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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Non-theistic Christianity
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
What is radical about denying Sin, SPK?
The idea there there is no sin, or that we are not sinful is highly unorthodox.
At risk of bringing in MT's Sinfulness thread, I go for classic Calvinism here, maybe a touch of Arminianism, but fully Prot all the way. I don't do Universalism.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Wouldn't it be honester to just say, "We don't believe in Christianity," than to try to pretend Christianity is something it isn't, or make it into something it has never been?
Such is the war cry of the Trads in the UCCan against the Rads. It comes out a lot of the discussions I have.
You'd have fun at my Presbytery meeting. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Evensong:
Uh. I'm no expert on Paul Tillich, but what you say above about him doesn't sound right.
I wouldn't call him a non-theist. I"d call him an existentialist.
As for "ground of being" it's kind of a modern understanding of medieval theology in that God is all in all and the world would not exist without enervation from God at all times. Kind of like Aquinas.
The idea that God is a being in the sky that occasionally points his finger and alters things on the earth only really developed in the early modern period IMO.
Very good, Evensong!
Tell your theology prof Beeswax Altar says you get 5 extra points on your next exam. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Are you taking the piss? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
Just remember, I'm a few years older than you and our God teaches us to respect our elders. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I'm no expert on such matters, but I've found the positive ideas of the Perennial Philosophy more interesting and potentially satisfying than the negation approach of the non-theistic.
That looks interesting. I think that a challenge for non-supernatural belief is to articulate how God is active today, otherwise, as Mousethief said, you end up with some version of deism. You need to point to a life that certain ideas and patterns have, a sort of grain in human history that we can live in line with. A converse challenge for conventional belief is to explain the high level of convergence between faiths.
The Wikipedia article on Perennial philosophy has a nice quote from, of all people, Augustine:
The very thing that is now called the Christian religion was not wanting among the ancients from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh, after which the true religion, which had already existed, began to be called “Christian."
And I think that's the point. You get something that ties into a lot of what humans have been muddling through and trying to figure out, and you can understand it via understanding the life of one guy named Jesus. Though it is likely that there is more to the story and to the understanding than we can grasp. I don't know how someone can turn that completely non-theistic, but it certainly can be turned into a disinterested god.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
You have clearly all read theologians
Nah. What do they know? Mostly only what other people have written.
quote:
I need a God that is more than extra-special elephant with a magic wand, and easier to relate to than gravity.
That's an interesting use of "need". I initially reacted against it, but it made me think about what humans do in general need.
Not necessarily a God, I don't think, but enough conceptual tools to construct a viable world view. At least for those of us able to afford to think beyond our immediate needs, I would have thought that must include some ground of being equivalent. Unfortunately the obvious sources for these ideas are religions, and they have little incentive to impartially present accumulated wisdom without their mostly spurious religious practices and beliefs.
Non-theistic only invites confusion. If making sense is the need, and religious practice tied to unsubstantiable truth claims gets in the way for many people, I suspect secular Christianity would be a better description of a more widely useful alternative.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think there are very old forms of Christianity which reject theistic personalism, but I don't think that equates to non-theism nor to deism.
Some theologians and philosophers trace these ideas back to Aristotle, and the idea of Pure Act, and so on. One of the interesting guys today is Prof. Ed Feser, whose blog contains a considerable amount of such arguments.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
You have clearly all read theologians
Nah. What do they know? Mostly only what other people have written.
quote:
I need a God that is more than extra-special elephant with a magic wand, and easier to relate to than gravity.
That's an interesting use of "need". I initially reacted against it, but it made me think about what humans do in general need.
Not necessarily a God, I don't think, but enough conceptual tools to construct a viable world view. At least for those of us able to afford to think beyond our immediate needs, I would have thought that must include some ground of being equivalent. Unfortunately the obvious sources for these ideas are religions, and they have little incentive to impartially present accumulated wisdom without their mostly spurious religious practices and beliefs.
Non-theistic only invites confusion. If making sense is the need, and religious practice tied to unsubstantiable truth claims gets in the way for many people, I suspect secular Christianity would be a better description of a more widely useful alternative.
What exactly is the point of constructing a worldview if there is no actual truth content behind it? Plenty of people eat, drink, and sleep without needing a worldview or an ideology to justify their existence.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
What exactly is the point of constructing a worldview if there is no actual truth content behind it?
There is no way you can prove an actual truth content behind much of anything.
We all believe. We all have faith in our worldviews (whether they are religious or secular).
