This is interesting: A bona fide theologian has published at Jerry Coyne’s blog a letter which reprises exactly my criticisms of theology.
What I ended up discovering is that there are no actual standards in theology. If there were, then there would be unity in the field, rather than division.
Right. As I said here, “reasoning from fairy tales and without epistemic standards forever disqualifies theology as a bona fide branch of knowledge amongst intellectually serious adults.”
Theologians have no way to settle their difference — and we have Niagaras of bloodshed to show for it.
We can only solve problems we experience in this world by reference to the world, not to otherworldly spirits whose existence has never been verified.
Longtime readers will recognize this as the ground of my refusal to accept that the so-called Problem of Evil is a legitimate, intellectually serious problem. Until you have proved that God exists, there is no basis but wishful-thinking for saying that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good — and then puzzling over why the world sure doesn’t look like it.
Theology is not an intellectually serious enterprise, and it is time to bring the nonsense, and the injury it does, to an end. No deference — ever.