What BREAKTHROUGHS Have Been Made In Theology Lately?

Great Debates
21

Zagadka: I think you’ve (to use a poker term) gone a bit “on tilt”. Can you deny any of the following statements? :
-Science has been an incredibly powerful force in changing the lives of people over the past 500 years or so
-The pace of that change has been extraordinarily high, and continues right up to the present
-While scientific progress can certainly lead to evil and misery, there are huge numbers of things that benefit you and I in our everyday lives that are due to science which we would be loathe to give up
-Many scientists are religious
-Many religious people respect, and benefit from, science
-In fact, there are many ways in which religion has benefitted from science (dating all the way back to Gutenberg and cheap mass printing of bibles)

I understand that you (as a religious person) might feel attacked in this thread, but you seem to be getting into an insane nitpicking mood in which everything good that science has done lately isn’t good enough, and everything that it hasn’t done is evidence of how worthless, godless, and evil it is.
If you’re irritated at the content or tone of one or more posts in this thread, please take that up with the poster (here, in the Pit, or over e-mail). Or don’t. Whatever. But don’t assume that every science-loving atheist is also a religion-deriding faith-basher.
(And religion, just like science, is an incredibly powerful force in people’s lives that can lead to great good or great evil…)

22

I apologize for the continued hijack. I feel Zagadka is misrepresenting me and the post I originally replied to, so I’m replying… I’ll try to let the thread get back to the OP after this :slight_smile:

I said religion requires blind faith (or, more specifically, I said science does not require blind faith). I didn’t say religion requires you to be blinded by faith. You can be a scientist, and use logic and, well, science in that field, and still stick to faith for the religious side. I can’t clearly see how, since I personally have no religious faith.

As I said, I apoligize that I was short of the billion mark on most of the things I brought up. However, you said “Gimme a call when it does something other than failing to convict OJ.” I was saying that it’s met THAT requirement.

You’re adding to the requirements. You asked for science that had affected billions, not science that had benefitted billions.

I’d call it a technological “breakthrough,” even if it isn’t necessarily a scientific “breakthrough.”

No, because it has nothing to do with the OP, nor with my replies. I made no statement that science was good or evil (since I believe it’s neither). If you’d like to discuss this in another thread, I’d be happy to reply.

I made no such denial. You were the one asking if science affected people.

Actually, it was denigrating science. From http://www.m-w.com:
denigrate
2 : to deny the importance or validity of : BELITTLE

You were denying the importance of science.

Because he’s criticizing theology (or asking about it, at least, in a way which is really a criticism). If you’d like to criticize philosophy, law, politics, literature, interpretive dance, and/or any other liberal art, you’re free to start a thread to do so. Attacking something else isn’t the way to defend theology, however.

So why didn’t you reply with something along those lines to begin with? You don’t have to deny the breakthroughs of science in order to say the “breakthroughs” of theology are different.

No problem. Now get this discussion back on topic! :slight_smile:

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I never denied any of that. Once again, I will say that I like science.

Science isn’t godless. Science is of god. Nor is science evil. The application of science may be of good or of evil, but science itself is not.

I see this as no different from the nitpicking of religion. Religion has done some wrong, and science has done some wrong. Both have also done a lot of good.

The fallacy I am fighting is applying scientific thought to liberal arts. It just doesn’t work. Would you care for a thread to be started on “What BREAKTHROUGHS Have Been Made In Literature Lately”? Does the fact that no one has introduced much new to literature since (figuratively speaking) the 3rd person? Does that reasoning make literature invalid?

Further, the act of comparing “all of science” versus “one of the liberal arts” is absurd. This thread is a mockery of science in itself.

24

I was always taught to show, not tell. :slight_smile: I did leap a little overboard, but I tend to use a lot of hyperbole and metaphors when I discuss something, especially something I feel passionately about.

Sounds like a good plan. :slight_smile: Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I’m afraid you won’t get many replies, other than the type of “WEEEE’RRREEE WAAAAAAAAAAIIIIITING” that clearly serve no purpose other than belittling theology. Liberal arts simply don’t have breakthroughs. I asked for the OP to define what he thinks qualifies a “breakthrough” in theology in an earlier post, but this seems to be a drive-by-posting, as most disguised digs at opposing beliefs are.

25

I also can’t help but notice that religious folks tend to add a lot of “padding” to their rhetoric, again to smokescreen their lack of facts and put their opponents on the defensive.

OK, but at some point you have to go deeper than that. Have any facts been uncovered? Are there any other possible explanations for the observed phenomena in the light of Occam’s Razor?

No. It’s a legitimate question vis-a-vis “fighting ignorance” and the OP was put as soberly as possible. The other examples are too insignificant to raise the issue given slightly rough-and-tumble quality you can expect to see in debates in general. The use of hypersensitivity as a weapon in lieu of facts is an issue I am raising.

I’m not the one with something to prove; it’s not up to the skeptics to prove a negative. And I was responding to Lib’s post and using your remark as a 2nd example.

Nevermind the categorizations. Religions have made a lot of factual claims. Have any facts been recently uncovered to support any of these claims? (I don’t know what you mean by “valid” as opposed to “true”.)

