Creationism

[The Grand Nudger]

So you know that it was said, and just straight up lied in your last post.  Good for you.

Yes, it must be because I'm lying instead of the other way around. Context matters.

I'm going to elaborate for anyone who cares:

In response to this quote in FM's post (he referring to Augustine):

he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

Belaqua said this:

People say the same about the Big Bang. That it's nonsense to talk about "before" the Big Bang, because time didn't exist yet. I don't know if that's true, but it's interesting that Augustine came up with the idea first.

So the idea being referred to here isn't that time had a beginning, but rather that it doesn't make sense to talk about "before" the beginning of time. And "first" of course shouldn't necessarily be understood to mean "absolutely first in the history of mankind" but rather first relative to modern "people who say the same about the Big Bang".

The real point here, though, let's make an effort to be as fair as we can be in interpreting what other people are saying, especially those you may be prone to disagree with on many things. Hopefully all of us are learning new things in these discussion and we continue to improve in both contents of our beliefs and in our attitudes. Because we're definitely needing this more and more in this time and age.

Stop. You can sing kumbayah all you like, I'm just giggling...as you pointed out, at Bels compulsive need to say silly shit like this. He didn't come up with the idea first, not even in your mind reading rendition...so that's not interesting. The idea that time began satisfies human intuition, it's been proposed all over the place, and all over time.

Sure, we can disagree, we don't have to lie to disagree. Bel misrepresents the tradition, informed by human intuition, that time began - and all that this entails for people who believe as much. As is so often the case with christendom and it's luminaries - it's a borrowed ladder.

For a christian theologian and apologist, which is who we're discussing, the belief (completely uninformed by any fact of reality, mind you) has dual utility. They prefer a time with a beginning because their god is a beginner with a capital b. The Grand Nudger. They prefer the insensibility of before-the-before because it covers them on the most obvious issue with asserted capital b beginners. Positions of theological convenience with a longstanding historic tradition behind them, the credibility of which helped to launder christianity as respectable while it built authority street-to-street. The main roman objection to christianity for centuries was that it was a batshit crazy set of ignorant superstitions, and so, as a practical measure, christians draped themselves in roman things. It took a long time, and the synthesis of these preexisting ideas (thought to be the right set of ideas ) with the new christian beliefs (now thought to be the right beliefs) reads like something Dave Barry would write.

Learning is fun!

[GrandizerII]

Sure, sure, keep reading it however the way you want. That is probably why you thought he was referring to Thomas before I corrected you.

I also suspect all this accusation of me lying is a projection on your part.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're right, it's hard to keep all these saints straight in my head. See how easy it is to admit a mistake?

[GrandizerII]

You're right, it's hard to keep all these saints straight in my head.  See how easy it is to admit a mistake?

It is. Now for the other mistake

ETA: Hmm, I can see now there is another way to read this, and that seems to be a more plausible reading. In that case, happy to admit the mistake (if Bel confirms it is a mistake on my part)