As I said, you are not following through the terms set out in your OP, that's all. You are not allowing any theological claim, but challenging each to the level of apodicticity, which is unreasonable.
Obviously you didn't make it past the first sentence of the OP.
I said,
"Please present a sound, valid logical syllogism which explains why Christ's execution was either a physical or logical necessity for the forgiveness of sins."
If you want to take the logical necessity route, then you have to provide a proof that is logically airtight. Sorry, that's just how logic works. Don't whine at me... maybe just wag your fist at reality, I guess.
If you want to take the physical necessity route, then you need only establish some causal link - no different than what is done in science. Absolute certainty is not required or even expected here. Just explain the physical mechanics of what is occurring.
If you can do neither of these things, then there was no physical or logical necessity for Jesus to be crucified. What, then, was the point of his death?
Which is what is occurring with the Crucifixion. The offended party is honouring the covenant, by the means in which the covenant was enacted and reinforced such as blooded sacrifice and scapegoating, even though He need not do so. What, quite frankly, is your point here?
The covenant is that God blesses us if we behave ourselves. Regardless of what we do, God can continue to bless us if he so desires. Nothing in there requires that God tortures and kills himself.
Well, no one is given the chance to expand on it, as it is rejected out of hand. The best way to do so, would be to define the target: Is not the Law fully encompassed in Love your God and your neighbour as yourself? So clearly, any act that fails to accord by these standards, would be missing the mark, as it were. I think this quite clear on lying to the Nazis, for by abandoning the Jews, you are facilitating the Nazis' murder of them, thus an offence against the Jews as well as against the Nazis, who you could protect from thus sinning in this manner.
This notion from the Bible is taken out of context far too often by apologists.
Tell me, who is your neighbor? What does it mean to be one's neighbor? Can you beat and rape your neighbor? Certainly not, because even the Old Testament tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
But the Old Testament also allows for rape and slavery. The obvious answer is this:
Your neighbor is another Hebrew man of fatherhood age.
That's why you can't just go around beating and raping your neighbor. That's why you love your neighbor as yourself. But that's also why the systematic racism and sexism of the Old Testament was still "valid."
This is why there is indentured servitude for Hebrew men, but women and foreigners are slaves for life. This is why there is absolutely no law against rape, but rather laws against whom you rape - or, more accurately, whose wife/property you rape.
So, no, "Love your neighbor as yourself" doesn't cut it.
I disagree. For a concept of 'wrong' to make sense, for Morality to make sense, we require a metaphysical absolute or system to ground it upon, or else it is merely my preference over yours. The difference between any such metaphysical system and theology is paper-thin to non-existent.
I don't think there is any system of absolute morality, but I can hypothetically grant you that such a system exists. Do we then agree that rape, slavery, genocide, and animal torture for the amusement of some deity would be in violation of this absolute morality?
Should we be surprised that when a group of racist, sexist, genocidal, slave-driving rapists cobble up some treatise on morality, they might get a few things wrong here or there?
Please. I can see no way in which this is inadequate. Merely stating something is, without explanation as if obvious, is a very poor way of going about a discussion.
Well, I've explained it now. You really need to fix that word "neighbor" and get back to me. Oh, and you need to either abandon the Bible or else square that circle of, "Love your neighbor except that you get to have slaves, too, and beat them as long as they don't die."
It can be done, but not to the level of apodicticity that you insist upon in this thread for theology, as I illustrated with gravity. You keep eliding my very criticism of this thread.
As demonstrated with gravity? You didn't demonstrate anything. Also, once again, refer to the first sentence of the OP. Just explain the causal workings of the crucifixion and then you are free from the burden of absolute certainty that awaits you in the logical path.
That is not true. Science starts with bare assumptions like repeatability of phenomena giving the same answers, that sense-data is accurate, that empiricism is more valid than other systems of knowledge-gathering, etc.
I can give you perfectly workable definitions in theology down to fundamental, primitive levels, but you insist on levels beyond the underlying structure or paradigm upon which it is based. Science would fail on this astringent level, as readily as theology does. For instance, in your example of mass: What is acceleration? Is this not based on movement? What is movement? etc.
