From: skinner@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Crusades; Once more into the breach
Date: 31 Aug 92 18:11:30 GMT
Reply-To: g-skinner@uiuc.edu
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development

merlyn@digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy) writes:

>skinner@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner) writes:
>>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?

>Sounds ok.

>>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?

>Yes; a definition might not tell you how to determine attributes of
>what you're defining.

I'm at a loss to understand this.  How then shall we know that we
correctly determine the attributes?

>>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.

>Different, yes, but does christianity not exist without Paul?

As I see it, yes.  Another religion might have sprung up, but it would
fundamentally different.

>>>  (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?

>No, just pointing out that Paul is not essential.

What do you consider essential to the Christian religion?  Also, I'm
not clear on your answer to this question (please repeat yourself if
you've already answered): Is "religion built on the supposition that
Jesus was the son of God" also part of your definition of
Christianity?

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

>>In my opinion, Christianity takes Paul being right as a given.

>And in my opinion, this is not justified any more than supposing
>Joseph Smith was right.

Outside religion, neither is justified, as you say.  But our context
is the Christian religion.  Whether Christianity *should* take Paul
seriously would certainly be an interesting topic to discuss.  But
that is not what we are after here.  I say Christianity *does* take
Paul seriously.  As evidence for this I note the inclusion of many of
Paul's letters in the religion's canon and the heavy use of quotations
from these inclusions in Christian teaching.

Appealing to your Joseph Smith example: It would be correct to say the
Mormon religion holds that Joseph Smith was right.  Similarly,
Christianity holds that Paul was right.
--
Gregg Skinner                 I do not speak for any organization.