Theology and Sociology

[The Grand Nudger]

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.    

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?