his objective study of historical documents led him to believe NT authorship is in question.

b. Because he is a jaded ex-Christian

I am not pointing the finger at Ehrman here I seriously don't know what to think, but the guy fascinates me.

When Ehrman was an Evangelical Christian, he held a view of biblical inerrancy and IMHO, he put too much "weight" into that doctrine, so when he saw difficulties in the New Testament literature, he simply "overreacted". It's an exaggeration to state that scholars don't have much of an idea of who wrote the canonical gospels. Even if there are several errors in the literature of the New Testament, that doesn't imply the underlying "good news" is erroneous.

Wiki (and sourced from 'Jesus, Interrupted')

Short answer: NT yes, OT no. It depends a bit on what you mean by "confirmed". Regarding Paul, the term "deutero paulinic", indicating that this is a letter that was attributed to Paul but is likely not by him, is established and undisputed practice in NT scholarship (at least as far as I'm aware of).

To expand slightly on ^^that,

- clearly, many of the OT books have a long (and by that I'm talking centuries) history of augmentation, redaction etc. So technically, I guess any scribe who added someting to Isaiah is in some sense creating a piece of pseudepigraph. But that's not what's usually meant by the term. If you take it's conventional meaning, you don't have many likely candidates as many of the OT books aren't claimed to be by some individual that also wrote other books. We'll never know whether iseah really was named iseah, so to speak, but that's neither here nor there. So OT - no, not really.
- NT - Yes. Here the question is: what counts as "confirmed"? You can "prove" pseudepigraphy if a letter claims to be written by paul, yet mentions the recent super bowl, i.e. if he betrays in some fashion that he's clearly not written by the claimed author. Other methods of "suggesting" something is pseudepigraph would be by comparisons of the implied theology in a writing, the used vocabulary etc. Obv. here, the level of "confirmation" you can derive from that is decreasing. Perhaps Paul was having a theological change of heart? Or he was drunk, leading to the use of a completely different vocabulary? You can suggest that either is highly unlikely - and in that sense, there are confirmed pseudepigrapha in the NT - but that's as far as you can get.

Completely forgot: ^^zumby, thanks for the quote. I'll see what I can find on my next trip to the library.