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Plenty of people eat, drink, and sleep without needing a worldview or an ideology to justify their existence.
Oh they'll have one.
Whether they realise it or not.
Only animals do not require a worldview or an ideology in which to exist.
Even a worldview of "fuck knows" is a worldview - because it understands it does not know.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
What exactly is the point of constructing a worldview if there is no actual truth content behind it?
There is no way you can prove an actual truth content behind much of anything.
We all believe. We all have faith in our worldviews (whether they are religious or secular).
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Plenty of people eat, drink, and sleep without needing a worldview or an ideology to justify their existence.
Oh they'll have one.
Whether they realise it or not.
Only animals do not require a worldview or an ideology in which to exist.
Even a worldview of "fuck knows" is a worldview - because it understands it does not know.
I think my point is that the term "constructing a worldview" indicates that is artificial.
Christianity does premise that there is something real behind the concept of God, that is hidden by those multiple interpretations. Non-theistic/secular Christianity has always struck me as a tad solipsistic as in "We know that this is BS, but let's play along."
Yes, religion is human-constructed and human-interpreted. But I do think at the end of the day, Christianity needs something "real" behind all the humanness.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
What exactly is the point of constructing a worldview if there is no actual truth content behind it?
There is no way you can prove an actual truth content behind much of anything.
We all believe. We all have faith in our worldviews (whether they are religious or secular).
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Plenty of people eat, drink, and sleep without needing a worldview or an ideology to justify their existence.
Oh they'll have one.
Whether they realise it or not.
Only animals do not require a worldview or an ideology in which to exist.
Even a worldview of "fuck knows" is a worldview - because it understands it does not know.
I think my point is that the term "constructing a worldview" indicates that is artificial.
Christianity does premise that there is something real behind the concept of God, that is hidden by those multiple interpretations. Non-theistic/secular Christianity has always struck me as a tad solipsistic as in "We know that this is BS, but let's play along."
Yes, religion is human-constructed and human-interpreted. But I do think at the end of the day, Christianity needs something "real" behind all the humanness.
Indeed it does, but the knowledge of whether there is something "real", and what that something is, and therefore whether Christianity in those terms is "true" is always going to be provisional at best. Hence my conclusion long ago that the only honest position I can take is agnosticism with a provisional position that it is true and the reality behind it, whilst unknowable, approximates to something we'd recognise as what from this side, if you will, we experience as Christianity.
The only thing I'm convinced of is that the fundamentalists are wrong. Most of them have to be anyway, because there are hundreds of different varieties and if any of them is right the others aren't.
I suppose I should blog my reasoning here.
[ 24. September 2012, 13:01: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Somewhere in hi Systematic Theology Tillich says that to say God exists is atheistic. In other words he objects to saying God exists, a particular form of theism, because it is atheistic - which is a criticism because he regards himself as theistic, but in a different way from those who believe in God as a being that exists.
It is atheistic to say that 'God exists' because God is not one object among many.
It is more 'correct to say' that 'God is existence'. - or 'the source of all that exists.'
In other (Tillich's) words, 'The Ground of Being.'
[ 24. September 2012, 13:25: Message edited by: leo ]
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I think my point is that the term "constructing a worldview" indicates that is artificial.
You can "construct" a worldview because you understand all inherited constructions are precisely that - constructions (even if based on a "truth').
Or you can inherit a worldview based on an inherited construction (Tradition in the case of Christianity) and not criticize or deconstruct it at all.
Or you can kind of go for a middle ground: deconstruct the inherited tradition - but only to an extent. Only to the extent that deconstruction is permitted. Otherwise people will call it "artificial".
Even those that consciously construct, do so on the basis that what they are constructing is "A Good Thing" and therefore "True" to the best extent they can conceivably live with it. They glean "Truth" from the other worldviews they have come in contact with.
Whether any of it is really "true" is still a matter of faith.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Christianity does premise that there is something real behind the concept of God, that is hidden by those multiple interpretations. Non-theistic/secular Christianity has always struck me as a tad solipsistic as in "We know that this is BS, but let's play along."
I don't really know what non-theistic or secular Christianity is, but I'd guess they would argue that their understanding was more "real" than yours.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Yes, religion is human-constructed and human-interpreted. But I do think at the end of the day, Christianity needs something "real" behind all the humanness.
Which bits are you defining as "real"? The supposed "miraculous" bits? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The only thing I'm convinced of is that the fundamentalists are wrong. Most of them have to be anyway, because there are hundreds of different varieties and if any of them is right the others aren't.