I just got through saying that science ultimately rests upon primitive, undefined terms. Mass would be one of these things. You are free to take sin as a primitive term in your theology, but I still need to see the complete logical framework or the complete causal chain linking crucifixion and forgiveness. Fail to do this, and the nonsequitur remains.
Yes, our hypothetical onlooker would see that I was talking about the fact that it is unnecessary to fully explicate a proposition to see if another proposition follows from it, in sequence. Logic would still apply, as it does in advanced quantum physics or Mathematics, even if I myself, have no idea what is going on anymore. This is why logical syllogisms can be rewritten in the form of A thus B, where propositions are replaced with placeholders. Their own meaning does not need to be fully grasped to see that a logical sequence is being followed.
I'd be thrilled with an "A thus B" syllogism from you. Do you have one?
Thereafter I give a definition of sin.
And, again, your definition of sin allows me to own slaves and rape them without being a sinner.
You complain that I don't define sin, but I just did in the second part of the paragraph, and then completely ignore my first point that it doesn't really matter when determining if a logical sequence is being followed. So yes, very much an irrelevant response you made to what I had written.
Another gripe I had with your definition was that it does not exhaustively cover all scenarios. Again, if I can't tell whether or not something is a sin when I apply your definition, then you've yet to supply me with a definition.
As does Theology. You just try and hold it to a higher standard then Mathematics.
No. At worst, I'm holding theology to the same standard. I'm also allowing you to hold theology to the standard set in science, which is lower.
Logic, by the way, is the study of inference and the form of argument - so this is very much a confusing pairing you are making here.
Mathematics is a subset of logic, so your point is nonsense.
Logic is defining when something is properly defined, so to grant it its own criteria, is somewhat of a Petitio Principii, instead of merely a necessary convention as it is usually construed.
So you agree, then, that nihilism wins?
It is the same. Both are based on personal experience of past humans - Standing on the shoulders of giants. In like manner, Galen's physiology held Medicine for 1000 years, or Aristotlean theories of motion Physics, so here 'Confusion' arose as well, and was likewise a problem. They declared these as facts as much as the theologians declared points they held on the nature of God. Like Medicine later went on to affirm that blood circulated, so Theologians affirmed that the One God consisted of three Persons. In neither case did our base experience alter, but new information helped us update the worldview.
So divine revelation personally dispensed from God is the same as the accumulated knowledge of mankind?
This is a specious statement. The people putting other men's feet in the fire were also human, not God. You STARTED to first oppose theology on the grounds that it is held with such utter conviction and sometimes used to do evil, and now I pointed out that Scientific points are also held with utter conviction and sometimes used to do evil. It is frank sophistry you are attempting here. Either way, people were responding to what they considered to be real within their world.
I don't think you have a clue what's going on in this conversation. You're treating divine revelation and scientific discovery as if they're the same. This conversation is asinine.
Not at all. My point is that a word's meaning is determined by the context in which it is found. Even if a formal definition exists, it does not mean it is consistently applied in writings, since there is by necessity a disconnect between the definition and its use, as all words aren't defined every time we read them. There is a flux of meaning, which is why thought-paradigms need to be deconstructed and the strands of meaning investigated, although even then, meaning will alter depending on the observer. Perhaps you should read up a bit about Wittgenstein, and his portrait concept, or go back to my earlier post where I explained it.
Nonsensical. Violates the definition of definition.
Nonsense. Physical observation is merely one form of Qualia, of human experience, as subjective as any other. It cannot be shown to be more valid, nor to be superior any other form of qualia, hence Buddhist claims as to the Void of the world, or Neurology's inability to explain our experience based on depolarisation of neurons, or concepts like labelling our consciousness an 'emergent property' has to be adopted from a naturalistic materialist point of view.
Physical reality is the only arena in which we can demonstrate with excruciating certainty that bad ideas actually are bad ideas. Sitting in your armchair and thinking really hard is an arena where bad ideas can go utterly unchallenged.
Seems more that tertiary educated individuals are at disagreement on this. Everyone is either a Platonist or Aristotlean, as someone once said, I forgot who for the moment. Anyway, much observer-dependant theorising in higher physics and those that believe that the world is mathematically determinable, are anyway paper-thin Platonists, so your denigration of non-STEM fields in this regard is silly here to boot.
