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(November 25, 2023 at 12:39 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I was interested in a comment of yours about that, SimpleCaveman. The idea that the greeks (anyone really) "got pretty far" with respect to developing their theology. How would we know? Is there a particular end point so we can tell who gets further than someone else. What is the metric? Are we sure that the arrow of progress flows the same way as the arrow of time? That we have better ideas about gods now..than then - and if then, perhaps gods do have weaknesses, perhaps gods can be defeated, perhaps...well...you know the drill.
I suppose “far” in the sense of uncovering Truths. No, I don’t think there is necessarily an “arrow of progress” in uncovering Truth. People often make falsehoods from truth or despite truth.
I think the “metric” is like what I understand Boru to be saying. You have to be internally consistent. The deductions have to logically follow from the assumptions. The idea has to fit with our (I suppose current) understanding of reality. Things like that. We use our Reason to determine, as far as possible, whether an idea is good or bad, true or false.
Would you have different criteria for whether an idea is true or not?
(November 25, 2023 at 10:14 am)brewer Wrote: I think that 'why' falls under psychology and/or neuroscience. So many diverse/detached cultures have created similar supernatural belief systems that there has to something that they all had in common. That would be the human mind.
Yes, that seems right to me, too. Those kinds of fields are ways that we could try to figure out that core, underlying need of why we generally believe in the supernatural. I think Boru is right in how we understand why we believe certain things about the supernatural.
November 25, 2023 at 1:51 pm (This post was last modified: November 25, 2023 at 2:08 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(November 24, 2023 at 10:24 pm)SimpleCaveman Wrote:
(November 24, 2023 at 7:32 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Of course sociology is much more than religious beliefs - I don’t think anyone can sensibly dispute that. But it seems difficult (if not impossible) to study a society (sociology) without taking religion into account. To do so, it’s not only needful to study what people believe (religion), but why they believe it (theology).
I’m not saying that theology is the most important part of sociology, or even a major part. But I do think it’s a vital part - attempting to understand a society without considering why it believes what it believes does a disservice to both.
Yep. Not disagreeing, Boru. Seems like the question left is how much of Theology is “why they believe”. Do you think that “why they believe” is all of Theology or a portion? I would say it's a small part of Theology.
Why they believe is not at all what theology is. Why they believe is entirely behavioral science.
Theology is but a grandiose name conceived by those who seek to puff up what they believe, and to armor what they self-indulgently believe against the twinge of cognitive dissonances arising from their beliefs. So, being without any underlying validatable, unifiable, framework like those which underpin physics or chemistry, Theology is also just behavior. So theology too is something that can best be understood through behavioral science.
November 25, 2023 at 2:38 pm (This post was last modified: November 25, 2023 at 2:54 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(November 25, 2023 at 11:38 am)SimpleCaveman Wrote: I suppose “far” in the sense of uncovering Truths. No, I don’t think there is necessarily an “arrow of progress” in uncovering Truth. People often make falsehoods from truth or despite truth.
You may not believe that an arrow of progress is necessary (or necessarily exists), but it would seem to be the case that you believe it does exist if..say, contemporary christians have it "truer" than pagan greeks, who had it "truer" than animist cave dwellers. That's time and truth (seemingly) flowing in tandem.
I mean, I think it's not a bad supposition. We do seem to have gotten to know things alot better over time, why not gods? OFC, as a believer, you're unlikely to be firmly in the camp of having gotten to know gods better...as superstition. Then again, proposing that god-knowledge is rational and even progressable is to place any given god-fact or god-assertion in the perilous position of being proven demonstrably untrue or worse...regressive-even-if-true. Which, I think, is brave.
Quote:I think the “metric” is like what I understand Boru to be saying. You have to be internally consistent. The deductions have to logically follow from the assumptions. The idea has to fit with our (I suppose current) understanding of reality. Things like that. We use our Reason to determine, as far as possible, whether an idea is good or bad, true or false.
Would you have different criteria for whether an idea is true or not?
No, not at all. IMO abrahamism, monotheism, really....theism in general has been a long and wasteful divergence from the truth.
The proviso that an idea must fit with our current understanding of reality is both doing alot of work..and, I think....if critically examined, could be devastating to any of the current theistic religions while re-humanizing theistic religions of the past long since ground to dust by the former. Had they not erred so little, then, we may not be standing on the mountain of their compounded misperceptions today. For better and for worse.
At least as sociology views the matter, our earliest religious (and theistic) apprehensions were the most genuine. That is to say that they reflected the lived experience of individuals or the smallest of human groups who we can assume had a shared experience as much then as today - if not more. It takes additional interests and things not necessarily found in our lived experiences, our understanding of the world at any given moment, to account for complex theologies. Things like agrarian societies and organized labor. Governance and law. Things, to put a fine point on it, that we did not and still do not find "out in the world" - things that we create and have created.
Brings me right back round, as things usually do. If we're willing to propose natural theology, a god of nature - that is to see what can and cannot be said about what is and is not true of the sacred with respect to only what our senses can directly apprehend, then why not a god of nature...and...are we sure there's a difference? Or, if we prefer, what is the impetus to go further....or, as would inevitably be the case, to assert something which is demonstrably untrue at least according to our apprehensions of nature - in the face of how things are...as opposed to how we assert or believe they should be?
I mean, even wholly within catholic beliefs...and regardless of what we think about their consistency.... the world comes to us, to our senses and as rational creatures... a way it should not be. No?
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(November 24, 2023 at 10:24 pm)SimpleCaveman Wrote: Yep. Not disagreeing, Boru. Seems like the question left is how much of Theology is “why they believe”. Do you think that “why they believe” is all of Theology or a portion? I would say it's a small part of Theology.
Why they believe is not at all what theology is. Why they believe is entirely behavioral science.
Theology is but a grandiose name conceived by those who seek to puff up what they believe, and to armor what they self-indulgently believe against the twinge of cognitive dissonances arising from their beliefs. So, being without any underlying validatable, unifiable, framework like those which underpin physics or chemistry, Theology is also just behavior. So theology too is something that can best be understood through behavioral science.
Rubbish.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
(November 24, 2023 at 4:42 pm)SimpleCaveman Wrote: Hi @pocaracas, (does that notify you that someone mentioned you?)
Here's the thread for our discussion on theology and sociology. We'll see where it goes.
I'm glad to see you made this thread. I missed the notification earlier.
(November 24, 2023 at 4:42 pm)SimpleCaveman Wrote:
(November 24, 2023 at 11:17 am)pocaracas Wrote: Personally, I think that society somehow birthed religion, so the reduction of Theology to a subset of sociology kinda makes sense.
We have to be careful here. We now have three things: theology, religion and sociology.
’Father Harrison Ayre’ Wrote:Theology is rooted in two Greek words: Theos, meaning God, and logos, meaning reason. Theology is using our reason to study and know more about God and how he has shown himself to the world.
For example, we might think what could create all that we see? By definition it couldn’t be something that is part of what we see. It would have to be something outside. It would have to be different, too. Otherwise, we would ask how did it come to be? From there we would get to it being a spirit.
Now that’s a simplistic argument and I’m not debating it here. Just that it’s an example of how we would use reason to study and know more about God. Ancient Greeks (as I understand it. I wasn’t there) such as Aristotle practiced theology along these lines and got decently far.
’The Catholic Encyclopedia’ Wrote:Religion may thus be defined as the voluntary subjection of oneself to God, that is to the free, supernatural Being (or beings) on whom man is conscious of being dependent, of whose powerful help he feels the need, and in whom he recognizes the source of his perfection and happiness. It is a voluntary turning to God. In the last analysis it is an act of the will.
I would agree with you that (often) religion is birthed by society. It is a people — maybe sitting around a dung fire. Who knows? —responding to their understanding of the supreme being.