But their version is right, everyone else's is wrong - regardless of whether they claim to be right or not.
So by saying you're convinced fundamentalists are wrong, you are expressing a fundamentalist position.
But don't stress, that's the bane of liberalism; tolerant of everything but intolerance.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think there are very old forms of Christianity which reject theistic personalism, but I don't think that equates to non-theism nor to deism.
That's my impression too. But there will also be any number of very new personal forms that cover the same ground, all reinventing the wheel and being implicity written off as heretical by the institutions of Christianity.
quote:
One of the interesting guys today is Prof. Ed Feser
He looks good if you're happy to inhabit a Roman Catholic universe.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
the term "constructing a worldview" indicates that is artificial.
I'm not sure why you think that.
quote:
Christianity does premise that there is something real behind the concept of God
Christianity doesn't premise anything beyond attaching some positive value to Jesus the Christ of the Bible. It's a broad tradition. What you keep referring to as Christianity is your own personal take on a particular orthodoxy within that.
quote:
Non-theistic/secular Christianity has always struck me as a tad solipsistic as in "We know that this is BS, but let's play along."
Only because you talk of Christianity as if it were merely your own little corner of it. It's ironic that you settle on solipsistic to criticise a broader point of view. We don't play along, we argue for change. That's the freedom a broader understanding of Christianity provides.
[ 24. September 2012, 14:45: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The only thing I'm convinced of is that the fundamentalists are wrong. Most of them have to be anyway, because there are hundreds of different varieties and if any of them is right the others aren't.
But their version is right, everyone else's is wrong - regardless of whether they claim to be right or not.
So by saying you're convinced fundamentalists are wrong, you are expressing a fundamentalist position.
But don't stress, that's the bane of liberalism; tolerant of everything but intolerance.
Well, it's a matter of definitions. To my mind a distinctive feature of religious fundamentalism is that it looks to an authority - the Bible - and takes its pronouncements from there. My "fundamentalism" - if you will - is at least based on logical deduction; specifically the reasoning I present here:
http://agnosticchristian.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/first-content-post-why-i-think-fundamentalists-are-wrong/
Essentially, it seems to me that the reality we perceive is not consistent with the model religious fundamentalism in any of its guises presents.
The "tolerant of everything except intolerance" thing is old hat. Everyone who's ever seen fit to criticise lberalism has pointed that one out. It's a bit of a "so what" really.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
the term "constructing a worldview" indicates that is artificial.
I'm not sure why you think that.
Because "artificial" means "man-made" and "constructing" means "making."
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Jack Spong follows Tillich largely on this I think. As best I can understand it, he is certainly not an atheist, but his definition of God would appear to be somewhat of an emergent property of the cosmos (hence his panentheism). But if you were to conduct a thought-experiment whereby all creation were to implode tomorrow, God would consequently vanish too.
Going back to this I missed, I'm not familiar with either Tillich's or Spong's positions but the other way round works for me: the cosmos as an emergent property of God. I can imagine the objection from orthodox theists - they'll claim God doesn't need to create - but it would be consistent with a non-theistic Christianity.
[ 25. September 2012, 08:38: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Wouldn't it be honester to just say, "We don't believe in Christianity," than to try to pretend Christianity is something it isn't, or make it into something it has never been?
Yes, I agree. This is why I had to part ways with John Shelby Spong. He wrote a lot of really good books that exposed the problems with sexism, homophobia, racism in the Bible but then he veered so far to the left that he fell off and got really strange. Now he says he's still a Christian but doesn't believe Jesus is God, doesn't believe there is such a thing as sin, and many other ideas I just find a bit too much. He threw the Jesus baby out with the bathwater, poor dear man*
*"Poor, dear man" is a phrase that Father Andrew Greeley had his female characters saying quite a bit in his various novels. I think it's sweet, so I threw it in.
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Somewhere in hi Systematic Theology Tillich says that to say God exists is atheistic. In other words he objects to saying God exists, a particular form of theism, because it is atheistic - which is a criticism because he regards himself as theistic, but in a different way from those who believe in God as a being that exists.
It is atheistic to say that 'God exists' because God is not one object among many.
Nah. quote:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
The book what this quote cums from ain't writ by an atheist.
[ 26. September 2012, 16:53: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
The book what this quote cums from ain't writ by an atheist.
No, but it probably wasn't written by a philosopher either.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Non-theistic/secular Christianity has always struck me as a tad solipsistic as in "We know that this is BS, but let's play along."
