(September 2, 2019 at 2:28 am)Belaqua Wrote:(September 2, 2019 at 1:52 am)FlatAssembler Wrote: Well, approximately. It's supposed to say: "Theology has never said anything, that is not obvious, and that isn't false." (Though I don't know if I translated that correctly.)
Perhaps, if there is some ambiguity (and I don't think that there is, especially in the context in which Dawkins said it), it would be a good thing to paraphrase that as "Theology has never said anything that is neither obvious nor false.", and translate that with some even more complicated grammatical structure involving "neque" and subjunctives.
I think I found the original:
Quote:When has 'theology' ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious?
https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/quotatio...s_god.html
LOL!!! That theology is useless was discovered and said way before Dawkins. But first, if you really want to be a critic of Dawkins try reading some of his books.
Now, For instance Thomas Paine in 1795 concluded that the study of God, his nature, and his attributes—is as useless at understanding reality:
Quote:The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"