Atheists are having it too easy.

[Foghorn]

Is this all theism will ever be - a bunch of people fulminating for religion? What does theism have to say about the major issues confronting humanity today such as abortion, gay marriage, genetic engineering, cloning embryos, our (ab)use of the environment etc. Does it have a position on these issues? If so, what is it and if atheists can find an theist who doesn't behave consistently with these principles, then presumably they can use him/her to attack theism?

Because you see, that would finally make this endless argument more of a level playing field.

Vonagefaux,

I would have thought Catholicism's position on these issues was quite clear!

[sondagefaux]

I would have thought Catholicism's position on these issues was quite clear!

Is Catholicism the only religion in the world???!!!!!!!

[Didimus]

That was sort of the point I was making, apologies for not being clearer. I am thinking, for example, of American creationists who deploy various arguments from design and then seem to leap from this to the conclusion that the literal Biblical account is correct. What I'm trying to distinguish between are arguments for some God, and arguments for some particular God.

When the reformation happened one of the key slogans was Sola Scriptura, which in its more benign form was a protest against what was seen as the distorting effect of what was considered an an over-powerful institutional, legalistic church. However Scripture Alone become in some sects Scripture is Everything. There is a great account of one of these Ananbaptists sects in the novel Q , by Luther Blissett ( the anarchist colective, not the footballer).
The upshot of this was a peculiar strain of fundamentalism that many of these sects brought with them when they fled to America. Having broken from the church on the issue of the authority of bible this then become the centre of their identity, and leads to the sort of circular justification that you well descibe.

[Didimus]

Or just like any myth you'd like to call holy.

Forgive me, but isn't all that a bit like "Let's have a read of this old and venerable and dusty stuff and use it to come to conclusions we could perfectly well have come to anyway without having read it"?

Happy to call any and everything holy, or as our crowd would say sacramental.
Interpretation, or hermeneutics cannot be reduced to the derivation of conclusions. Think of the corpus of shakespearian interpretation/criticism as a analogy.
Generally the propositional bits of Catholicism come from philosophical reflection.

[Cato]

Generally the propositional bits of Catholicism come from philosophical reflection.

If true then why worry about the theological bull? Why not strip it down to its philosophical roots and go from there?

[Toland]

If true then why worry about the theological bull? Why not strip it down to its philosophical roots and go from there?

Good question.

[Didimus]

If true then why worry about the theological bull? Why not strip it down to its philosophical roots and go from there?

Not exactly sure what you mean. I gather that you think the philosopically theistic principles are themselves bull, so that would not change things much.
And Christianity is about a whole way of life and cannot be boiled down to abstract principles.
Would be interested to hear your take on why Christianity flourished while Stoicism did not, although early Christian thinkers were quite apprecaitive of Stoic philosophy.

[Toland]

Would be interested to hear your take on why Christianity flourished while Stoicism did not, although early Christian thinkers were quite apprecaitive of Stoic philosophy.

Might as well ask why the Arians or the Cathars didn't flourish (in the end).

The reason lies in the behaviour of Christians (catholics).

Ask a silly question...

[Didimus]

Might as well ask why the Arians or the Cathars didn't flourish (in the end).

The reason lies in the behaviour of Christians (catholics).

Ask a silly question...

In a strange way that you probably have not considered you may be right

[Almanac]

To take the second and third questions first, assuming that by ‘moral language’ you mean statements like ‘X is good’ or ‘It is right that we should X’ or ‘Y is evil’ or ‘It is wrong that we should Y’ and so on, one reason we might express things in these terms is because we have been taught that certain things are good and that other things are evil.

No that's not what I meant. I mean that we use moral language which is founded on the notion of an objective morality irrespective of concrete circumstances: praising for being right, blaming for being wrong, quarrelling about who's right and wrong, counselling people, punishing people for being wrong, admonishing people to do the right thing. We use these terms and we understand their use. As language is formed from experience- our experience of ourselves and the world- these words and others like them express our experience of morality.

The rest of your post was not really relevant but I am glad that you mentioned the infinite regress problem. It was obvious that you could see it even pages back. It is a standard argument against moral relativism. One has to understand it first though.