More A-Theists Than We Realize

This is a former bishop? Jesus, Mary, and Uncle Joe.

there are more than 9 hours between USA and where i am and i care the group consciousness of this classroom, but i have lost the connection as far as i have seen, last night.

this is jazz.intext.googlepages.com/vesairvesait.txt

this is my first time, but it is a blessing to be wellcomed each month besides Your authority and supervision, yet i was unprepared for this morning, but recollected with the care of other blessing teachers and authorities that have wellcomed us the readers on OnFaith of Washington Post newspaper.

i have several times heard of Crosswalk America, and the subject of Your article is a several further steps of Yours after we had taken forth one step with Senior Pastress Mrs Susan Smith.

"John Shelby Sponge"

is it Aphrodite in Shell by Sponge on the Golden Sand or in the Sea, as they are in Didim?

Sir, the presidents of governments shall move against the God, till they accept they are Elements of Unity with encarnation. we are the God, the elements may be God too. is this the leavened bread? is this yoghurt?

this is not unification, this is to finish the emptiness in their selves. is it because they eat leavened bread : )?

where there is language, where we see language and words, as it is in the action of Suudi Arabian Prince, there is love and harmony in seriousness. this is a crystal, not an unshaped spoiled action.

Sir, atheists are true persons. there is love in atheists. at least they want to verbalize. atheists dont hate, at least something hurts in atheists, frankly.

Pope Benedictus had made agreements with Suudi Arabia. Prince of Suudi Arabia poured the content of bottles in a hotel to the sea. yes this is a serious case.

the other news is in Dubai are prostitutes. and yesterday we met the prince of Dubai in taled-jackets and the cylinder-hats. and this government took the prince of Dubai to Istanbul and sold a wide land.

arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2008/07/08/haber,B968F55F8D904DFD92F73BACDEA81790.html

and i dont know the language of Isaac Newton, i dont know what Unemployed God means. is it the Unity One?

i dont want this Recep Tayyip Erdogan govenment, President Williams Bush, with respect to Sirian Zoologist in Circle of Animals.

can we say "being homeless in the sky" is "he is without body now, he had left his body, may be back home in body again"?

if "mar" in armenian is for "saint", is MAr-X the recent one? st Andreas? the one with the stick, Moses? is Mar-Y a christian, faither student holy spirit? is Mar-Y a woman?

if Newcastle Soccer Team shall be owned by Osama bin LAden, can we get this as the government in Turkey shall go on, Williams Bush? or is it completely English?

www.sabah.com.tr/haber,E79037B255824FA39B3C872B6BFFEFC5.html

if Condaliza Rice is in love with the son of Arabic Prince witnessed in USA and Europe, is this a Sirius case that we know, or is it completely Arabic?

english.sabah.com.tr/2864DC3FF7E24334B77208F66DDFC1D5.html

do i have to accept this government because of my respect to Condaliza Rice, for God's sake!

if astrologers in USA have agreed on BArack Obama with respect to birthdates, is this a spirograph in widgets.opera.com with planets in the journey of the Earth in this seven-years time, or is it completely one-pen proposal?

Upon rereading your response more fully, instead of my initial skimming, just noticed that you asked for someone other than SL. I thus retract my mention of him/her from my previous post.

Cheers,
Dave

I wasn't referring to this discussion in particular. On other discussions from previous dates, however, I have noticed some hostile dialog exchanged. I do not have the interest in looking through past archives to fine specific instances. On the other hand, the post to which I wrote my initial response would be one example that comes to mind, viz. the individual stating that (s)he would like to burn Bishop Spong at the stake.

Cheers,
Dave

Van Winkle -- thanks for getting back to me. I think he/she was serious. Exaggerating a little, perhaps, but enjoying the graphic description of a fiery punishment.

Dave and Dan - could you give examples (aside from SL) of "vitriolic, ad hominem attacks" you've seen in this discussion?

Thanks

Dan:

I do not agree with Susan Brookes Thistlewaithe’s assertion that the more philosophically-minded strains of religion have abandoned the idea of a personal, prayer-answering God.

Alvin Carl Plantinga, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame; Nicholas Wolterstorff, the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, and Fellow of Berkley College at Yale; Richard Swinburne, the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford until his retirement in 2002 believe in such a God as do many others. They may be wrong, but I don’t believe that they are less philosophically minded, unless “philosophically minded” by definition means not entertaining such beliefs. If this definition is operative, it seems that the rules of the linguistic game of religious language have invaded the linguistic game of philosophical discourse.
I certainly agree that not all who believe such a position are philosophically minded but there are a significant number who are.
I agree that the reader’s responses often make the worst of the panelist sound brilliant and seem to demonstrate that civil discourse is anything but civil.

Peace,
Rip

thanks for the correction, Dave.

perhaps i should have used the word "progressive" or "liberal" instead of "philosophically-minded?"

