If you think Mormonism is retarded, why you think the Bible is any different?

[Ideologue]

Both Jews and Christians believe that Moses delivered the Israelites from Egypt, however we don't say that Jews and Christians are the same.  Why are Christians not Jews?  Cause Christians have their own holy book they added on.  Why are Mormons not Christians?  Cause Mormons have their own holy book they added on.

Sectarian Bibles often do differ.

If it's the non-Nicene interpretation of the divinity of Jesus--i.e., Jesus was a created being--are Arians not Christians?

I'll bet a dollar you've used the phrase Arian Christianity in your life.  It is, at least, widely used in literature.  It is also useful in conversations about the early Church so that anyone who might overhear you does not believe you're discussing Nazism.  Do you think the usage of the term "Christian" in that context is alright but not in that of Mormonism?  In both Arianism and Mormonism, Jesus was created and non-consubstantial with God the Father.  Yes, Mormonism is a little bit more, er, detailed in how this worked, but it's still got a divine Jesus.

[garbon]

Did the Arians have whole new chapters to add to the bible?

[Ideologue]

I'm ignorant of the Arian canon and a quick search didn't generate much that was useful, but since it's the mid-4th century I'm gonna guess that their collection was, while still somewhat fluid, probably pretty similar to the Catholic canon as we know it.  That said, I don't accept that "adding a book" is enough to take a sect out of a particular religious ambit.

[The Brain]

With a "Christian" book that includes America in any way you are way out of the armpit IMHO.

[Razgovory]

Both Jews and Christians believe that Moses delivered the Israelites from Egypt, however we don't say that Jews and Christians are the same.  Why are Christians not Jews?  Cause Christians have their own holy book they added on.  Why are Mormons not Christians?  Cause Mormons have their own holy book they added on.

Sectarian Bibles often do differ.

If it's the non-Nicene interpretation of the divinity of Jesus--i.e., Jesus was a created being--are Arians not Christians?

I'll bet a dollar you've used the phrase Arian Christianity in your life.  It is, at least, widely used in literature.  It is also useful in conversations about the early Church so that anyone who might overhear you does not believe you're discussing Nazism.  Do you think the usage of the term "Christian" in that context is alright but not in that of Mormonism?  In both Arianism and Mormonism, Jesus was created and non-consubstantial with God the Father.  Yes, Mormonism is a little bit more, er, detailed in how this worked, but it's still got a divine Jesus.

Nobody will discus early christian heretics with me in real life.   I don't think a divine Jesus is end all be all to being a Christian.  The Baha guys have a divine Christ.  Or a Christ as a "Manifestation of God", but nobody considers them Christians.

[Tamas]

This is more the counter to Viking's bizarre argument that in order to be a Christian you MUST believe everything in the bible to be literally true.  That really doesn't match with most Christians - both today and historically.

That position seems to be more logical to me, than cherry-picking parts you like and thus take literally, and parts you don't, on which you apply a good dose of "allegoric meaning" so that it lets you keep thinking you are believing in this religion

[Viking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

OK - that seems to demonstrate that no one actually advocates a God-of-the-Gaps construct, which strongly suggests it is in fact a strawman argument.

You say strawman, I say logical fallacy.

The existence of god can only not be a scientific proposition if god has no effect on the world. It is the only truly common claim for all religions that the spiritual world affects the material one. These claims can and are tested (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer) and found not to be significant. 

God has enormous effect on the world, but that is not really the inquiry because fiction and fictional characters have effects on the world.
I assume you intend by "effect" to mean some physical, natural effect in accordance with a law of nature.  But by definition, God cannot be cabined by the laws of nature, unless God itself is co-terminus with nature.  Either way, not a scientific proposition, but an axiomatic one.

Huck Finn's effect on the world is as a creation of Samuel Clemens. This is a silly argument.

By effect I mean a relevance to conscious creatures. We can study that effect by examining it's relevance to conscious creatures. The Deist or Panentheist God are not personal and do not act per se, they merely are. I'll grant that these two God ideas are virtually impossible to test (though the Deist god can be tested in examining the start of the universe), however, neither of these Gods are personal or relevant to believers. The god that gets you a mortgage, helps uncle danny quit drinking and helps Tebow throw that TD pass is testable precisely because he does these things. Your argument that we cannot understand God because he is not limited by the laws of nature if applied to lightning, the movement of the planets or biological diversity would have left us without an understanding of electricity, gravity and evolution.

[Viking]

No one is denying that people have taken some or all of the Bible very literally at points in history.

This is more the counter to Viking's bizarre argument that in order to be a Christian you MUST believe everything in the bible to be literally true.  That really doesn't match with most Christians - both today and historically.

Galileo of course was prosecuted by the Pope, and Catholics certainly didn't then (and do not now) believe in a purely literal Bible.

I don't say that. I say that you can't know what is true and what is allegory and from that it follows that you can have no knowledge of god from the bible. The bible is not revelation. It is a compilation of the knowledge of god by the christians of the first and second centuries compiled by the christians of the fourth.

My stance on literalism is as follows, given that you are a theist, you will take with utmost seriousness and reverence anything you actually do know about god prioritizing that over any other concerns. My scorn is reserved for the hypocrites.

[Viking]

Galileo was indicted on the basis that the bible states that the Earth is the center of the universe, and that it is the sun that rises and sets, not the Earth.

Galileo ran afoul of Catholic doctrine of the time, and to a certain extent, his own lack of diplomacy.  But plenty of cotemporary Christians (includign Catholics) had no problem with heliocentrism, an idea with a long history by Galileo's time, and did not see anything in the Bible as contradictory.  Galileo himself was a believing and practicing Catholic.

I agree here. Galileo's crime was not heliocentrism, it was philosophical naturalism (as well as being a dick). Galileo's heresy was NOMA observing (the italian equivalent of) that the Bible tells you how to get to heaven not how the heavens go. He claimed that the universe itself was a second book from god, the study of which would reveal more truth about the universe. Galileo said he could prove heliocentrism on his own based on facts, that was the heresy. The Pope was friendly to him and agreed with him on heliocentrism. The pope just wanted time since the ptolmaic system had become associated with dogma and the prestige of the church.

Galileo agreed to shut up under threat of torture and then promptly wrote a novel where two characters debate heliocentrism and one of them wins the argument conclusively.

[Viking]

Can you give some examples of these rather forward thinkers?

Descartes for one.  I know Galileo had a number of supporters within the Church, which is why it took so long for him to be subject to sanction, but I can't enumerate by name.

Descartes is not a very good example given the fact he delayed publication because of his fear of the Church.

Copernicus, Spinoza, Descartes and Hobbes all had significant work published posthumously for fear of the church. For fear of the church free thinkers publish posthumously.

[The Minsky Moment]

By effect I mean a relevance to conscious creatures. We can study that effect by examining it's relevance to conscious creatures. The Deist or Panentheist God are not personal and do not act per se, they merely are. I'll grant that these two God ideas are virtually impossible to test (though the Deist god can be tested in examining the start of the universe), however, neither of these Gods are personal or relevant to believers.

How can one determine personal relevance other than what particular people find to be relevant to them?  God clearly was relevant to Aristotleans like Aquinas, to Maimonides, to ibn Rushd; God was also relevant to the American Deists (e.g.) of the Revolutionary era who invoked God's name in founding documents.

The god that gets you a mortgage, helps uncle danny quit drinking and helps Tebow throw that TD pass is testable precisely because he does these things.

This god isn't testable either because its motivations are unknown.

Your argument that we cannot understand God because he is not limited by the laws of nature if applied to lightning, the movement of the planets or biological diversity would have left us without an understanding of electricity, gravity and evolution.

Clearly not so as the experiemental method is competent for achieving that understanding.

[The Minsky Moment]

Copernicus, Spinoza, Descartes and Hobbes all had significant work published posthumously for fear of the church. For fear of the church free thinkers publish posthumously.

Certainly it was not my intent to defend the Church as a force for human progress throughout the ages.   

[garbon]

I'm ignorant of the Arian canon and a quick search didn't generate much that was useful, but since it's the mid-4th century I'm gonna guess that their collection was, while still somewhat fluid, probably pretty similar to the Catholic canon as we know it.  That said, I don't accept that "adding a book" is enough to take a sect out of a particular religious ambit.

Except that the Book of Mormon has completely new stories created several millenia after Christian texts whereas when we talk about different books added and removed different versions of the Christian bible aren't we looking at books that were written in the same 4-500 year period?

[The Minsky Moment]

These are the small "t" truths I was referring to. We can never be sure, but we can have tentative knowledge. 

Looking back, here is where I think you were on the right track.

The distinction between knowledge about God and knowledge about historical facts in the world is not that the consequences differ or in terms of personal relevance.  The difference is that while we cannot have certain knowledge about either, we can have a more limited probabilistic knowledge about historical facts.  We can't really know whether a Roman general Varus lost an entire legion in a German forest on date X but we can make judgments about whether the event was more likely or not based on the presence or absence of objective evidence.  I.e. if several different writers discuss the battle at different times than we can be more confident than if it is only in (say) Tacitus.   The archaeological finds that are suggestive of some kind of strong military Roman presence in the region at the time, while far from conclusive, also move the probabilistic needle.

But knowledge about God isn't like that.  We can't even have the more limited kind of probabalistic knowledge because the nature of God is inherently inscrutable.  Thus, there is no objective way to measure and evaluate competing claims about God (and no way to measure and evaluate the competing religions).  There are no facts or observations, for example that would allow soemone to conclude that justification by faith is moreor less  plausible than justification by works.  One can only establish a priori axioms about what God should be like and reason from there, or simply accept one particular account "on faith" - that is effectively arbitrarily.  In that limited sense, Tamas' rhetorical question has a point.

Viking - I think you have already said as much above but my criticism is that you have confused the argument with a Dawkins-influenced scientific argument.  It's a fundamentally flawed approach.  One cannot address theological questions scientifically without pulling science beyond its own inherent limitations - and it is those very limitations that give science its effectiveness and power. 

[Ideologue]

I'm ignorant of the Arian canon and a quick search didn't generate much that was useful, but since it's the mid-4th century I'm gonna guess that their collection was, while still somewhat fluid, probably pretty similar to the Catholic canon as we know it.  That said, I don't accept that "adding a book" is enough to take a sect out of a particular religious ambit.

Except that the Book of Mormon has completely new stories created several millenia after Christian texts whereas when we talk about different books added and removed different versions of the Christian bible aren't we looking at books that were written in the same 4-500 year period?

And reams and reams of paper written over the course of the last 2000 that, while not directly attached to the Bible or considered in themselves sacred as the Book of Mormon is, have been incorporated into the bodies of the various sects.  For example, TULIP is not in the Bible, but it is as much a part of Calvinism as proto-space opera is to Mormonism.

Edit: that said, I can see how you could draw a distinction between the addition of theology by Calvinism and the addition of mythology by Mormonism.  I don't think it's persuasive because I don't think that distinction really stands; while less detailed than the concept of Jesus being Satan's bro, the concept of an Elect that has been determined for all time is still a concrete idea, not found in the Bible, invented, if I am not mistaken, around AD 1500, but embraced by a mainstream Christian sect.