To the extent a worldview is a set of propositional statements, the explicit individual factuality of those statement is definitely important. But I think that non-theistic/secular Christianity in the sense you are referring to sees worldviews as discursive meta-narratives - that is a shared language rather than a set of propositional assertions.
If we want to be able to talk to each other about real things - like love, life, meaning, existence - then we need a language, in the broadest possible sense of that word. Some languages may be better than others. How can we talk about love within the framework of Nazism? How can we discuss the morality of slavery, or the beauty of a flower within a framework of pure empiricism?
It is not unreasonable to then say that a discursive meta-narrative which empowers and enables discussion of true, real things like love and life is itself true in a real sense.
From this perspective, trying to limit your language/worldview to only those individual elements/propositions which you know to be true will impoverish your language to the point where you cannot anymore talk about real, true things - by grasping too tightly the truth slips from your fingers.
We cannot know that a God of Love as revealed in Jesus exists. But it is more real and true to talk as if he exists than to remain silent.
I'm not putting this forward necessarily as my personal belief but am trying to explain it as positively as I am able because I can see its attraction.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
I'm not putting this forward necessarily as my personal belief but am trying to explain it as positively as I am able because I can see its attraction.
I can see its attraction too, but only if there is some ultimate world view "out there" that either we think is beyond us or that we're not interested in discovering. It implies that because we have limitations, we should avoid building ideas based on what we can reasonably believe we know and what we can reasonably reject.
Then there's the problem that any talk of "Christianity" is going to be limited to generalities and vagueness, however hard some people try to make it about their particular version. But looking at specifics, for example how an institution within Christianity is constituted, changes that. Then the real issues emerge: where does the power to influence language and perceptions lie, and what are the real interests that define the forms within which Christian faith can be publicly expressed within that institution.
[ 27. September 2012, 12:55: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
The book what this quote cums from ain't writ by an atheist.
No, but it probably wasn't written by a philosopher either.
Hmm, Tillich or the Author of Hebrews? Tillich or the Author of Hebrews? Whose writings have had and will go on having the greatest impact on the life of the church? Not Tillich, that's for sure...
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Whose writings have had and will go on having the greatest impact on the life of the church?
How much impact does a church that takes Hebrews (and the rest of the Bible) as the literal word of God have on life in general these days? Give or take a bit of literary obscurity, I suspect Tillich's ideas may have more to offer.
[ 27. September 2012, 14:58: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Somewhere in hi Systematic Theology Tillich says that to say God exists is atheistic. In other words he objects to saying God exists, a particular form of theism, because it is atheistic - which is a criticism because he regards himself as theistic, but in a different way from those who believe in God as a being that exists.
It is atheistic to say that 'God exists' because God is not one object among many.
Nah. quote:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
The book what this quote cums from ain't writ by an atheist.
Bad translation - the word 'exists' does not appear in the Greek, which has οτι εστιν = he is.
The fact that some translators use the word 'exists' shows how their worldview and their lack of philosophical training influences their work and why we should've prooftext from what are basically paraphrases.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But surely you can't define a version of Christianity as non-theistic, because it doesn't adhere to theistic personalism. That seems absurd, as if only one definition of God counts as theism, or only one kind of relation with God counts as theism. Well, it's just incoherent.
Non-personal theism might still be theistic, but I don't see how it's still Christian. That the God revealed in the Bible is irreducibly personal is basic to many of the distinctive beliefs of Christianity, such as trinity and incarnation.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
That first article (the only one I've read) is excellent. It illustrates the hole that "classical theism" as Feser describes it is in. It has become a niche that only apologists for "classical religion" are really aware of. Whether they acknowledge it or not, their commitment to the classical religion effectively prevents them from challenging the traditional forms of expression that no longer convey sense to most contemporary minds. I don't know how that can be resolved.
[ 29. September 2012, 11:10: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Somewhere in hi Systematic Theology Tillich says that to say God exists is atheistic. In other words he objects to saying God exists, a particular form of theism, because it is atheistic - which is a criticism because he regards himself as theistic, but in a different way from those who believe in God as a being that exists.
It is atheistic to say that 'God exists' because God is not one object among many.
Nah. quote:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
The book what this quote cums from ain't writ by an atheist.
Bad translation - the word 'exists' does not appear in the Greek, which has οτι εστιν = he is.
The fact that some translators use the word 'exists' shows how their worldview and their lack of philosophical training influences their work and why we should've prooftext from what are basically paraphrases.
That's interesting. Thank you. Although the subtle distinction between 'God is' and 'God exists' is not something I'd die on a hill for.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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