From: skinner@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner)
Subject: Re: Crusades; Once more into the breach
Reply-To: g-skinner@uiuc.edu
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 20:26:35 GMT

merlyn@digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy) writes:

>skinner@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner) writes:

>>This is circular because you say "Suppose Christianity is more-or-less
>>true (and thus that God exists, etc.), then Christianity is whatever
>>God says it is."  

>I still wouldn't describe it as a circular argument; I'm not using my
>assumption that christianity is more-or-less true to *prove* my other
>assertion (that god gets to say what christianity is).  I'm defining
>what I mean by christianity; what god says it is, not what humans think
>it is.

The circularity comes from using the word "Christianity" in your
definition of Christianity.

Let's try something else.  I'll say in my words what I think you are
saying, then you can comment on how what I say below "fits" in your
mouth.  The appropriate disclaimer is that these are just my
impressions of what you are saying.  These should not be taken by
others as quotations.

By "Suppose Christianity is true" you may mean "Suppose God exists and
his actions are described in the Bible" and "Suppose Jesus Christ is
the Son of God."  Given this, we also might suppose that God would
like the world to have a religion.  God defines the religion.  We call
this religion Christianity.

Is that a fair paraphrase of your definition?  Please make corrections
wherever needed.  I have attempted to remove the circularity, but in
doing so I may have changed what you intended to say.  It all depends
where one breaks the circle.

Assuming for the moment that the above is acceptable, I can comment.
(I don't want to set up a straw man; if the above needs modification,
then ignore this.)

This certainly sets up God's authority to define the religion.  But we
still don't know what Christianity is.  Consider a parallel example.
Define justice: "Suppose God exists as above.  Then justice is
whatever God says it is."  Have we defined justice?

Until we resolve what Christianity is, I won't comment much on the
rest of your post.  I suspect our disagreement is with the definition
of Christianity.  If so, debating what is or isn't part of
Christianity may be pointless.  For instance,

>What?  If Paul died before writing anything, we'd still have the
>words of Jesus as related by all the other writers.  But this wouldn't
>be christianity?

I suspect I'm supposed to agree that the answer to this rhetorical
question is "no."  But I would answer "yes," for Paul was so
influential to the beginnings of Christianity that I think the
religion would be fundamentally different without him.

>  (I agree it would probably look different, but there
>would still probably be a religion built on the supposition that Jesus
>was the son of god).

This sounds like an appeal to the definition of Christianity.  Is
"religion built on the supposition that Jesus was the son of God" also
part of your definition of Christianity?  Are there other inclusions
we should know about?

>I still don't see why Paul must be considered right, unless you
>take it as a given.

In my opinion, Christianity takes Paul begin right as a given.
--
Gregg Skinner                 I do not speak for any organization.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism