Emptiness Of Theology?

[dairygirl4u2c]

how would you respond?

now, i know the basic response would be.... "theology doesn't contradict science" and "theology answers questions that are unknown".... but to the former, as he says, obvious things that theology states is pointless, and science has helped man- but what has theology really done? what is your answer to what it has REALLY done?
and to the later quote.... he'd say it "attempts" to answer unknown questions, but how do we really know that it's being answered? theology is often proven wrong, so is theology all that's left just what can't be proven false?

i think the only real answer is it attempts to answer the unknown, and it gives solace to believers.
there's other answers too i'd give, but i'm speaking from an atheistic perspective.

The Emptiness of Theology
by Richard Dawkins

[quote]A dismally unctuous editorial in the British newspaper the Independent recently asked for a reconciliation between science and "theology." It remarked that "People want to know as much as possible about their origins." I certainly hope they do, but what on earth makes one think that theology has anything useful to say on the subject?

Science is responsible for the following knowledge about our origins. We know approximately when the universe began and why it is largely hydrogen. We know why stars form and what happens in their interiors to convert hydrogen to the other elements and hence give birth to chemistry in a world of physics. We know the fundamental principles of how a world of chemistry can become biology through the arising of self-replicating molecules. We know how the principle of self-replication gives rise, through Darwinian selection, to all life, including humans.

It is science and science alone that has given us this knowledge and given it, moreover., in fascinating, over-whelming, mutually confirming detail. On every one of these questions theology has held a view that has been conclusively proved wrong. Science has eradicated smallpox, can immunize against most previously deadly viruses, can kill most previously deadly bacteria. Theology has done nothing but talk of pestilence as the wages of sin. Science can predict when a particular comet will reappear and, to the second, when the next eclipse will appear. Science has put men on the moon and hurtled reconnaissance rockets around Saturn and Jupiter. Science can tell you the age of a particular fossil and that the Turin Shroud is a medieval fake. Science knows the precise DNA instructions of several viruses and will, in the lifetime of many present readers, do the same for the human genome.

What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?[/quote]

Edited March 14, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[filiusInFilio]

i'll post real response later,
i need to get off PM and study for a midterm

[T-Bone _]

For someone claiming to be an atheist, Dawkins really seems to be obsessed with God.

[peach_cube]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1477263' date='Mar 14 2008, 12:07 PM']how would you respond?

The Emptiness of Theology
by Richard Dawkins[/quote]

Mr Dawkins seems to forget the simple fact that the origins of science are solidly within the field of theology.

So everything that science contributes to the world is due to the fact that theology had to first contribute science to the world.

Edited March 14, 2008 by peach_cube

[CatherineM]

An atheist obsessed by God, that's is such a good observation.

[Apotheoun]

Modern science is restricted to describing and analyzing observable phenomena, while theology is concerned with the cause of all beings, who is Himself beyond being.

[Socrates]

The Emptiness of Richard Dawkins' "Arguments" . . .

I found this particular little atheistic rant particularly inane and unintelligent. (This is hardly one of the more challenging atheistic arguments I've seen.)
It essentially begs the question with it's materialistic standpoint - that spiritual things are of no value.

Dawkins treats theology and material science as two contradictory and competing means to the same end. This of course is nonsense. It is not the goal of theology to develop new modes of transportation, improve agriculture, or send rockets to the moon - just as material science can tell us nothing about why we exist, what our purpose is, or how to save our souls.

This is as pointless and stupid as an automotive engineer complaining that neuroscience is worthless, because it has done nothing to help build a better automotive engine.

And ironically, modern science owes its existence to the work of Catholic monks who preserved learning in the dark ages and were responsible for countless scientific and technological advances in the medieval period, including in mechanical engineering and agriculture. They also formulated what would become known as the scientific method.
They certainly saw no conflict between their Faith and their scientific learning. If it weren't for these men of Faith, we'd probably still be living in the dark ages.
And I believe the inventor of antibiotics was a Christian believer, and the discoverer of genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a Catholic monk.
To treat all scientific discovery as the fruits of atheism, and opposed to Faith, is false and blatantly dishonest.

It's sad that this type of polemical drivel passes for serious argumentation today.

Edited March 15, 2008 by Socrates

[farglefeezlebut]

I'll teel you what's really "empty" and "not of the smallest use to anyone" - trying to talk sense into Dawkinsian atheists. (That's not to say that all atheists are like that.)

The best thing to do is to pray for him and ignore him.