’American Sociological Association’ Wrote:Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies and how people interact within these contexts. Since all human behavior is social, the subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to the hostile mob; from organized crime to religious traditions; from the divisions of race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture. (21st Century Careers with an Undergraduate Degree in Sociology, 2014)
Thus, Sociology would include gathering data about religions to compare and contrast what different societies do. From that you could come up with common themes about a supreme being, and the means and purpose of worship. But that’s very different from Theology.
(November 24, 2023 at 11:17 am)pocaracas Wrote: If you think back to a time when mankind was living in small communities/tribes, with lots of oral tradition, it makes sense that some stories would evolve in the shared imaginarium into something akin to lore, or legend, where the distinction between reality and fantasy is very blurry, where unexplainable phenomena would be seen as paranormal, where death of loved ones would be wished to be a simple passing to another realm, the realm of that paranormal.
Sure, that does make some sense. You can see this happening in what we do have from early cultures, especially ones where their theology deduced gods that are extensions of humanity. The people build on what they know and they come up with Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Aztec, Mayan, and Hindu gods. The Mother Goddess (is that what she was called?) would be like that.
How they came up with those gods is still theology. Studying what they came up with is within sociology. I don’t see how theology could be a subset of sociology.
Pax et bonum
I would have thought that how people came up with gods would also be part of sociology, under the heading of human behaviour.
But I can grant some distinction between the behaviour of society and behaviour of the individual.
The individual can come up with any number of gods, but society will accept only a few of them.
Lucky for Mohammed, huh?
You guys spoke about truth seeming to be ever improving, but then would that mean that Islam is a superior truth to Christianity? Where does that put the much more recent Cargo cult?
I dislike it when religions use the word truth... More so when the capitalize it, as though there's a grand truth that only the religion is privy to.
Reality is a good word to represent the real, as opposition to the imaginary.
Truth, to me is simply a classification of a statement, or collection of statements, as accurately representing reality... or as accurately as we humans can.
So, if reality includes a god, then I'd like to know that. If belief is required (ignoring solipsism for practicality) then that accuracy of any statement made about the divine cannot be ascertained. Thus far, all claims of existing divinities that I've come across rely on belief, so I'm tempted to exclude them from the realm of reality, and thus include them in the realm of the imaginary.
"You guys spoke about truth seeming to be ever improving, but then would that mean that Islam is a superior truth to Christianity?"
Why should it? If we were chained to an inflexible linear progression Islam would be a retrograde movement. I.e., we should be gradually outgrowing superstitions, not creating a new set myths.
(November 27, 2023 at 9:43 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: "You guys spoke about truth seeming to be ever improving, but then would that mean that Islam is a superior truth to Christianity?"
Why should it? If we were chained to an inflexible linear progression Islam would be a retrograde movement. I.e., we should be gradually outgrowing superstitions, not creating a new set myths.
True. I agree with you.
But it is what was hinted at previously:
(November 25, 2023 at 2:38 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:
(November 25, 2023 at 11:38 am)SimpleCaveman Wrote: I suppose “far” in the sense of uncovering Truths. No, I don’t think there is necessarily an “arrow of progress” in uncovering Truth. People often make falsehoods from truth or despite truth.
You may not believe that an arrow of progress is necessary (or necessarily exists), but it would seem to be the case that you believe it does exist if..say, contemporary christians have it "truer" than pagan greeks, who had it "truer" than animist cave dwellers. That's time and truth (seemingly) flowing in tandem.
I mean, I think it's not a bad supposition. We do seem to have gotten to know things alot better over time, why not gods? OFC, as a believer, you're unlikely to be firmly in the camp of having gotten to know gods better...as superstition. Then again, proposing that god-knowledge is rational and even progressable is to place any given god-fact or god-assertion in the perilous position of being proven demonstrably untrue or worse...regressive-even-if-true. Which, I think, is brave.
