[MD] False Messiah

[Scott Roberts]

DMB,

Scott said:
It seems that you only are aware of two positions: literalist-type theism
and non-theism.

dmb says:
This is another version of that same straw man. Just because I'm making a
distinction between two positions does not mean that there are only two
positions. Nobody said any such thing.

Scott:
You said (a couple of posts back): "Yea, theologians are theists. We agree 
there. But in terms of what they have "consistenly pointed out", I think the 
problem is that they are theists, which means they are literalists, even 
when they aren't slack-jawed fundamentalists." That sure looks to me like 
you are not considering such a possibility as a non-literalist-type theism, 
that you are only considering two positions. And by the way, if you agree 
that theologians are theists, then I would have thought there is no question 
that Tillich, as the author of "Systematic Theology", is a theist.

dmb says:
... Instead of going beyond
convention, you turned it on its head and refined the terms so that they
mean the opposite of what the dictionary says. (Faith is based on reason and
theists don't believe in God.) That level of obfuscation and confusion
almost seems malicious. Almost. At best, that makes a mess of things and it
certainly doesn't help.

Scott:
Actually, I didn't say that faith is based on reason (I said that faith and 
reason require each other). Here's what Tillich says, by the way:

"Reason is the pre-condition of faith; faith is the act by which reason 
reaches ecstatically beyond itself." [Dynamics of Faith, p. 76]

He goes on to say that reason alone cannot deal with issues of ultimate 
concern, so reason requires faith.

dmb had said:
...I think Tillich is on my side of this argument against theism in saying
that God is not supernatural or other and that Thou Art That. The idea here
is that, against theism, you are not supposed to be granted salvation by a
supernatural act of divine intervention or the deeds of the unique
historical incarnation of God, but rather to experience a realization, to be
the Christ, to commit that central heresy against theism. I don't know.
Maybe Tillich has to call himself a theist in order to keep his job or maybe
the term means something else to him, but as I see it, he's an anti-theist.
...

Scott replied:
...What I've been saying is that theists (those like Tillich, that is,
liberal Christians) are just as critical of past theism as you are. What I'm
objecting to is your saying that theists are intellectually bankrupt, to
your being anti-theist, as if anyone who says they have faith in God (as
Tillich certainly did) is to be automatically excluded from the intellectual
marketplace...

dmb says:
Automatically excluded from the marketplace? It sure would be nice if you
would talk to me instead of that fool, Mr. Phony McStrawman.

Scott:
You said (again, a couple of posts back): "And as I understand the terms 
"Faith" and "God", its hard to reconcile "faith in God" with intellectual 
freedom and intellectual values". And a long time back you said that theists 
were intellectually dishonest. You didn't qualify this with "some" or 
"many". But, again, the problem is "as I [DMB] understand the terms "Faith" 
and "God"". You should be noticing that Tillich understands the terms 
differently than you do. As, of course, do most liberal Christians (those 
millions).

DMB said:
 I'm too lazy to
gather up the evidence at the moment, but my criticisms of those who have
"faith in God" is that they won't play by the same rules as everyone else -
at least the ones in this particular intellectual marketplace. My complaints
are about the sort of faith that hides from evidence and such. And again
I'll remind you that I'm only going by the dictionary and normal conventions
when I use the term "faith" to refer to beliefs held in the absence of
intellectual support.

Scott:
Yes, a faith that contradicts evidence is intellectually reprehensible. 
That's why millions of theists rework the faith they learned as children, 
yet they do not "lose faith". They remain, in their own minds, theists. You 
and they are playing by different rules, but these rules "everyone else" are 
supposedly playing by are in fact only in use by fundamentalists and 
anti-theists. So what I am saying is that if you want to join in 
intellectual discussion and argumentation with non-literalist theists, the 
burden is on you to learn the new rules according to which contemporary, 
non-literalist theists play. Of course, you also have the option of not 
joining in, but you did.

- Scott