On 12 Jul 2012, at 11:25, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/12/2012 1:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 11 Jul 2012, at 23:39, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/11/2012 10:36 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi
<[email protected]> wrote:
> In Germany theology still belongs to universities. What I like
is that you will find as a department of theoretical theology as
well as a department of practical theology.
I disagree, I don't like it. You are assuming that there exists a
organized field of knowledge called "theology", but I can not
find the slightest evidence that is in fact true. Lawrence Krauss
said that it is his habit to ask every theologian he meets "what
advances in theology have been made in the last 400 years?", but
he has never received a straight answer from a single one of
them, the best he has gotten was "what do you mean by advances?".
A expert in mathematics or physics or biology or literature or
ANY other field would not give a weasel answer like that, they'd
just rattle off a list of advances, but not theology. He also
said he was on a panel at a college and somebody asked another
scientist there why there is something rather than nothing and
the scientist said "that's a question to ask the head of the
theology department not me", but Krauss said "why ask him rather
than the college gardener or plumber or cook?". I have no answer
to Krauss's question because like him I think that where theology
is concerned there is no expertise and no field.
John K Clark
In fact one might say that IS the advance in theology over the
last 400yrs: It has no subject matter. Of course Bruno wants
"theology" to mean something different than any dictionary
definition.
What is the difference?
Cf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology
Where's the similarity?
Theology is the study of the truth about us and varied entities. It is
concerned with possible deities, transcendental notions, wholeness,
possible afterlife, immortality, soul, person, conscience, and the
basic question like "who are we?", "what can we expect or hope, or
fear?", "is reincarnation possible", etc.
Historic theologies reflects humans prejudices, and some people in
some tradition will disqualify some or other tradition, but all in
all, theology is the science of the God(s) or what is supposed to be
outside us and might justify our existence.
Atheism can be seen as a theology, a bit like zero can be considered
as a number. The proposition "God does not exist" is a theological
proposition, for a logician. If not, we take the risk of confusing
theology with some particular human theologies, but this concerns more
history than science. And refusing to admit we do theology, when
betting on some reality, makes often scientific statements (beliefs)
into pseudo-theological statements (like if we knew the truth).
Bruno
Brent
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