>By the same token, I can argue that the co-existance of these two:
>
>God exists
>God does not exist
>
>makes God's existance not a key element of Christianity. NOT!
ouch. It's like when I'm playing chess and accidentally lose my queen to
some sneaky bishop. I'll take this as a sign I need to think more
intelligently, more often.
>The fallacy here is in the link to Christianity... god may not be
>omnipotent, he may be both, but to a Christian, he /is/ omnipotent.
>Any other stance on the issue makes you a non-Christian, as I see it.
right. I'm agreeing with you for now, at least in part. According to
Christians, the main distinguishing characteristic is Christ's death and
resurection for our salvation. An omnipotent god is merely an Obvious
Axiom, and not to be worried about. Traditional logic might dictate that
the omnipotent god meme is one of the foundational base memes of
christianity, but..... I... disagree*
*It's very rare that I actually disagree with something. Usually I can get
both sides of an argument and end up going "mmhmm, I see." I'm excited.
Christians talking amongst themselves usually agree the key (not
foundational) [1] meme of Christianity is 'humans are imperfect and need
the sacrificial death and resurection' [2]. It seems possible to hold this
memes dominant without necessarily believing in an omnipotent god, due to
the aformalogical way out memespaces work. [you know, i enjoy the sound of
aformalogical].
[1] Internally I'm using an arch metaphor. Christians build arches with
christ as the keystone and omnigod as the base. Jews build some other
structure <warning: igorance apparent> with the same omnigod on the bottom.
I'm trying to convey the difference between key and foundational---I can
see them being confused on the surface.
[2] I believe there is a much more complex memset at work, but my point is
that Omnipotent God does not need to be in the top 10.
>> [1] Though when pressed, I can shift enough meme's around to change that to
>> a "god can but i'm pretty sure it's not in the plan". Nifty, eh-what? I
>> can fit right in with aitheists and fundamentalists alike.
>
>And this is sort of what makes me think you arn't really a Christian...
>just a pseudo Christian with some of their beleifs and many others of
>your own making (or that you borrowed from elsewhere)
Probably. Although with a good solid week or two of exposure in a
well-engineered environment I can see the christian memeset taking over
again, at least temporarily.
>> [2] or should I say, "a large set of data from which set of memes have
>> infested me because they are usefull in the advancement of my happiness and
>> understanding of the nature of a possible underlying reality?"
>
>Just so you don't think I'm totally antagonistic, I'll say that this is
>exactly how I view the Bible. Merly a source of useful memes. Now if
>it just wasn't so dense and hard to read...
I prefer to think of it as maximum potiential meme density (MPMD). And
don't worry about the antagonistic part.
warning big think smoking damage.
tom.