Posted by Rational [trw] on November 02, 1999 at 15:56:34 {.c1iAaocfMYgCUWv3.1cm0FN8UzOHE}:
In Reply to: *Response to AF: Part One posted by Cygnus on November 02, 1999 at 13:04:24:
Cygnus,
Might as well give it up. All you're gonna get from Mr. Stafford is the same kind of obfuscation, weasel-words, and ad-hominems that we frequently get from Friend. (Could they be one and the same? Or is the strong similarity in their abuse of logic and language simply a common consequence of repeatedly rationalizing the Society's "doublespeak"?)
Notice how Stafford jumps all over AF for understanding Stafford's words in the way any one of us would have understood them: "who study the scriptures apart from the creeds of post-biblical Christianity". Stafford rants at length that AF misrepresented his statement, when in fact Stafford's own language was ambiguous. There is a great difference between speaking of "the creeds of post-biblical Christianity" (what he saidmeant). It seems to me more than a bit disingenuous for Stafford to ask AF "What in the world would make you think I would be using the term in the general, non-technical sense," ... as if everyone has read "J. N. D. Kelly’s book The Early Christian Creeds, 3d ed. (New York: Longman, 1972)" and would just naturally assume he was using the term "creed" as defined therein. (I know, I know, he's probably just impressing us with his credentials.)
I just wish I had read this "response" from Stafford to AF before I wasted my money on his book. Oh well, live and learn.
Rational