It all started when Frank said that Jews are God haters. I responded to Frank's "Jews are God haters" claim by saying:
A God-hating Jew, huh? Um, news flash Frank: Jews are Abrahamic theists just like you, and they don’t hate God. This Jew was secular, but was a believing Jew until recently.
Jews are closer to atheists than Christians? Again you don’t know what you are talking about. I would love to see you support THAT assertion!
Let me correct you. Jews believe in the Abrahamic God. Christians believe in the Abrahamic God + Jesus. Atheists don’t believe in any of that bullshit. So Jews are much closer to Christianity than atheism. Jesus was a Jew.
Frank would have none of it. Frank refuses to believe that Judaism is a religion of Abraham:
Well, since the jews (you're referring to) don't believe in the trinity, and since the God of Abraham was triune, the Jews don't believe in the God of Abraham, now do they?
Yes, according to the NT Jews are god haters just like atheists and Mormons. I supported this by claiming that Jesus said you're either for him or against him. Therefore, since the jew and atheist are against him, they are on one side of the fence while all those for Jesus are on the other side.
At this point, I posted a devastating comment that skewered all of Frank’s previous assertions from his mistaken claims about Abraham and his poorly applied prostitute analogy. I even threw in an ad-hominem or two. Frank was liberally lobbing ad-hominems, so I thought I would join the fun.
But shortly after I posted the comment, it mysteriously disappeared! Instead Discomfiter, the blog owner and the unknown Christian pretending to be an atheist, deleted my entire comment and posted his own sarcastic comment about my humility. I was a little bummed out to see that all my great links and analogy dissections were gone.
So I figured that I could at the least show in this post why Frank Trigg doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about when it comes to "Abrahamic religion". Frank can't draw proper distinctions between worldviews if his life depended on it.
Here is a webpage all about Abrahamic religion:
In the Torah and the Qur'an, Abraham is described as a patriarch blessed by God (the Jewish people called him "Father Abraham"), and promised great things. Jews and Christians consider him father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac; Muslims regard him as the father of the Arabs through his son Ishmael. In Christian belief, Abraham is a model of faith, and his intention to obey God by offering up Isaac is seen as a foreshadowing of God's offering of his son, Jesus. In Islam, Abraham obeyed God by offering up Ishmael and is considered to be one of the most important prophets sent by God.
All the Abrahamic religions are derived to some extent from Judaism as practiced in ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah prior to the Babylonian Exile, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE...
Christianity originated in Judea, at the end of the 1st century, as a radically reformed branch of Judaism, see Early Christianity...
Islam originated in the 7th century, in the Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina. Although not a dissident branch of either Judaism or Christianity, it explicitly claimed to be a continuation and replacement for them, and echoed many of their principles. According to the Muslim belief, the Qur'an was the final word of God and its message was that of all the prophets. As an example of the similarities between the faiths, Muslims believe in a version of the story of Genesis and in the lineal descent of the Arabs from Abraham through Ishmael, who was conceived through Abraham's servant Hagar.
Judaism, like Christianity and Islam, is an Abrahamic religion. Class dismissed.
Oh I almost forgot. Another commenter named Warrenl asked for objective evidence that societies are worse off when they believe in God. There are many studies and statistics that show this correlation, but I like to cite the work that Gregory Paul published in the Journal of Religion and Society as a convenient and recent example of evidence that religious societies suck compared to nonreligious ones. Paul's study does not claim any causation, only correlation, and I agree with that. I believe that the causal factor is education. But nonetheless, societies with more faith have more problems.
25 comments:
Uhhh, I knew all of that Aaron, you dummy.
If you want to debate me, then let's see what you got.
Answer this question:
Do Christians believe the God of Abraham is trinitarian?
It's a simple question so no need to write a treatise.
Oh, I should also note that the cautious reader will notice the shift between claiming to follow Abraham, from Ur of the Chaldeans, and claiming to follow Abraham's *GOD.*
I don't deny that Christians and Jews both claim to follow the same Abraham, but that they are Abrahamic *theists.*
*That point* is what i responded to and Aaron is so dense that he starts shifting his *own* calim in the debate.
