I read an article recently on my
favorite forum written by an apologist who THOUGHT he had a very good idea
about how Christians and atheists could get along and stop all the
arguing. His solution, if you weren’t a theologian,
that is to say formally trained in theology, consider yourself unqualified to
speak on matters of spirituality. And to
make it “fair”, if you weren’t a scientist you were to consider yourself
unqualified to speak on matters of science.
I understand the concept he was trying for. If everyone accepted this the science deniers
would have to shut up unless they were scientists. That would certainly be a good thing. But what else would happen? Atheists would lose their voice
completely. How many atheists go do
school for theology? How many
non-religious scientists minor in theology?
So what the writer wanted was, basically, to leave the scientific
discussions to the scientists and the religious discussions to the religious. An atheist would be required to get a degree
in theology, a worthless degree for someone who plans no career in religion, to
even express an opinion. So, science
would lose its nutcase detractors who have no clue what the hell they’re
talking about and religion would lose everyone “not like them”.
There are, of course, some major flaws
with this. First, not every
non-scientist who speaks about science is an idiot. I like to think I know a thing or two about
science. Given a mass in any measurement
I can calculate for you the energy in ergs that mass is equivalent to. Granted, it would take me a while to convert
186,000 miles per second to the number of centimeters per second light travels
to do the calculations, but I know all the steps involved and all the
measurements necessary to solve E=MC^2 for a given mass. That is not to say I have anywhere near the
knowledge of an actual physicist, but then, I would never be foolish enough to
argue against an actual scientist in matters of generally accepted, peer
reviewed, established theory. I can
accept that any given scientist in a field knows more than me and if accepted
theory doesn’t agree with me there is a very high probability I am wrong. As a non-scientist, I already don’t debate
science with scientists because I understand that no number of moldy books of
superstitions makes me their equal.
Theists who argue science, however, are generally regurgitating a pile
of shit that they previously devoured veraciously in an idiotic attempt to
prove that the scientists are wrong. They,
also, tend not to debate science with actual scientists because when they do
they look stupid, but while intelligent people debate the intricacies of
science, theists tend to debate the validity of science. This, I believe, is what the writer intended
to put an end to; the general denial of science which makes theists look damned
stupid. So, the first part of what he
wanted was for fellow theists to stop making his position look stupid and the
theists are the ones who give something up.
This request assumes that non-scientist theologians have nothing to
bring to a debate on science, which is absolutely true.
The second part of what he wanted was
for non-theologians to stop debating theology.
He related theology to mathematics, starting with a set of generally
accepted “truths” and working toward the “answer” from there. For a physicist this is a pretty idiotic
thing to say. Religious “truth” is
different for each religion and each individual. Mathematic “truths” are universally
true. While not all mathematics involves
a single right answer, all mathematics at least deals with probabilities of
getting a right answer. You can test
whether a mathematical concept works or not.
The “test” for whether a religious concept is true or not is, “Have
faith and when you die you’ll see”. That
is NOTHING like mathematics. A new
encryption algorithm can be shown to work or not work. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division can be shown to produce a correct answer 100% of the time. I have never had a calculator give me a wrong
answer, nor have I ever had one give me an answer that I must “accept as
correct” on faith. I know that it IS
correct. Mathematics is proven to work,
theology is undisprovable. Again, they
are NOTHING alike.
So, what if non-theologians gave up
debating theology? What, exactly, is
that asking for? Nothing short of all
non-“experts” in theology to not debate theology. This would change the debate from “Does God
exist?” to “In what form does God exist?”
Everyone debating religion would accept that God exists and go from
there. On the surface this may look like
a fare trade. Everyone debating science
accepts that science is real, everyone debating religion accepts that God is real. There are a couple of very big differences
here. For one, science IS real. It has proven real world applications. No intelligent, sane person can deny that
scientific truths have had a major impact on life, even in just the last
century, or even the last decade.
Science has proven that it has something to offer in the real world,
here and now. What about theology? What does it offer and when? A promise of immortality, AFTER you die. It is not proven and it offers nothing here
and now. So what the theistic scientist
is trying to do is the same thing I have seen a thousand theists before him
try. He is trying to put theology on the
same level as science. He is using what,
on the surface, seems like a fair exchange to boost theology from the level of
petty superstition to level of scientific reality. He is trying to assert that, just like
understanding science takes formal training in the sciences, understanding
theology takes formal training in theology.
This is utter hogwash. Where did
those teaching science get their credentials?
From centuries of experimentation and proven science which came before
them, ever evolving as new discoveries are made, each one being proved before
it is accepted. And where did those
teaching theology get their credentials?
From centuries of oral tradition, a book which has not changed much for
nearly 2,000 years and their own, personal ideas and desires of what religion
is and should be. Science teachers teach
science as it is generally accepted based on the currently available data and
peer reviewed and accepted theories.
Theology teachers teach theology based on conjecture. The qualifications between the two fields are
more than a little unbalanced.
The article was really nothing more than
an elaborate attempt to place theology on par with science; to claim that, just
like science, to debate theology required that one be formally trained. The idea is laughable. I can read scientific documents, but they are
pretty difficult to understand, especially when they start breaking out the
math. But the documents follow standards
which I can then look up and, given enough time, I could understand the
documents the way they were meant to be understood. It would not be easy and it would take a lot
of time. Formal training would certainly
be a better option. On the other hand, I
can read the Bible and understand it as-is.
If someone tells me it means something other than what I am reading,
they are full of shit. There is no code,
there was no standard set when writing the words which must be followed to
understand them and, before the last couple of decades when the Internet became
prominent, the only thing I needed to understand what it meant was a knowledge
of the rest of the book. Today, of
course, there are those who like to bring up the original language (“original”
in this case meaning “the earliest known translation from the ‘original’
language”), but very few of those type have any kind of training in ancient
languages. Hell, the entire group of
people who re-translated the texts for the Jehovah’s Witness version of the
Bible didn’t have a single degree between them in ancient languages. And there are those who like to introduce
other historical documents and history to “nudge” the meaning toward something
more to their liking. But that, alone,
shows that it can’t be the inspired word of a deity. Jesus was obviously more interested in the
poor than the rich. So was God. So why would he deliver his word in a code that
only the well educated could understand, especially given that the education
required to understand it would have very limited usefulness outside of
understanding the Bible? Only people who
could afford both the money and time to invest in otherwise useless degrees,
i.e., only those who were decidedly NOT poor, could have any hope of truly
understanding his word for themselves.
Either that concept is stupid or God is, because such a sloppy delivery
of such an important word seems pretty damned stupid, as is the idea that a God
who loved the poor so much would require you to get a college degree to
understand what he was telling you.
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