Since these are impressions of someone who confessed to not having engaged with the relevant scholarship and is adamant in not doing so I see no reason to think much of them.
This is fun ! You deserve to be followed.
This looks like an escape attempt to me.
So, I repeat: what has theology achieved in all these centuries of deep thought and formidable scholarship?
Does God exist? If yes, which one is it? Do we, at least, know today the sex of the angels?
How is this in any way relevant to what I said in that paragraph?
You mentioned atheology. Which I have no ida what that is. Smells like complicated machines designed to kill a fly.
I literally just said that theology has gone through periods of not just not attempting to prove the existence of God but openly rejecting such attempts with such attitudes still being around today. I also said that there are actual atheists who are theologians. It would be a very peculiar type of atheist that would enter a discipline specifically made to prove God exists.
i know. I actually personally know one that studies theology here in Lucerne.
And I also have fun discussing Kalam, Leibnitz, modal logic, PSR, ontological, teleological, etc. arguments. I would not be here otherwise. And it is indeed fun. Sometimes I even keep the heavy weapon away not to win too fast. Unless I feel lazy.
We can discuss the argument from contingency, and fill out the therads with modal logic inferences, which is one of my favorites, if you want. Kalam is so lame, while Leibnitz was definetely more fun to kill.
What I argue is that you do not really to go that far to dismiss gods. Fun, but again, pointless. The centuries of inconclusiveness that characterizes what you call theology is evidence enough of its pointlessness.
Not to mention you've completely ignored the parallel I made with branches of philosophy such as meta-ethics. If we are to follow your logic we would have to give up almost all (if not all) of philosophy and who knows how many other disciplines.
I am not asking to give it up. Are you kidding. They are fun. Albeit pointless, since you will have moral realists and moral relativists or whatever for ever. While other disciplines are more conclusive. For instance nobody sane will believe today the earth is flat.
BTW: is there a meta-meta-ethic that provides the framework on which meta-ethics operate?
First, who's "you guys"? I am talking about theology in general and there are different views on miracles and prayer among theologians. Regardless, I am not going to discuss a particular issue in theology with someone who doesn't even understand what theology is. As I said before, theology doesn't need God to exist let alone prayer and miracles to be real in order to remain an academic discipline.
Different views? Well, I am sure a muslim will not recognize the miracles of the competition and vice versa without risking to be blown up by its students. So, probably some theologians think it is better to stay clear of miracles and stuff to avoid self defeat.
Hej, that is cool. How am I doing as a theologian?
Really?
First off, new atheism is a term for a very real cultural movement characterized by many of the same attitudes that you've expressed here and which many respectable atheists scholars of the past and present do not endorse.
New Atheism - Wikipedia
False conclusion. You make it sound like that atheists that find religious beliefs ridicolous are a new phenomenon. I wonder why people would believe that.
True, some are more respectful while other just laugh out. But In order to make an objective assessment we would have to test what it would have meant to compare transubstantiation to turning a toast into the ghost of Elvis something like a few decaed ago. In civilized Italy, for instance, that is still a felony today.
Second, to try to say there even is one thing called atheism is philosophically (let alone culturally) controversial given the many different understandings of the position so you trying to present a particular flavor of atheism as "just the same old" is bafflingly naive and ignorant.
False conclusion. i never said that new atheism is exactly like the old. i am saying that what you call new atheists today alway existed, among the others. Only difference, they can speak freely now. But they always existed. Unless you believe that religion is more ridicolous today as it was in the past, or that people had less sense of humor in the past.
I understand theists like to hide behind their theological superiority. In the same way astrologists hide behind the arcane “science” of the stars. But the truth is that your theological arguments are like the so called emperor without clothes. We make that visible, and some theists do not like it, obviously.
Third, your attempt to paint new atheism (a fairly recent movement) as a liberation from religious tyranny, presumably referring to the Dark Ages and the Inquisition is a sign of serious ignorance on the issue of the Dark Ages and the nature of Inquisition (it is not the Church, let alone theologians, that roasted anyone) not to mention ignorance on the rich intellectual tradition behind atheism. Atheism neither became freer nor enriched by the new atheists. It only got caricatured through unsophisticated, angry and ultimately naive rhetoric from which respectable atheist scholars wisely distance themselves.