"As I think Susan Brookes Thistlewaithe pointed out in an earlier post, the more philosophically-minded strains of religion have abandoned the idea of a personal, prayer-answering God."

This claim is just not true. One need only examine the writings of such well-respected philosophers as Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, William Alston, or Eleanor Stump, as well as a host of others to see that there are indeed very philosophically-minded individuals who still adhere to a traditional theistic view of the nature of the deity.

"The ignorance and vindictive anger inflicted on these pages by people across the whole spectrum of beliefs has become increasingly disturbing to read (look at the comments Spong has drawn with this post!)"

With this I can only say I am in full agreement. The vitriolic, ad hominem attacks exhibited quite regularly are burdensome to read, to say the least.

Cheers,
Dave

If SL's statement is serious, I certainly repudiate it. The way of Christ is the power of love and not the love of power. Those who use Christ as a weapon in their quest for power are the greatest perverts since they have perverted the greatest truth.
Peace,
Rip

This is one of the clearest and best panelist answers I've yet seen to any question on this forum.

This distinction is ignored by many on both sides of the current debate on the value of religion.

As I think Susan Brookes Thistlewaithe pointed out in an earlier post, the more philosophically-minded strains of religion have abandoned the idea of a personal, prayer-answering God. Some have rejected this idea for more than 100 years.

Unfortunately, this way of looking at things has not really filtered down to the level of the average churchgoer.

In general, the clergy on this forum have not represented themselves well. Their arguments sound weak and half-hearted next to the impassioned and self-assured responses of the atheist panelists. This makes me pessimistic about the future of moderate religion.

The reader responses, on the other hand, make even the worst of the panelists sound brilliant. The ignorance and vindictive anger inflicted on these pages by people across the whole spectrum of beliefs has become increasingly disturbing to read (look at the comments Spong has drawn with this post!)

Hoping things get better for what could be a great forum...

-Dan

Hello D.W. Van Winkle - I remember you from earlier discussions -- and am sort of surprised that you don't have a few words for SL below who would like to burn Spong at the stake. Maybe you didn't read that far.

I was happy to see at least one Christian, Dave, speak out against this idea.

Perhaps the Pew survey indicates that people believe that there are different rules in different language games. In the engineering language game, verification and falsification have high value. However, in the religious language game there is no such constraint and the law of non-contraction does not apply.
Bishop Sprong has contributed to this mess by affirming the creeds when it is politically convenient (privately defining the words so that they are unintelligible so that he can continue to make such affirmations) and then denying these affirmations at other times. Perhaps the problem is that such theological knowledge has made its way down into the pews.
Peace,
Rip
PS. There are much better proponents of both theism and atheism. See for example, R. Swinburne, N.T. Wright, J.L. Mackie. IMHO, They do not play the private religious language game.

My gosh, Bishop Spong.

"Burn you at the stake?" I'm afraid that these church followers are no less threatened by the academia during Luther's times than they are now. But I also wonder if that was just a provocative post.

At least Luther had a response: "Reason is the Devil's greatest wh*re; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious who*e; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed w*ore; whor* eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets."
Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148

I appreciated and loved your book "Sins of Scripture" and it had a large effect on how I've come to view the faith of my childhood, which was incidentally learned in Fort Worth.

"Some of us "professional theologians" actually regularly talk about our "theistic God" and teach his attributes and character to our congregations as often as we can so that this kind of confusion is made clear"

Rev Culpepper - I see you're in the Fort Worth episcopal diocese. Do you also teach your congregations that homosexuality is an abomination -- that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to marry and there should be no openly gay bishops in the episcopal church?

"I wouldn't even hesitate to burn this man at the stake."

SL, I ask this as someone who, like yourself, disagrees with most of Bishop Spong's views: where in the gospels, the Pauline corpus, or the entirety of the NT for that matter do we find an advocation to burn our theological opponents at the stake? I take it (hopefully) that are not being entirely serious in the sentiment you expressed.

I wouldn't even hesitate to burn this man at the stake.

I honestly don't know why anyone pays attention to the incoherrent ramblings of an arch-heretic and apostate like JSS.

Bishop Spong,

Whatever your intellectual qualifications, your cynicism and arrogance seems always to get the best of you, and is diametrically opposed to Christ's commandment that his followers practice humility. Perhaps a sincere reading of the book of Ecclesiastes in is order.

And the problem with your argument is an inaccurate definition of theism, which (against your definition) actually describes God as both transcendent and immanent. Therefore, an atheist is, in fact, one who does not believe in God, as the definition of theism adequately covers both possibilities of what God could be. A Theist is one who believes God is both distinct from us (transcendent) and present with us (immanent). Some of us "professional theologians" actually regularly talk about our "theistic God" and teach his attributes and character to our congregations as often as we can so that this kind of confusion is made clear.