TR Said:- "Before the die hard atheists get carried away you should remember that your idealogical position is also fundamentalist. That is, it is just as dogmatic as your average Cardinal or Imam...Real scientists however never the close the possibility to anything; even the counter intuitive."

I never call myself an Atheist for this very reason. The term "atheist has become to mean somebody who advocates the proposition that no god exists. This is not necessarily so. How many proselytizing atheists appear on your doorsrep Mr/Ms/Mrs TR?
I am open minded about god, little green men and those theoretical gnomes and fairies in my garden.
Sells also seems to indicate that there is a "rationalist secular" proselytizing movement getting the ear of government and propogating some sort of anti-theist fundamentalist secular state. Who are these people?

It is entirely encumbent on the theist to make a case for their beliefs as it is for the scientists to argue a theory. Peter has failed entirely in all his articles to make a case for his belief system - a theory based on literal biblical revelation and nothing else. A scientific theory that cannot be demonstrated to have sound logic and evidence will fail. Many do. So too must any "belief" system.
At the turn of the century the developers of early wireless communications, like Marconi, believed that radio waves were propagated on a thin jelly-like substance that pervaded the universe. They called this stuff "ether". The ether theory fitted well with the observed facts. Nobody could see the ether or explain it's presence, properties or demonstrate its existance - but it was obvious that it existed wasn't it?.
We now know about electro-magnetic radiation and giggle a bit about the theory of ether.
God is a theory of everything that has been around for a long time. The theory seems to fit the observable facts. Nobody can see god or explain his presence, properties or demonstrate his existance - but it is obvious that he exists isn't it?.

Hi Sells,

I'm not sure that I agree with your assumption that 'theology is a science'. I've always assumed it to be more in line with philosophy.

The reason I say this is because scientific theories are based upon laboratory experiments. Even the objective world of mathmatics is not enough on its own. As the great Richard Feynman once wrote;

'If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is - if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.'

So you see, science demands an observable scientific experiment and resultant data.

Now, my question is...if 'theology is a science' what laboratory experiment are you going to set up to test the hypothesis that a personal monotheistic God exists? Or that beings like angels and the devil are a reality

Sells:

Thanx for that. I really don't think U can call theology as U have defined it a "science": no more wd I call history as I know it one either. Seems to me your answer to my Q (can an atheist approach theology as a discipline like eg history?) is "no", because U say one must believe it's about something real. I know history is about real things (however muddied our view may be due to lost or distorted evidence): I have eg been to Rome, sat in the Colosseum, seen the Pantheon & the incomparable Vatican museums. If I studied chemistry I cd verify the existence of molecules, etc, by repeating the classic eighteenth/nineteenth century experiments. I can even see molecules via Xray diffraction imaging, or see tracks made by subatomic particles via a cloud chamber & similar devices. But the target matter of theology is I think wholly subjective, way beyond history. (I note yr different def. of history as used in theology).

TR: I think U R wasting yr time expecting a meaningful answer to yr Q given what Sells has said to me.

The gulf between those who follow the path of reason, experiment & observation & those who start with faith (maybe - like Sells - applying reason thereafter to the faith-based foundation) is as wide as ever. I am still no wiser as to why I shd rate Sells' vision any higher than that of my hypothetical Siberian shaman: both rest on the same insubstantial foundation - it's just that this foundation is differently defined by Sells and the shaman, but there's no way to test either for accuracy. U either believe it or U don't. There R reasons why people believe but I've probably been offensive enough to believers for one post.

TR
When I describe theology as a science I am using the original, pre Enlightenment understanding of science being any branch of human knowledge. Alas, the scientific revolution (should of course be called the natural scientific revolution) was truly a revolution in that it unseated the authorities that had held since antiquity and substituted the authority of empirical, testable, natural science. The modern project was to reach absolute certainty and it believed that that certainty could only be had through the methods of natural science. By the way, my research degree in auditory physiology is called a PhD, a doctorate in philosophy and is an echo of a different understanding about knowledge.

This is why I have to put up with comments in these pages that demand that I prove the existence of God, as if I could go into a lab somewhere and do the requisite experiments. The upshot of this article (remember that) is that a true theology will provide true outcomes just as a true scientific theory will produce valuable technologies. If a theology does not mesh with the realities of humanity in the world it will produce pain and suffering, not to say impoverishment and cruelty.

Our problem is that secularism has produced so much propaganda supporting its case that we no longer see what it is hiding. I heard someone on the radio tonight talking about the French revolution. I had no idea that it was so bloody. He said that this was the first secular religion and was the precursor to those other bloody secular religions, Fascism and Communism. And yet we still hear that it is religion that produces most of the world’s violence.

Dear Mhoram
if I may respond to your question addressed to Sells about "R there theologians worth reading" ? yep.. there certainly are.
It depends on what ur looking for.

If you want to get your teeth into a very solid scholarly approach with reference to all available sources, I recommend works by Joachim Jeremias and Oscar Cullman. They are considered 'Neo Orthodox' by most evangelicals (Like me) but nothing can take away from their obvious passion for truth
-'Christ and Time' (Cullman)
-'Jerusalem in the time of Jesus' (Jeremias)

Jeremias has a good work on the 'Lords Supper/Communion' but the title escapes me for now.

For solid apologetics coupled with a heavy duty academic pedigree, works by Francis Shaeffer and John Warwick Montgomery are worth a look.

Cheers

In the ancient world science theory and religion were one and the same. Their understanding of physical causes was based in gods or spirits effecting changes [rain, thunder, earthquakes etc] even within human behaviour with their evil spirits or the spirits of the evil deceased entering the human psyche. With the event of monotheism it removed the conflicting world of gods and spirits effecting chemical, phyche or natural events. Monotheism taught the world was a unity from the mind of one and natural causes originated from a predetermined point of its Creation. That every event was interdependent upon other created natural causes set in place from the original creation which was the design of one mind.

When the young Jewish boys with their monotheistic belief were taken into captivity in Babylon in about 600 BC they were taught the science of the Babylonians which was largely dualistic or Gnostic in its basis. That is that there was a Cellestial God who lived in remote light and a Terrestrial god of the Earth who conferenced with the remote god about his adminstration on the Earth. It is from this theology we arrive at post Exile Jews rewriting this conflict in the Book of Job. Job consistently denies there are two gods as he argues his case with his Gnostic counsellors. Job vehemently maintains that Yahweh is both the same remote El Shaddai and El [the satan an opponent of man]. He maintains that Yahweh both gives life and removes life, and it is not dependent upon one's morality or human justice.

The ultimate vindication of Job is that the sandstorm that took the life of his children attributed to the satan by his Gnostic counsellors was the same sandstorm in which Yahweh is revealed in the Earth; "Yahweh has given and Yahweh has taken away". There is no evil spirits or subordinate gods influincing human behaviour or natural events other than man appointed to manage the Earth.