How to tell a real freethinker

[Ryantology]

Theology is an attempt to put the objective truths of this world into words.

Theology is an attempt to arbitrarily define 'objective truth'.

Honest theology would seriously question the existence of God. Instead, it operates under the bald assumption that he does. Every single word of theology deriving from that assumption is worthless.

[Darkstar]

Theology is an attempt to put the objective truths of this world into words. There can be human error. But if we modified doctrines for every new culture, trend and movement, there would be nothing left worth talking about.

That's right, people don't modify existing religions, they create new ones. Well, unless you count Protestants and Mormons, etc.

Science doesn't change on a cultural basis either, but rather on the newest evidence that has come in.

We'd have one giant ocean of opinions.

You already do. That is why Christianity has so many sects.

It's actually remarkable how long Christianity has been preserved,

Hinduism has been around longer.

how the Bible hasn't changed,
and how every message in scripture is still relevant today.

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Deuteronomy 13:6-9

6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people.

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Like a pupil and a teacher, theology's quest is to learn what God has to say and change ourselves in response. If the pupil spent all his time critiquing his teacher, what would he know by the end of the class?

If the teacher has no degree and keeps insisting on weird things that there is no evidence for...maybe you'd learn nothing if you took his word for everything.

A theologian admits he doesn't have all the answers, an atheist believes he does.

I'm not sure from what perspective you came to this conclusion, so I can only assume that this is an unabashed lie. What were we saying about science fixing its mistakes and theology never changing again?

[CleanShavenJesus]

The atheist, indeed is incapable of being honest. His entire worldview is based on a misunderstanding, thinking that the philosophy of naturalism is the same as scientific evidence and is subject to the same standards of verification. Obviously. it is not.

Why do I feel like this isn't true.

(spoiler alert: because it isn't)

[Esquilax]

Theology is an attempt to put the objective truths of this world into words. There can be human error. But if we modified doctrines for every new culture, trend and movement, there would be nothing left worth talking about.

So in one sentence you admit that theology can be wrong, and then in the very next you say that it shouldn't be altered to reflect the correct position anyway.

Well, at least you're honest.

We'd have one giant ocean of opinions.

You do have one giant ocean of opinions. Even disregarding other religions and their theology, there are thousands of denominations of christianity, each of them with their own opinions. Even theologians within the same denomination have no guarantee that they'll agree.

It's actually remarkable how long Christianity has been preserved, how the Bible hasn't changed, and how every message in scripture is still relevant today.

Every message in scripture? Including the ones that endorse slavery?

Like a pupil and a teacher, theology's quest is to learn what God has to say and change ourselves in response.

I wonder when the teacher will prove that he has a direct line to god? That'd be really useful.

If the pupil spent all his time critiquing his teacher, what would he know by the end of the class?

If the teacher is consistently wrong, then a hell of a lot more than the dopes who swallowed everything teacher had to say without questioning.

A theologian admits he doesn't have all the answers, an atheist believes he does.

So, when the theologian claims to have a direct line to the creator of all things, and hence everything he says is the absolute truth, where's the admission that he doesn't know everything there?

And when I, as an atheist, say that I don't know the answers to many of the big questions, but neither does the theologian despite his claims, where is the belief that I know all the answers?

[Angrboda]

Like a pupil and a teacher, theology's quest is to learn what God has to say and change ourselves in response.

I think there's actually a valid point to be salvaged here, amidst the stream of effluvium. I've come to the opinion over the past year that religion and spirituality, from my perspective, serve two somewhat complementary roles. The first is descriptive. It tells the believer how the world (supposedly) is. There's a transcendant god, sin exists and is transferred from parent to child, we will be rewarded in the next life. It also serves a role that I call proscriptive, in that it prescribes the goals and standards which we should strive to achieve in ourselves and our own behavior. Love thy neighbor. Don't tolerate evil. Or, an example from Taoism, prefer yielding to opposition and confrontation. Moreover, for me, it seems the proscriptive aspect is chosen in a medicinal way — it complements and opposes areas in which I'm weak or in need of improving. Thus if I lack compassion and empathy, I'm likely to be attracted to spiritual beliefs which emphasize the value of compassion and empathy. It's like religious and spiritual beliefs are chosen, when chosen, to fix our broken parts.

A couple of observations. It appears that most religions function very poorly or even destructively in the descriptive role. They describe things which are unverifiable, have little or no explanatory value, and tend to fare poorly under empirical examination. Worse, religions tend to dogmatize, so outdated and incorrect descriptions of reality tend to become frozen in time, and even become objects of idolization and worship themselves (e.g. sin and atonement in Christianity). Religion may perhaps be more successful in the proscriptive role, but it's quite possible it's a case of garbage-in / garbage-out; give bad people useful psychological tech, and they will use it for bad things and make a mess of it; good people the obverse. So it's not clear to me at this point whether religion has any real useful effect in its proscriptive role, nor exactly how the choice and use of it works; problematically, too, the proscriptive aspect is wedded to the descriptive aspect, with perhaps as much damage from dysfunctional description as even theoretical benefits from the proscriptive aspect.


Anyway, just something I've been lazily pondering over the past year. Comments welcome.

[radorth]

They describe things which are unverifiable, have little or no explanatory value, and tend to fare poorly under empirical examination. Worse, religions tend to dogmatize, so outdated and incorrect descriptions of reality tend to become frozen in time, and even become objects of idolization and worship themselves (e.g. sin and atonement in Christianity).

Well said. I get your drift, but IMO religion is in too many ways the enemy of spirituality, as Jesus and apostles said in so many ways. ("Your traditions make the word of God void.")

Paul says an even more extraordinary thing, i.e. "The strength of sin is the law." He is saying that trying to obey the law for its own sake will make you sin the more.

Yet does the religious person's fear of eternal punishment and the belief that nothing is hid from an omniscient God have a positive moral effect? Probably. We saw what happened in Communist countries where all such fears were removed. At least 70 million people died young, being worked or starved to death, or simply murdered, all in a period of 60 years. You see unspeakable brutality in the French Revolution where Robispierre & co. erected a statue labeled GODDESS OF REASON to worship, in a previously Catholic church.

[radorth]

Hmmm. I win?

[Justtristo]

I believe Freethinkers who are those sort of people who are so open to anything to the extent, that their brains have managed to escape out of their heads.

[Gilgamesh]

Free-thinkers are able to disconnect from empathy and their own emotions in decision making. That's all, really.

[jstrodel]

Honest theology doesn't question the existence of God, because when you draw near to God and seriously abandon yourself to the holiness of God and renounce the world, you start to experience God in very real and tangible ways.

Most people don't experience God like this because they don't do this, they just go to church. There is nowhere in the Bible where it says if you merely goto church that you will experience God, if you want to experience God you must determine in your heart that you will resist everything in your life that is opposed to you becoming a good person.

If you don't care about being a good person enough to do this, then I don't really care that you won't find God, because you don't deserve God.