Posted by PS on December 04, 2003 at 17:16:10:
In Reply to: Re: I am channelling all the great philosophers now... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Only $19.95! posted by Bob - the Alien on December 04, 2003 at 10:10:13:
: So you can keep throwing contradictions and flaws at me, and to most I will have a response. To the ones which I cannot respond, I will give this philosophy back to you. My knowledge is incomplete, and I both accept and embrace that. But I do not hold up my knowledge as a measure against which scriptures can be held. They are perfect in their own right, and the flaws exist in myself, not the Scriptures.
The question is not whether you have a response--it is whether it is the RIGHT response. Christianity solves a contradiction--and yes, there are quite a few--by constructing a plausible answer that could explain it, and then offers it as THE answer. This is how it is done--I know, I was involved in the doing of it for many years.
The operate idea is that you must have an answer for everything, so pick the best one of the options, and stick to it! This is just really flawed reasoning that results from a faith based on human ability to explain God and His will.
Now the method of dealing with doctrinal paradoxes is more involved, and I will not do the 1000-word essay here. Suffice to say, the answers become doctrine because they WORK, they solve an embarrassing problem, and they fit the values and beliefs of the church, and not because they are necessarily RIGHT. The shoddy scholarship represented in some of these "answers" is impossible to defend in a scholarly environment, where people really KNOW things that can be proved without reference to faith claims, and the church just calls the opposing views the deception of the devil. It is a tragic comedy (a comedic tragedy?). Sigh...