True. Not burned maybe, but as I told you, exposing ridicolous things like transubstantiation will land you in jail today in Italy.
It was not the Church who burned G. Bruno, for instance? True, they maybe delegated some hangman from the local government. I doubt that clears the criminal responsibility of the church. Even worse, it is also coward to not do the job itself.
When do you think the Catholic Church pardon Galileo for saying that the earth orbit around the sun against the “theologian” view that it is the other way round? And how ridiculous is that, that they did it only a few decades ago? And you expect respect?
Talking of scholarship. Have you read the historical treatise “the criminal history of Christianity”, by KH Deschner?
So you are in favor of abolishing philosophy? Well, good luck with keeping your precious naturalism which is itself a philosophy.
Surely not. I told you, it is fun. I would also be against abolishing religion. Masterworks of western civilization like Michelangelo works and Monty Pythons’ “Life of Brian” would not have existed with Christianity.
I made a distinction between God and "fictional characters" in that paragraph because I was referring to you comparing God and comic book characters like Superman as having the same status. To play the devil's advocate, I may not know God isn't fictional but I also do not know that God is fictional. We know fictional characters such as Superman are, in fact, fictional because we know that Superman originated from the minds of Jewish writers and was put to paper in Action Comics #1 for the purposes of entertainment and cheap, you guessed it, fiction.
It is not the case that God and Superman both enjoy the status of having no evidence for their existence, Superman (fictional characters) have undeniable evidence against their existence for we know how, when, and why they were created. We have no such things for the idea of God and the closest thing that comes to it are skeptical theories which themselves have no evidence such as the rather weak one embodied by the quote in your signature. There is a reason we have actual disciplines trying to track the different religious origins down (let us appreciate just how naive it is to even think there can be one origin of religious beliefs) and that have yet to produce conclusive results.
What do you think of jediists? Here we have a nice counterexample of a community that worship star wars characters.
Wait. Maybe they are not fictional at all. Maybe Mickey Mouse is the true creator of the Universe and revealed himself to W. Disney who mistakenly interpreted it as a figment of His imagination.
This theological arguments are really fun. How am I doing?
The whole parity argument that you kept pushing there simply doesn't work because it contains a false premise. All one has to do is look at the literary genres in which the ideas originated (let's ignore that there isn't even one piece of literature in which the idea of the divine originated in the first place).
My jediist case proves you wrong. If people start worship official figments of the imagination, imagine what they can do with unofficial ones.
Well sure they do, you exaggerated by calling Jesus a myth in your previous post. Here, however, you're on the same page as many liberal Christian and virtually all non-Christian theologians. Glad we cleared that up.
Oh, sorry for my ignorance. i was not aware that liberal Christians also compare resurrections and taking off to heaven as equivalent to the magical powers Excalibur.
First, I wonder how you still don't see that the religious particularism expressed by the phrase "they cannot all be true" is a theological view. You yet again, find yourself guilty of doing theology despite insisting you're beyond it.
Yes, and it is fun. I am sure that my hypothesys of Mickey Mouse being the true god who revealed himself to Dysney and got misunderstood by a fallible human, must have shaken the fundaments of religious belief.
So, if a god says that all humans are equal, while another says that they should be divided in castes at birth, then they cannot be possibly both true. Do you need physolosophy for that?
Second, it doesn't follow that because they can't all be true, they come from human imagination.
I see. Fallible human misenterprations. Like W. Disney.
I am not offended at all by your words. I've already explained why your argument (rather it's not yours, it's a stereotypical fallacy popularized by new atheists) is unsound. One really needs to be out of touch with the scholarship to think that this is the kind of argument that would seal the deal when a sea of ink has been spilled on arguments far more sophisticated than that.
Sophisticated? Yes, let’s make them so sophisticated that only a few elected can follow them. Like the arguments for astrology, maybe? They are also a sort of barrier to hide, you know, some emperor nudity.
Ciao
- viole