P.S. after you answer my above question I'll ask if you agree with Leibniz's law of identity
(x) (y) [x=y] --> (P) [Px <--> Py]
Do you agree with that?
Do you see where I'm going with this?
Crym uncle before you get embarrassed. Oh, you won't though, you're the big bad atheist who could never loose to a theist, huh?
Oh so you knew all that already? What, were you lying to me in the comments at DC earlier?
Anyway lets get to your question.
For a more accurate answer, I would have to make sure that we agree on a definition of the word "Christian".
I have a feeling that you and I define that word differently. How do you define that word?
I define "Christian" as "a monotheist who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ".
The website dictionary.com defines Christian as "Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus." which is very similar to my definition.
So to answer your question, I would say "most of them do, yes."
But the problem is that I tend to count Mormons as a type of Christian, and you will likely object to that.
If we discount Mormons as being Christian, then I would say "all Christians believe the God of Abraham to be trinitarian".
I have a feeling that you include a trinitarian qualifier in your very definition of the word "Christianity" in which that case your question was analogous to saying "what color is that blue car?"
Im hungry. Got any porridge?
No Frank my "Abrahamic religion" definition has remained consistent throughout. You obviously define it differently than I do and thats why you refuse to believe that Jews are Abrahamic and that Jews have more in common with Christians than atheists.
That so funny to see someone try to show that two kinds of theists are more different than theists and atheists.
I don't care to debate your definitions, my point will be made the same regardless.
Even if you count Mormons into the equation, they claim to follow Abraham's God but they believe that that God is a physical beiing while Jews do not. So, I'll still win.
Anyway, you said, "If we discount Mormons as being Christian, then I would say "all Christians believe the God of Abraham to be trinitarian". "
Now let me ask you this:
Do you agree with Leibniz's law of identity
(x) (y) [x=y] --> (P) [Px <--> Py]
Do you agree with that?
Oh my God Frank Trigg is Paul Manata!
How many aliases does Manata use?
Tit for Tat Frank. I just gave you a very comprehensive answer to your Trinitarian question. Yet you refuse to answer my inquiries into how you define certain key terms.
You think Im gonna play your little game when you wont play mine? I already trapped you on the Abrahamic religion thing. I showed that either you were lying, or youre crazy, or you were thinking of an entirely different concept than I was when I was talking about the "Abrahamic religion" category. And the way you talk about it implies a meaning that I havent found listed anywhere on the net, not even Wikipedia.
The evil secular Wikipedia agrees with me completely through our little dialogue. In fact I think like 99.99999% of all churches and Christian religious bodies will agree that Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are the three "Abrahamic religions".
And I also showed your claim that Jews are closer to atheists than they are to Christians to be false. And I bet that 99% of Bible scholars and Christian experts would agree with me that Judaism is closer to Xtianity than it is to atheism.
Even if you count Mormons into the equation, they claim to follow Abraham's God but they believe that that God is a physical beiing while Jews do not. So, I'll still win.
It sure is easy to win when you can shift the goalposts like that! But seriously, goalpost shifting is an automatic disqualifier. So you already lost.
I see you don't want to debate anymore.
I'll give it one more try and if you run away again then I'll assume that you have no answer and are just posturing for your readers. Fine, I understand that.
I didn't answer you about your questions because they are not germain to the argument I'm making. Thus they are irrelevant.
First we should not that the term you first used, that I took issue with, was "Abrahamic *theists.*
So, we were talking about a deity, a God.
Now, I ask you this question:
Do you agree with Leibniz's law of identity
(x) (y) [x=y] --> (P) [Px <--> Py]
Do you agree with that?
I will answer any question relevant to the debate. Your question was not relevant and I did show that my answer would still work if mormons were included.
So, do you agree with Leibniz's law or not? Can you do it champ?
AK: You think Im gonna play your little game when you wont play mine? I already trapped you on the Abrahamic religion thing. I showed that either you were lying, or youre crazy, or you were thinking of an entirely different concept than I was when I was talking about the "Abrahamic religion" category.
