Le 16-nov.-06, à 18:40, Brent Meeker a écrit :
> I think the difference in attitude is because you take theology to
> mean a study of the metaphysical basis of the world.
I don't understand the word "metaphysics". I would call the study of
the basis of the world: "science", or perhaps "theology" if we include
the fact (provable for the lobian machine) that just believing in a
world needs faith, where faith is defined by the belief in unprovable
proposition.
> This is a very broad interpretation of the word.
Sure. Sometimes I define theology by the science of the questions which
science cannot answer. With (a)comp this makes sense thanks to Godel's
theorem. Science can study its limitations (and from uda, those
limitations imposed verifiable empirical constraints).
> The "theo" refers to a "God", an immortal person of great power and
> "theism" refers to belief that such a person exists and should be
> worshipped and answers prayers ...
Historically the "theo" was referring to gods, by the greek
intellectuals. From their writing you can see that "gods" could refer
to "concepts" as well as images to figure out abstract recurring
patterns in mind and nature.
The occidental destiny of theology, unfortunately, has been the same
than the fate of "genetics" in the USSR. Being more easily refutable,
Lyssenko marxiste genetics has been quickly the cause of one of the
bigger humanly caused famine occurring on this planet, so this fake
genetics did not survive. On the contrary "theology", after the Roman
makes it into an institution, well, it is still taboo today. So the
genetics affair lasts some years, but the theology-affair lasts about
3/2 millenia. The result is not only bad for theology, but it is bad
for science as well, because it makes science itself partially fake on
the fundamental questions. A lot of scientist today still believe the
mind-body problem is a false problem, just to give one example.
But the situation is not so desperate. Many christian theologians are
serious, and the christians, like the jewish and the muslims, will save
a big part of the greek theology and questioning. Like in USSR,
authoritative constraints have not entirely wipe out the questioning
attitude, and some theologian have been able to even use those
constraints in some creative way (like artists in the USSR). And then
since council Vatican II most catholic have come back to the "fides
*and* ratio" principle (faith restricted to reason). It is presently
the main (if not the only tool) to fight against fundamentalism (of any
kind).
> ... I think you will agree that this is so improbable as not to be
> seriously entertained.
OK for that. But if you look carefully at most religious text, the idea
of a nameable pray-able god, is *the* big theological mistake.
> Stretching the meaning to encompass all study of fundamental
> metaphysics strikes me as intellectually dishonest; mere appeasement
> of the religious powers that be.
You would be right if "pagan theology" was still existing today. But
today, the "scientist" are still appeasing much more the religious
power than ever, by letting them, and only them, to address the
life/death/mind fundamental questions.
Our third person sharable future will be theological. Even
theotechnological. Theotechnologies will be the (many) natural limits
of biotechnologies (despite comp gives probable "natural" shortcut).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Nov 17 2006 - 08:04:41 PST