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I can’t help but notice that you do a lot of rhetorically pointing out rhetoric.

[/quote]
OK, but at some point you have to go deeper than that. Have any facts been uncovered? Are there any other possible explanations for the observed phenomena in the light of Occam’s Razor?
[/quote]

Fact: I feel something. I can not speak for what other people have felt, but given that the large majority of the world’s population have felt something… well, you’re the expert on observation. If 20 people see something and 1 person didn’t, is it more likely or not that something was there?

lol You have a curious definition of “soberly as possible”

"
But what about theology? I mean we have had 2000 years of research into the nature of God and his relationship with the world-so, has anything new been learned? What revolutionary thought comes forth from the lips of theologians?"

Yea, that’s almost CLINICAL.

Neverminding the fact that in the quest of “fighting ignorance” the OP casually dismissed teeny tiny theological events such as the rise of Islam and the breakup of the Catholic Church in his “past 2000 years”

Like the “fact” that the OP was berift of emotion?

Again, I feel. Do you want to get into philosophy? Because that’s another field that doesn’t have any solid numbers to count. I’m not an expert there, but obviously, neither are you.

Science has made a lot of factual claims, as well. Since we’re playing “Mix The Fields of Study,” I’m going to ask for Philosophy for 1000, Alex.

What is, “prove that we exist?”

In any event, religion, Mr. literalist genius science man, is largely metaphorical. You can’t really make the claim that my religion makes a lot of factual claims, since my religion doesn’t make any factual claims.

If you mean, you want proofs that Jesus, Mohammad, and Buddha walked the earth, there is plenty. If you want proofs that we possess emotions, well, you are welcome to deny that, and philisophically, I can’t speak for everyone, but I do.

27

That’s not a fact, just your opinion (which you’re entitled to).

Not quite. Science is essentially description. The use of science is independent of the body of scientific knowledge. Religion generally consists of both descriptions (Why did God do something?) and prescriptions (The Ten Commandments, for example). Science, by itself, is valueless. Religion isn’t. The whole point of religions is to instill a certain value system. Religions existed before the post-Renaissance scientific method, so they affected and continue to affect how science is received and used (earth as center, stem cell research, cloning…). In this manner, religion has shaped human civilizations (overall, not contemporary) to a greater degree than science, for better or worse.

I wouldn’t be too sure. The scientific method is a way of thinking and it can be applied to anything. It might not be completely successful, but it has been demonstrably much more influential than other modes of thinking. Just the underlying fear of (bleak) reductionism and nihilism, preserves the enthusiasm for a dichotomy between functioning of the mind and mechanistic physical activity of the brain.

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If you are religious, you generally accept the fact that god made the system - it is by definition, “of god.” If you aren’t religious, you shouldn’t give a damn.

That’s not a fact, just your opinion (which you’re entitled to).

reads on

Right, you apply scientific method to writing literature and lemme know what you come up with.

Is anyone going to post anything to this thread that isn’t a blatant attack on religion? I mean, for all of the harping I’ve been flamed with for not following the (obviously clinical) OP to the (obviously clinical) letter, shouldn’t you be discussing the breakthroughs in theology in the past 2000 years?

I haven’t seen one person (other than myself) who has so much as MENTIONED the word “Luther,” much less any other theologist.

So really, if you aren’t done saying “haha religion is imaginary,” you should probably be trying to answer the questions on the floating city or something right about now - or better yet, start a thread on the topic.

29

The wringing mechanism has improved, but the mop is essentially the same. In any case I’m sure the church janitors appreciate it.

30

I was hoping we might actually see some answers to the OP’s question. Instead this thread seems to have spun off into yet another science vs. religion snipefest. :frowning:

To address the OP: there are many fields of study, including theology, where it doesn’t really sound right to talk about “breakthroughs.” But there have been revoluationary, controversial new ideas—for instance, “liberation theology” and “process theology” to name a couple from 20th century Christianity. If you’re really insterested in what theology is and what “progress” has been made in it recently, you might start somewhere like the Wikipedia’s article on theology.

31

Well, nothing’s a fact then. It is as much a fact as whether a certain work is written in the 3rd person.

32

My religion has nothing to do with instilling a value system in myself or anyone else.

In any case, let’s assume that you’re right. Religion instills a value system.

Ooh, spooky.

You going to bother to post on topic, or keep trolling?

33

How has your religion affected you, then?

34

Make another thread on it, if you want. I don’t see what my religious beliefs have to do with theological breakthroughs in the past 2000 years.

35

Depends on what you mean by godless. If this means science attempts to show that god does not exist, then I agree. However science is godless in the sense that god does not play into observations or hypotheses. (Unless god were shown to be necessary in some way, which it hasn’t). So in a pure scientific paper (as opposed to an opinion piece) you will not be able to tell if a scientist is a believer or not.

