You say you know that I don’t believe God lives in the sky, but it therefore eludes me as to why you persist with the “sky god” line. You say it is to do with mythical roots of Christianity, but this is circular. You assert that God is a sky god because of your belief that the roots of Christianity are mythical, and your belief that the roots lie in a sky god. You will forgive me for being unconvinced by this line, which appears to be nothing more than prejudice.

You say that every priest you have met is an out and out liar (and you make other accusations). I note that (a) I have no way to evaluate the varacity of these claims. There are two sides to every story. (b) that you are arguing from the particular to the general. Because you believe the limited number of priests you have met are liars, you assume that all theologians lie to their congregations. This is clearly invalid. It may point to an unfortunate experience of yours, but it says nothing about a generality of theologians. Indeed, because it is clear that many theolgians and priests are not liars, it is clear thay you are incorrect.

Of course I cannot convince you of that, as you seem to have declined my challenge to actually read some of the works of theologians or priests.

As regards Friedrich the Uebermensch, and spelling his name, I have extreme diffculty arranging the letters at the end of his name. I find it much easier just to omit the ones I am not sure about

I also note that Hubert Dreyfus admitted it took him many years to spell that name correctly. Ayn Rand is interesting – particularly political philosophy, but I was particularly mentioning philosophers I have read with whom I disagree. I could have mentioned others, but rather than attempting to brag about my reading habits, my intent was rather to suggest you might like to read something with which you disagree: i.e., some Christian literature.

Supernatural sky-god is not even close to accurate. I know of no Christian now or ever who has asserted that God lives in the sky

For someone pleased to assert a religious faith based on ancient allegory you seem overly keen to pursue a close and literal reading of my remarks. Yes of course I know you don’t believe your God lives in the sky – we can leave aside the question of where, precisely, you think he does live – but my point was, obviously, to refer to the origins of the Old Testament myths of God.

Every priest I’ve met has been an out-and-out liar. They have to be that or stupid, anyway. So don’t give me this ‘assertion’ nonsense; you’re asserting the existence of a supernatural creator of the Universe, so you certainly trump me on questionable assertions, sunshine. Try spelling Nietzsche correctly and give up reading Ayn Rand. Very sophomoric.

I read challenging work most days. Just not mystery-mongers.

I met a Christian down your way – worked with him for a bit – and he was lying sod. Can give you full details if you like but better not do that publicly. He lied about several things, carries on lying to this day, and happily goes to church. It goes that way with just about every Christian I’ve ever met. They’re mostly very poor adverts for their professed beliefs.

I do think, yes, that Christian priests basically lie to their congregations. Unless they’re evangelicals, then they’re just idiotic.

Three times you have asserted it without a shred of evidence. You do not know many Christian priests. This is just a delusion of yours.

Supernatural sky-god is not even close to accurate. I know of no Christian now or ever who has asserted that God lives in the sky. You might find it interesting to read J N D Kelly’s excellent “Early Christian Doctrines”, where he recounts the formation of the doctrines of the early Church, and the debates surrounding them. In this you will see why this description of yours has never had any currency.

Dan Brown should probably also have read the book. It might have helped him avoid his lamentable failure to get just about any facts right in his book. (But then, this is a man who cannot even use an etymological dictionary to confirm the derivation ot the word “sincerely”, so perhaps that would have been too much to expect).

I did not call call Augustine’s conception of time “relativistic”, Russell did that. (Well I suppose I did say it – but Russell said it first ).

Clearly Augustine was a long way from actually being first to propose the theory of relativity, but just as Democritus hit on the idea of atoms, Augustine did, through logical reasoning, arrive at a relativistic view of time – placing it for the first time as a created thing and not a backdrop on which all things are created.

Note that I did not say that Augustine beat Einstein to an understanding of relativity. I said that he was the first to propose a relativistic understanding of time. Which is true (although clearly incomplete, just as Democritus’ atoms turn out to be a long way from the peculiar reality of the quantum universe).

I’ll carry on reading Russell, Hume, Nietze, Rand and any other philosopher or writer with whom I disagree. I read secular humanist literature, and try to expose myself to as wide a range of contary opinions as possible. The behaviour whereby we prefer to read the things we agree with leads to polarisation of viewpoints, misunderstanding and fear.

The question, of course, is whether you would be willing to read thoughtful works from those with whom you disagree? Perhaps J N D Kelly’s work above for starters. Perhaps, say, a biography of Martyn Lloyd Jones.

You won’t agree with all you read – why should you? But in exposing yourself to another viewpoint you may see that :

a) Christian theologians do not lie to their congregations (I cannot say this has never happened, but certainly they generally do not)

b) There are interesting things to be found in Christian thought and history.

c) That whilst you may well have adquately analysed the assumptions you see in Christian thought, you may become aware of those in your own thought of which you were not prevously aware.

How about it? You could read a book and critique it on your blog. I’ll watch the blog and comment when appropriate. If nothing else, it gives something more interesting to write about then the Da Vinci Code!

Christians believe in a supernatural deity and I think Gore Vidal’s dig at a ‘sky god’ was probably an accurate account of the origin of the myth. Supernatural sky-god sums it up pretty accurately.

You can call Augustine’s conception of time ‘relativistic’ if you like but you’re clearly trying to link a pre-scientific theologian to modern physics, quite unreasonably. It’s an accident of language, that use of the word ‘relativistic’ and Augustine’s account has nothing at all in common with later mathematical descriptions.

Still, I hope you carry on reading Russell.

You now claim they are just deliberately lying – but you have offered no evidence for your assertion, and the evidence is all against you, as you would know, were you reading what theologians are saying about these things.

Incidentally, nice straw man on a “supernatural sky-god”. I have never met a Christian that believes in such. The other beliefs you impute to me are also straw men, and I am sure you have a firm enough grasp of Christianity to realise why.

As regards the debate over Genesis, I see I wrote “literacy” when I meant to write “literalness”. This would be why you understood me to be talking about historical veracity, whereas the debate that has raged for 2000 years is over how literally the account should be taken.

The question is whether the creation hymn (which is clearly not witnessed history, and must therefore be revelation) should be taken as a literal account or a figurative one.

Origen and then Augustine both argue for an allegorical interpretation, and on philosophical grounds, Augustine argues for creation in an instant. I happen to be a strong Augustinian on this point, although creation in an instant has – I think – a refined understanding in view of our modern scientific understanding. I’d be happy to discuss it with you if you would be happy to move beyond the attempt to score points with straw man arguments.

Incidentally, did you know that Augustine was the first philosopher to propose a relativistic understanding of time. Bertrand Russell said of Augustine that he did not often stray into the realm of logic, but when he did so he showed very great ability. Augustine used his knowledge of God to arrive at a relativistic view of space and time many centuries before Einstein. He saw time as being a created entity, and thus God is within the universe, and within time, maintaining it and suffusing it, but never constrained by it.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Stephen

I don’t think I claimed it was a conspiracy on the part of the clergy – just deliberate lying.

An old friend of mine was obsessed with the ideas in the Da Vinci Code years ago. I thought it was distressingly loopy then and now – as is your belief in a supernatural sky-god who tells you to kill adulterers (I guess you don’t do that), not to eat lobster or crab, and to circumcise your male children.

The ‘debate’, such as it is, about the historical veracity of Genesis, ended centuries ago. Science 1, Religion 0. You’re living in ther past. Somewhere around 1184, I reckon.