Most people think that the number 2 is some abstract embodiment of any possible arrangement of two things. In reality, this is what the number 2 is:
{Ø,{Ø}}
It's just a string of symbols with no intrinsic meaning.
Which was exactly my point, that you are holding Theology to higher standards then any other discipline in this regard, because you decide to arbitrarily set what is 'foundational'.
No, I'm not. Either put forth something to be evaluated, or else stop whining and concede the point. All you do is complain that my standard is too high despite the fact that I will allow you to have *anything* as a premise.
Once again, this is exactly my criticism of your simplistic position. You would state that all knowledge is meaningless, nihilistic, yet hold an almost schoolboy belief in exact definition. it boggles the mind.
I'm saying that words have no absolute, intrinsic meaning. This does not mean that definitions cannot be consistent. You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Interesting that a supposed Nihilist holds such an exact conceptual framework and fails to even acknowledge one outside it. You are being very inconsistent here.
I don't even know what you're talking about, and I'm guessing that makes two of us.
You think we know that much more? Every age thinks they know better or more than their ancestors. This is silly hubris on our part, as history has repeatedly shown. I assure you, we hold far more false beliefs than true ones, and I am sure this has always been the case. I see no reason to think today better then the 1920s say or even the 200s BC. You acknowledge that we cannot know what is true, so how pray tell, are you determining that more of ours are true than false vis-a-vis theirs?
Well, do you wash your hands? Do you use soap? Do you put leeches on yourself? Do you burn witches? Are you using the internet via a computer?
Yeah, we've made no progress at all.
You must be easily entertained then.
Then why do you appear so ignorant of them? I would assume then, that you are misusing them in Kalam argument discussions then.
I'm ignorant of the four causes? Interesting. Maybe you can tell me, then, what the material cause is in
creatio ex nihilo. As far as I can see, there isn't one, and there can't be one by definition... unless, I suppose, we go with your fuzzy-wuzzy understanding of definitions, in which case anything we say can mean anything we like.
You are the one missing the point of everything I have written. Multiple Logically valid ways to do so have been presented you. You reject them on patently silly grounds as I have repeatedly demonstrated.
You've been saying repeatedly that my expectations are too high and are impossible to be met. Now you're saying they've been met several times.
I have even shown you how to do the same to Scientific Arguments, so to keep harping on that example, merely shows how completely flawed your reasoning is. For some reason you can see that it can be dismissed in the latter case, but defend the exact same type of groundless reasoning otherwise.
Once again, please read the first sentence of the first post and then get back to me.
Perhaps, but you have no way to show this to be true. This is therefore merely a judgement of preference and cannot be shown accurate.
*Everything we do* shows it is true... by definition. Because aside from empiricism, all we have is just sitting in an armchair thinking really hard, and that is an arena where any moron can compete and not even know how bad he's lost. Only in physical reality are clear winners named.
I gave a Sorites based on the Scapegoat.
Great, but I didn't ask for that. Do you pay for groceries with live chickens or with money?
Why is a belief justified? Because you hold it to be? There is no functional difference between these two definitions therefore.
Exactly my point. This is why empiricism wins. Beliefs are justified when reality confirms them. Your wonderful idea of sitting in an armchair and thinking really hard does not justify any belief, and you seem to agree with this.
For a belief is justified because you believe it to be, and there is no way to infinitely justify that belief in your justification as well. Thus, knowledge doesn't exist in your system, at heart, as nothing can be fully justified.
Infinitely justified?
Yes, I shall merrily walk along the edge of that precipice, if need be. Trust me, you are not on much better footing.
LOL, OK.
No, you said: "I hope you agree that you have a lot to fix here" - which I do not. This is what you clearly are thoroughly confused and befuddled about, and trying to facilely ignore via pseudo-self-depreciation.
I disagree, of course. I think the OP has been relevantly and successfully answered multiple times in this thread by multiple posters. I concede that by your flawed, puerile and very specific thought-paradigm of what logic should entail in Theology, that the OP is unanswerable, but this hardly means what you think it does. We have already established from the get-go that you find it illogical, so this is a worthless observation.
You don't even seem to know what the OP says.
