I have posted an analysis of this letter exchange at my site.

Note I have not read the comments on either site.

Vox Day = John Cleese

A little of both, perhaps. Certainly one more than the other.

J.

That’s hilarious. I have heard the same thing. In fact, one of my closest friends married a girl he found physically “repulsive” because he felt “God sent her to him as a test to see if he was contrite about all the womanizing he engaged in as a teen and in his early twenties”. He has literally tricked himself into believing that demons were in possession of his mind and coerced him into pre-marital and absolutely loveless sex. And so the necessary punishment to be meted out is physical and sexual dissatisfaction for the rest of his life.

The delusions inhibiting otherwise normal, intelligent human beings is stultifying. Especially when considered contextually in the scale of just how many people do this to themselves everyday. He uses “the existence of evil” to validate his claim that we are all with demons inside. Everyone one of us.

A few years ago I moved back to the island I grew up on, and he told me that Satan was tempting me to go back there (by way of a great job offer, which, Satan, if you’re reading this, thanks) because he (Satan) knew that I’d be more likely to “follow him” in Florida than I would if I stayed up here with my friend and my other fundamentalist christian buddies.

Your post reminded me of a host of conversations I had with this guy and it amused me. Thanks for posting!

J.

It is a razor sharp dualism. An absurdly supersterstitious, ultra paranoid world view. There is Christianity and Jesus and everything else is part of a vast, all encompassing conspiracy to keep people away from Christianity and Jesus.

You really have. Not only Christianity but what I wrote as well. Ayer didn’t have had any problem understanding. In fact he nailed it on the head. The other “gods” are part of the spiritual rebellion. In the bible they are often called false gods, or so-called gods. In English this is always with a lowercase to signify that they aren’t Gods at all.

None of that really matters. The original point was that there are other spiritual beings at work leaving no problem with accepting “Krisna did it.” In fact, as I said before, Paul warns of “angels” preaching a gospel other than Christ’s.

This is all very standard orthodox Christianity. I know Aquinas talked about demonology in his Summae, and I am sure if need be I could find the same in many of the church fathers. For one off the cuff, St. Anthony was famous for his trials with evil spirits. So this goes back at least as far as the time of Constantine.

I can’t see any general definition of “god” which disqualifies Satan. Why, considering the power he supposedly wields, if he were placed in, say, the Greek pantheon he would rank rather high. Is Christianity then polytheistic? Should we cede to Christians the right to redefine “god” for us so as to make their religion monotheistic? Why?

Its always interesting to think about the saints too. I think the Catholics have gone on and purged most of the more mythical saints from the ranks, but they originally came from Roman gods…. praying to a saint is a hold-over from that old polytheistic heritage.

Interesting.

I think you are misunderstanding Euthrypho and Vox. If I am not mistaken, they take Greg Boyd’s position that these other “gods” are created by the monotheistic God (even if they are sometimes worshiped by humans), but are part of the spiritual rebellion led by Satan.

Don’t feel bad luke. With Vox’s recasting of Christianity as a henotheistic faith, he has effectively declared that most Christians misunderstand their faith. It seems, in fact, that the great majority of Christians for centuries have mistakenly considered themselves monotheists. Poor fools…

Riddle me this: If Christianity is poly- or heno-theistic, why did the church have such a bitter struggle defending its monotheism in light of the Trinity. If they already believed in many multitudes of gods, why such a fuss over convincing their critics that the Trinity did not violate monotheism? Why not just say, “Oh ya. And Jesus and the Holy Spirit are gods too. Together with YHWH, these three gods are the top dogs of the god-world.”

I mean, ball park, what are we talking here? Like God and a few poker buddy god’s? A stadium’s worth? Or are they all bumping elbows up there from one side of the cosmos to the other?

Applying for God-ship,
J. de Backer

Dang if that’s not scary! An omnipotent being that isn’t omniscient? Just to be on the safe side, I’d rather have it the other way around.

