Is they is or is they ain't?

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RUVicdW7Ew[/youtube]

Although a good many Christians are appropriately appreciative of photosynthesis worship is a bit strong to describe their enthusiasm.

Well, I will at this juncture set out where I stand - given I am not in charge of the course, do not hesitate to see this as far from the definitive word, but 'tis mine own, to quote the jerk.

Whereas Umm Namba Wani sees the divine entity of Islam as different from the triune divine entity of Nicene [catholic and orthodox - and indeed Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox] Christianity, I on this point tend to agree with the informally stated [if he states it formally I do not recall seeing it] stance of Clive Staples Lewis.

That is - the God that the Jews who worship and heed God worship and heed is the God that those Christians who worship and heed God worship and heed and the same God that Muslims who worship and heed God worship and heed. Elohim, Aloho [Western pronunciation], Allah - einer, weiter keiner.

Now this is not to say the God one preaches is the same as the God others preach. In Theology. as in other sciences, we are dealing with the blind men and the elephant. NOBODY sees, nobody comprehends the whole thing. We know well that within Nicene Christianity alone the view of God preached by Sister Esmeralda at the Community Tabernacle is markedly different from that found in Father Paddy's homilies and again different from what we see taught at Dallas Seminary. The understanding of God by some posting here, the understanding of God from friend Khomeini, a Hassidic view of God - different different ting.

One blind man feels the leg and constructs an image to match it. One feels the trunk, and postulates an entirely different creature. But their images are not graven in stone. There is only one elephant.

There may be one something or there may be nothing and the blind men may be merely bumping into each other but what ever it is it is sure as hell not an elephant.

For anyone else on this forum who cannot handle figures of speech or is ignorant of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, I do not - nor do mainline Jews, Christians, or Muslims - worship Ganesha or any other Elephantid.

Well, the problem is that in theology, we don't seem to really have a science... at all. I mean, if theology is similar to a science, it is similar to the social sciences, but even then, there is less continuity in theology than there is in those I would suspect, y'see, we have a large number of different groups here:

1) We have theological exclusivists for each brand of religion. The theological exclusivists hold that the best way to understand the divine is through best interpreting their favored scripture or tradition. Given that there are multiple religions, this methodology has issues. Even further, within this group, there are a large number of different perspectives.
2) We have the theological pluralists, who try to cross religious boundaries to say "they are all from the divine". The manner in which they cross this though is in part driven by their own proclivities.
3) We have the metaphysical philosophical theologians, who try to argue "God is X, Y and Z", and who proceed from this point of contact.
4) We have theological skeptics, who are critical of the miracles, the arguments, all of that, even if they do believe.
5) We have the phenomenal philosophical theologians as well, who flow through terms like "ground of being" and "existential", and the encounter of the divine and so on and so forth.
6) We have mystics, who talk about their personal revelations, and magical experiences.
7) We have the transcendence lovers, who focus upon how "transcendent" god is in everything, and how much above his ways are compared to ours.

And so on and so forth. And well.... given all of this nonsense, I'd have to say that I am a theological skeptic of a rather extreme sort.

I don't think there is an elephant. I think the blind men are also a bit high on something. What I mean by that is just that we see a large number of cognitive defects, and honestly, I would imagine that God really fits within that grouping, as we see lots and lots of gods, many of which just seem outright contradictory to other notions. Try maintaining Jesus and the Aztec gods of blood sacrifice as being even remotely related. (And I know, there are many many rationalizations of other ideas. However, how about this: how many falsifiable theologies are there?)

You are very free, and even encouraged, to be skeptical in this area.

And you are quite right about the diversity of theology.

When I was a wee laddy, Linguistics was going through this crazy phase of insisting "We are so a science". Which is fine - if you use my admittedly reactionary etymologist's definition of science, we are - they were. Thing is, it was like when my sister with no understanding tried to imitate me and failed abysmally. They tried to make Linguistics into something like Chemistry - not even Theoretical Physics - all quantifiable and formalized. When even Biology was not and is [except for some subdivisions] that. I wanted to shout [but I had no status and hence no mouth] - IDIOTS. Language is a life byproduct, you cannot go inorganic and titrate three millilitres of H2SO4.

Linguistics is a life science all over and in parts a social science, and Newtonian Physics and even 0rganic Chemistry are not suitable models.

Further, just as the guy being oh so techjargon precise says "there is no such thing as a Frenchman, there are only individuals who fit the criteria we use to delimit the set of Frenchmen", so there is no such thing as Linguistics. Nor Anthro. And even our flagship sciences, Physics and Chemistry, are pretty multiple personality.

I will not try to enumerate the disciplines lumped as "Anthropology" for purposes of keeping the structure of the University simple But we Linguistic folk got Descriptive Linguistics, Phonetics [same as Experimental Phonetics, or different?], Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Semiotics, Diachronic Linguistics [that's me], Stylistics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis.

Practitioners of one do not necessarily talk to or understand the others. Maybe especially if we are stuck in the same department. Theology and Physics are the same in structure, though not in scale - Ling is more fragmented than Physics, I would say, less than theiology.

Pretty much gods - rephrase - intelligent beings with characteristics other than those prevalent in the Homo sapiens population active on this planet [thus including dryads, elves, demons, and most gods] are not falsifiable. Unlike the extinction of the coelacanth.

And that is a problem for some, and given the conventions of current science legitimately so. You are stuck with saying "so far I see no satisfactory evidence pro" - finding alternative explanations would not in such a case really satisfy me. Yes the dinosaurs could have been gunned down from UFOs by alien buffalo hunters and we would not know the difference. That is where I will sit down with Occam and say first show me a crashed UFO with a mounted T-rex head in the cargo bay.

But - to philosophy of science a bit more - I am not of a generation or really a discipline [despite one of my colleagues] to buy into Popper [I did not realize he was LSE!!] and the falsifiability deal. Fact is, if you look straight there is a LOT in science which is inherently neither verifiable nor falsifiable - eppur si muove.

At one level [and I love to dig beyond that level as much as any scientist, but there it is] what counts is, if I click the switcjh does the computer start up. It is fun - but not absolutely necessary - to know which direction electrical current flows, or how many quarks are dancing on my monitor, or whether it is Okarombi or Yog-Sothoth who writes the messages in my in-box. Quarks and Yog-Sothoth are not falsifiable or verifiable in my vicinity any time soon, but the analytical engine on my desk si muove.

Of course, as has been pointed out here, atheism [the atheist spectrum including the Antitheist Syndrome and Agnosticism Not Otherwise Specified] is ALSO far from monolithic [which helps stop the theist from saying it is cracked] And falsifiable atheist scenarios - aside from uninformed drivel from the less serious, amongst who I do not include you - are equally hard to come by.