FT: We were talking about "Abrahamic THEISTS" champ. So, you were saying that Christians and Jews believed in the same God, the same deity.
You didn't trap me on anything. So what you quoted some source that call Christians and Jews followers of Abrahamic religion.
Does it stretch you mind to think that they may be wrong? I thought you're a "free thinker" and don't let others "think for you." That's what you said about Olly's wife. So, debate for YOURSELF and don't quote mine.
Now, I ask you this question:
Do you agree with Leibniz's law of identity
(x) (y) [x=y] --> (P) [Px <--> Py]
Do you agree with that?
How's this for a working definition of Christian? Someone who, as a child, was told in Sunday School, "There is one God, but He is really three things: Father, Son, and the ever-popular and mysterious Hooooly Ghooooost! So you see kids, three in one... one equals three...." At which point our Sunday School child experiences a small explosion in the brain where critical thinking and discrimination take place. The bullshit meter is blown right off the scale and rendered inoperative. The child is now forever the tool of the huckstering clergy, who then proceed to describe his basic unworthiness and inherent evil. All this to guilt the poor jerk into paying money to be fucked in the mellon week after week, while enjoying some fringe benefits of belonging to the Sanctimonious Club. Your religion is an organic computer virus.
Did you know that too Frank? Or perhaps Essius might be a better guess than Paul? Or, perhaps you are all one person and just trying to be three-headed like your make-believe God?
That's modalism, breakerslion.
Brush up on your Philosophy of Reliogion, rather than reading See Spot Run, you villiage idiot.
Anyway, you'd note that my argument doesn't really have anything to do with your post. I assume it's because you don't understand my argument? In that case brush up on your modal logic, rather than reading The Little Engine That Could, hilly billy atheist.
The problem here is that Aaron wants to ignore my argument and move the goalposts (yet he's accusing me of that). Maybe there's an atheist who can (1) understand my argument and (2) apply approriately?
The problem here is that we see what happens to the big tough free thinkers, if you try to get them to think for themselevs, instead of quoting tired ahteological arguments or Wiki, they crumble.
Have a nice night, champ.
The concept of three hypostases in one ousia is absurd in and of itself, so I am not surprised by a trinitarian who claims Abraham believed in the triune god well over two millennia before it was first elucidated by Tertullian and Hippolytus.
Even if you're correct, that has nothing to do with the argument I'm making. Furthermore, your post clearly begged the question against trinitarians. It's futhermore not clear in any obvious way why the trinitarian claim is "absurd in and of itself."
Despite the above,I'd read through the thread if I were you. I saw your grading chart on your blog Robert. Would you let a student of your pass who didn't read the assigned material and then turned in a paper which was irrelevant?
This is not a question about if Christians are correct in their assesment of God's nature.
This is a response to the claim that Aaron made which says that Christians and Jews are Abrahamic *theists.*
A theist is someone who believes in a God, or gods.
So, Aaron said that Christians and Jews are both theists who believe in the same God, "Christians just add Jesus."
I'll be employing the philosophical and modal notions of identity to argue against Aaron here. The problem for him is that it will be easier than shooting fish in a barrel for me to win my argument.
I ask again:
Do you agree with Leibniz's law of identity
(x) (y) [x=y] --> (P) [Px <--> Py]
Do you agree with that?
Ok jackass, I'll bite, yes I believe that "a thing equals itself". So do you care to dazzle me with your amazingly logical conclusions based on that?
Let me guess, you are going to define Christianities God as X, then define Judaism's God as Y, then show that "X does not equal Y", and pat yourself on the back.
Still won't matter. I can define a duck as being blue and a mallard as being red, and then say therefore "Mallard is not Duck"... doesn't change the fact that definitionally I'm wrong.
So lets see where you are going with this, have fun! (still won't change the fact that you are begging the questions and ducking what Aaron has said so far)
-olly
No Olly, I'm not going to do that, if you have the guts to stick it out I'll try to dazzle you.
Even though your above explanation of Leibniz's law was rather crude and unsophisticated, and wrong, it'll still work.