Gee, and all along I thought Christianity was monotheistic. Vox is right, I’ve really misunderstood Christianity…

First, I’m not Vox, nor do I subscribe to his particular theological views. Second, this isn’t unorthodox at all. It is basic Christianity. There would be no such thing as spiritual warfare if God was the only being with spiritual power. Other gods, demons, evil spirits etc are strewn throughout the OT and NT. In Galatians Paul warns of anyone even an angel that might teach a gospel other than Christ’s, in the Ten Commandments God commands that we not worship other gods, and make no graven images. He goes on to say he is a “jealous” God, but if there are no other gods who is he jealous of; why say not to worship gods OR images if there are only images and not gods as well? 2 Chronicles talks of “so-called gods” and other lords. etc etc

As for other religions claims, there is only a problem if a person claimed they were both true. If I claim Christianity is true there is no problem with my also claiming that other religions are false.

Also Vox doesn’t claim that God isn’t omnipotent, he claims God is not omniscient.

I don’t see this as a problem given the statements made early on in the Vox/Luke debate, or maybe it was in the comments on an earlier letter, that other gods admittedly exist in the Christian worldview.

ildi: “Most people would not care so much about whether there is evidence for the existence of a general cake if they didn’t first believe that either angel food, German chocolate or red velvet cake existed.”

Are you claiming here that Luke doesn’t believe the actions Vox would claim as evil exist?

Would it be easier to remove the connotation of the word evil and instead use the words “morally bad.” Do you believe in moral badness? Is badness in morality objective or subjective? If objective what is the basis of said objectivity?

Yes. Objective. God. (Christianity)

Yes. Objective. The tendency to fulfill other desires. (Desirism)

See its not that hard. Then the debate can focus on the actual ideas of the two debaters instead of obscure uses of the word objective. Luke can attack God as the objective base for morality, and Vox can do the same for “a tendency to fulfill other desires”.

There are a few potential responses to this:

1) Yeah, what of it? It’s not like you can refute it.

2) What makes you think I’m an atheist? All I’m doing is showing Christianity is wrong.

3) Conversely, I could just be posing a view to show the weakness the foundation of those who claim miracles justify their belief.

Ok, i’ll take the stupid accent part back. (my accent is probably worse) But I can’t agree with the superb debater part, because most of his arguments don’t make sense. But I must admit he sure can make a point.

Actually, Carrier is among those who say he did poorly in his debate with Craig. As he said on his blog:

“As I had predicted, I didn’t win the debate”’

Well, he did perform poorly, because he couldn’t win from someone who believes in the great book of fairy tales.

Stupid accent???

http://www.bringyou.to/CraigSpongDebate.mp3‘

I thank you for the link, but i’m not convinced. Craig should consider a new career as stand-up comedian though, because he has got funny points of view and a stupid accent working for him.

Yes, I experienced what I believed to be miracles.

I was far from a perfect Christian, but I did my best to live out the love of Jesus. I did mission trips, worked as a servant of the Kingdom in many capacities, tried to love others and surrender to God, and so on.

Re: your miracle stories. I don’t have the facts, so I can’t explain your story. But if “Jesus did it” is a good explanation for those phenomena, you’ll have to admit that “Krishna did it” is an equally good explanation for similar miracles that happen in a Hindu context, and “Allah did it” is an equally good explanation for similar miracles that happen in a Muslim context, and so on. There are also some serious theological and philosophical problems with the idea of miracles, which I’m sure I’ll write about eventually.

http://mustardseednovel.blogspot.com/2008/12/philosophy-of-heather-manning.html

‘Desire’ has not been defined in the course of our letters, no. We’ll see if it comes up. I take a desire to be a propositional attitude to make or keep some proposition P true. It seems likely this attitude supervenes on a particular brain state.

I don’t recall saying that Vox was evil. Also, “evil” has very little to do with thwarting MY desires.

Thanks for sharing your perspective!