Your classification of theology as a liberal art is interesting. Liberal arts provide ways of looking at humanity, and provide insights, but do not deal with truth. (Except in the sense of truth having little to do with facts.) There is no single true way of reading Sophocles, since we bring things to it based on others reading, and based on the world of today, which is far different from his. Is a breakthrough in theology, in your definition, like a breakthrough in understanding Oedipus Rex - which will get incorporated into the critical canon for providing insight?

I can buy that, but I would suspect many theologans in the old days would consider themselves to be finding truth, and doing something much more like science.

36

First of all a point must be made clear: theology and religion are not the same thing. Theology is the study of religion and religious experience. Theology is not as the OP stated a “research into the nature of God and his relationship with the world.” At least it isn’t always concerned with discovring the nature of God its relatioship to mankind. It is an interdisiplinary study. Sometimes theology is concerned with uncovering exaclty what is a religious experienece. Sometimes it is concerned with the study of ethics in society. Sometimes it is concerned with the study of governments. Sometimes it is concerned with developing Church dogma. Sometimes it is concerned with deciphering cultural history, etc. By limiting the meaning of the term theology in the original question the OP has perhaps sidetracked the question for which he or she is looking for answer. It would be a bit like asking this: What breakthroughs have we made in science in the past 5000 years? We have studied the stars for 5000 years and what have we learned? It would be unfair to limit the term science to only astrononmy. It is also an unfair characterization in pitting “the physical sciences” against theology because often theology takes into account the physcial sciences. Much of modern neurology has to do with uncovering the electrochemical processes that effect belief and behavior, etc. This is both a physical science and theology. So perhaps you meant to ask is what breakthroughs has religion made in the past millenia. If people want an answer to that question they can open another thread. Also keep in mind that theologians need not be religious themselves – nor must they adhere to the religion which they study (and very often they are neither). This shouldn’t be any more expected than for us to insist that a Japanese historian actually be Japanese or that a geologist be made of stone.

So an answer to your question is easy and yet difficult to answer. It is easy because there have been so many breakthroughs in Theology in the past few thousand years. It is difficult because you apparenly have no base of knowledge in the field of theology to begin with. It is a bit like trying to explain the history of Equatoral Guinea to someone who doesn’t even know how to find the nation on a map. Or maybe you would better understand a science example. It is like trying to explain Avogadro’s Number to someone who still understands the solar system according to Ptolemy. I am honestly not trying to belittle the question however. Following this post will be a list of some famous Theologians and a very short description of their breakthrough thoughts. Again this is like trying to make a list of all the famous scientists from all the different scientific fields along with a description of their discoveries. So I will narrow the field to include only those considered to be the really big names in general Christain theology and ontology(in study not necessarily belief) in the philosophically modern era (Decartes to Nietzsche).

37

Descartes – cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I exist, also tries to prove God by such
Berekeley – esse est percepe – everything is mind (in God’s mind)
Pierre Bayle – an early fideist (faith is religion)
Spinoza – founder of modern Biblical criticism
**Leibniz ** - the principle of pre-established harmony, historical probability, rational inquiry
Hume – founder of modern skepticism
**Kant ** – united rationalism and empiricism, refutation of natural theology, much more
Hegel – the historical unfolding of the absolute, thesis vs. antithesis = synthesis
**Kierkegaard ** – founder of Christian existentialism
**Heigegger ** – founder of modern Phenomenolgy, Authentic being is truth
Martin Kahler – began the search for “the Historical Jesus”
Rudolpf Bultmann – founder of Biblical Form Criticism
Gerhard Ebeling – founder of the New Hermeneutics, existentialist interpretation

I hope you heard of some of these men. Notice that many of them were scientists themselves and have had great effect on the nature of the physical sciences today. If they aren’t being plastered all over television and magazines today perhaps that is a reflection of the values of our society rather than a reflection of the value of thier thoughts. Our society would be better off reading some Kierkegaard after work in the eveing rather than microwaving some Hot Pockets and watching Temptation Island.

38

Another attempt to wrench this topic back onto track. I’m no theologian and it’s not even one of my main areas of interest but I’ve picked up bits and pieces from around the place.

Since Aquinas’ time, we’ve had plenty of controversy. There was the entire God from above vs God from below debate by someone who’s name started with H (sorry, someone refresh my memory). We’ve had is it good because it’s from god or is it that god must be good. New texts since the King James have enhanced our knowledge of what the original authors meant, new archeological research has helped us understand the social mores of the turn of the millenium jews and theologians are even having to grasp with tricky issues such as quantum physics as challenge has come from new angles.

Psychological research has provided a startling challenge to religion in discovering the “god centre” and I have yet to see a convincing theological response to such a finding. Science and the “god of the gaps” has forced religion to re-define it’s role in society and look at what, in essense, must be kept.

Even niggling little things such as how your meant to point to mecca when your orbiting in deep space and if GM foods are kosher are revolutions in our ways of thinking.

I am not qualified to comment on theological issues and I’m probably quite wrong about a number of things but that is at least a starting point into many ways that theology has moved beyond Aquinas.

39

Instead of waiting for other people to educate you, why not try going to the library to educate yourself.

Sorry mate – just couldn’t resist. (I actually like the poster fromally known as EchoKitty).

40

William Wilberforce- Slavery Abolition