The point here is that any property P that can be attributed to x must also be able to be attributed to y, otherwise the two are not identical.
Now, before we move on, because I've found I must go slow with atheists, allow me to ask just one or two more questions. let's pause and see where we're at:
Aaron claims that Christians and Jews believe in the same God.
Olly agrees with Leibniz's law of identity.
Now my next question, and thanks for taking the time to help this slow theist out, is:
According to Christians, does God have any property that a Christian would attribute to him that a Jew would not?
(Hopefully we don't need to go on for 10 posts before this easy one gets resolved.)
I suppose that Paul uses this alias, and all of the others, so he can be the true asshole he loves to be without the consequence of those he knows from his church, and who read his blog, finding out about it.
His writing is quite stylistically unique -- esp the "go brush up on X, you fucking retard" sort of sentiments.
How about I jump in here to help out? I'm not committed to any part of this discussion, so I'll clarify -- the God of Abraham is the God of the Christians, in the sense that Christians believe that this God, YHWH, called Abraham, and through Abraham brought Jesus, who is also God.
So, the "property" of incarnation is obviously not shared by Jews, but the original God, YHWH, is the same source for the Christian God's additional property, Jesus.
So as Aaron said before, as simple as it is, it is accurate:
Jews -- YHWH
Christians -- YHWH = Jesus; YHWH = Holy Ghost; Jesus = Holy Ghost
The property that holds throughout is the original YHWH identity. Christians add to this identity (I'm not making a truth distinction here between them and the Jews), so they do ADD to YHWH's properties. But as Aaron pointed out, you are equivocating if you pretend that the God of the Jews and the God of the Christians is not the same God. You know Romans 9, and Romans 11, better than that -- two covenants from one God: one in Abraham, one in Jesus, with the same (supposed) terms -- faith and repentance.
Let's take Puff the Invisible Dragon, and build a cult around him, and say a minority of your sect believes that Puff the Invisible Magic Dragon (PIMD) is also Barney the Invisible Magic Dinosaur (BIMD) and The Magic Invisible Ever-living Horse of Caligula (MIEHC).
Now, the original PIMD-only sect and the new PIMD = BIMD = MIEHC sect still agree on the identity, actions, commands, etc., of the PIMD. Just because the PIMD = BIMD = MIEHC folks have added to and expanded the PIMD, doesn't mean the skeletal, basic beliefs about PIMD aren't still present.
So in short, Paul thinks that if you expand upon the scope of his favorite invisible magic creature, you have a totally different invisible magic creature. I suppose this whole damn discussion has been about semantics. Paul siezes on any semantic victory he can in order to sustain his invisible magic being belief. It makes him "feel" the presence of the invisible magic being. It also helps him to believe that PIMD = BIMD = MIEHC ;)
Debating these fantasy castles in the sky is ridiculous. Let's debate flying unicorns or the Flying Spaghetti Monster since we're at it. Is the FSM Abrahamic? What a stupid way to waste one's life.
Frank Trigg you are one pathetic dude. Drop this fairy tale bullshit and talk about the real stuff. There is no Jesus, there is no princess and the pea, and there is no Santa Claus.
Aaron, on the origin of Islam, as far as I am aware, Islam began as a Christian heresy, as did Mormonism, but quickly became another religion. It seems Mohammed felt he was restoring the 'Lost Message of Jesus'. His millitant vision was influenced by the actions of the Emperor Heraclius in his war against Persia.
Francois, I would suggest that you study basic civility. Otherwise you just come across as an ignorant bigot.
Frank,
Aaron claims that Christians and Jews believe in the same God.
I never said that. What I said was that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS that are derived from the same ABRAHAMIC GOD concept.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have different mutations of their Abrahamic God, but all three religions came from the same source; the same fairy tale.
Lets use Vampire movies as an analogy. There are a lot of Vampire movies that have been made over time. Each movie is different in their interpretation of vampires abilities, weaknesses, origins, etc...
Compare Brahm Stokers Dracula to something like Blade or Interview with a Vampire. The vampires in the movies are not all the same, nor are their histories and powers etc...
But all Vampire movies come from the same original Vampire story. All Vampire movies despite their differences, are still all categorized as Vampire movies.
And if Atheism is a Frankenstein movie, then it would be quite silly to say that Bram Stokers Dracula is closer to Frankenstein than it is to Interview with a Vampire because in IwaV the Vampires have different powers than in BSD.
You cannot claim that Judaism is not an Abrahamic religion any more than you can claim that IwaV is not a vampire movie. And you cannot claim that Judaism is more similar to atheism than Christianity any more than you can claim that IwaV is more similar to Frankenstein movies than the Blade movies or the BSD movie.
Daniel Morgan,
Great post. Thank you for explaining it like that.
Hail Barney the Dinosaur! ;)
Daniel nailed it, and Trigg doesn't get it.
If Aaron drives a black mustang, sells it to me, and I paint it blue, it's still the same car.
-olly
"That's modalism, breakerslion."
An interesting and esoteric interpretation, I must say. I give you full points for knowing your dogma, but actually, no. What it is, is a very jaundiced opinion or description of Theocratic modality. The Sabellian argument strikes me as hair-splitting, and about as relevant as the number of imaginary angels that can dance on a pinhead.
Now for modus: I am tired of arguing with crazy people like you. In my non-cartoon Universe, you are either a) a lying megalomaniac, or b) a "true believer" that has been so programmed as to be impervious to any argument that might threaten the integrity of your sand castle. When I asked "Did you know that?", it was a veiled challenge to which I did not expect a response. Are you one who advocates because you would jiggle the handle of POWER, and thus make yourself influential? Or, do you honestly buy in to the bullcrap? Playing with the suckers is despicable, being one yourself is curable. Make no mistake, I do not confuse crazy with stupid.
Making people crazy in this way is part of the traditional socialization process, and control-freaks everywhere fear what might happen if the pattern were to be broken. This is why those that are relentlessly subjected to religious indoctrination and religious reinforcement fear atheists more than dissimilar cults.
Now for mode. Your mode of argument contains hypocrisy. If I understand these symbols, <--> means, "does not equal". If so:
Father <--> Son <--> Holy Ghost
Jesus "Deity" <--> Jesus "Man"
If it was Jehovamagod's intent to become a man, he failed. If god can fail, he is no god, unless he did it on purpose. If you intend to fail, and you do, did you succeed?
Proof that the imaginary biblical Jesus was not human:
It is alleged to have walked on water. Not possible for a human, no matter how hard he tries. It's called displacement, stupid.
If the imaginary biblical Jesus was not human, then what is the significance of the "sacrifice?" Big deal. From where I sit, it is all intensely promoted lunacy. The Emperor of the Universe is naked. And absent. And made-up. Your authority is bullshit monkey boy. And who are you calling a “hilly billy” atheist anyway? I was born and raised in the shadow of Manhattan, and the blood-simple folks in Appalachia would probably be offended to be associated with me.
Oh I almost forgot. Another commenter named Warrenl asked for objective evidence that societies are worse off when they believe in God. There are many studies and statistics that show this correlation, but I like to cite the work that Gregory Paul published in the Journal of Religion and Society as a convenient and recent example of evidence that religious societies suck compared to nonreligious ones. Paul's study does not claim any causation, only correlation, and I agree with that. I believe that the causal factor is education. But nonetheless, societies with more faith have more problems.
Aaron, that "study" has been debunked.
Interesting that paul, I mean frank trigg suddenly disappeared.'
it obviously was Paul Manata, as he rarely can spell the word "lose" (loose in his frantic typing) correctly, and every discussion is a debate that must be won or lost.
He's been showing up here and there under different generic names....but as was noted above, he's too cowardly to put his 'real' name on, for fear of exposing his sinful behavior to the other believers out there.
shame on you Paul, i mean Frank.
Robert,
Aaron, that "study" has been debunked.
Simply claiming that correlation does not equal causation, which the majority of the attacks on this report are based on, does not invalidate the study itself. The study specifically says that all it asserts is correlation. I also stated here that the study only shows correlation, and I proposed education as the primary causal factor.
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