A PhD in Theology? How Is This Possible?

[Baruch]

Mike CL ... I usually challenge any claims to natural law ... with the law of the jungle.  But I am not surprised that you are more civilized than that.  But there are plenty of people who imitate nature to their discredit.

Fidel_Castronaut ... a more extended analogy.  Analogy is useful in showing where the boundaries of current thinking are, so we can color outside those boundaries, should we choose to do so.  For example .. Kabbalah.  There is Contemplative Kabbalah, Speculative Kabbalah and Practical Kabbalah.  Contemplative Kabbalah is something to get you into the right frame of mind for the other two.  That is not something we identified earlier.  Speculative Kabbalah can be mere fantasy, or it can be a system of contemplation.  In so far as it is fantasy ... it would correspond to theoretical theology.

Often in the West, when we say something is ... we mean it in Platonic terms ... that there is a reality ... out there ... beyond any individual thinker ... that is real.  And we are using a special mental organ to explore it.  This is of course based on Pythagoras.  Pythagoras concluded that all things are numbers ... and he has many disciples today ... but I don't agree with his particular cult (he founded his own "mystery religion" ... even though numbers are occasionally useful (they are also deleterious).  On the other hand, if we are saying that a thought in our mind, is simply our thought, then it can have psychological benefit (power of positive thinking for example).

Dale Carnegie didn't claim that there were "enlightened masters" of marketing in the Himalayas that needed our attention, or that his suggestions represented some claim about reality outside of "Plato's Cave".  He simply said, these are my conclusions about my own story concerning successful human relations.  A much more modest and potentially non-general claim.  Mr Carnegie simply reviewed these principles that had served him well in the past ... before he went into any sales/marketing situation.  Speculative Kabbalah, or theoretical theology can be like that ... though usually we are playing at yeros with Plato.

Practical Kabbalah is Jewish magic, which might include "reading" palms.  Magic is both the ability to change your own preparation for the better, but to even change your POV for a better POV.  And magic gets even more magical, when your activity impacts how other people think and act.  Of course that is what Dale Carnegie was doing, practicing sales/marketing magic on his potential customers.  One can see that as flim-flam or as a service where you help a potential customer come to the correct conclusion that your product/services are needed.

One should note that ... Sigmund Freud was a modern version of a Jewish exorcist.  He exorcised neuroses (not physiological mental defects) from wealthy Jewish women who could afford his services.  Assuming his exorcism (now called counseling rather than psychoanalysis) was effective, I can't fault him or his clients.  Most mental problems are psychosomatic anyway.  Of course, so called objective medicine wants to give you a pill or cut one of your organs out ;-(

[SkyChief]

So, reading between-the-lines,  you are on-board with the concept of misplaced doctrine in theology. (?) 

That perhaps theology is a  pseudoscience unto itself;  and that (because of special-pleading principles)  it does not need to withstand the rigors of conventional scientific methodology.

Please say yes.

[Mike Cl]

So, reading between-the-lines,  you are on-board with the concept of misplaced doctrine in theology. (?) 

That perhaps theology is a  pseudoscience unto itself;  and that (because of special-pleading principles)  it does not need to withstand the rigors of conventional scientific methodology.

Please say yes.

I don't think all PhD's are based in science.  There is a PhD in education, for example that is not based in science.  It simply means one is an 'expert' in a certain field. 

[Baruch]

SkyChief ... you speakin' to me?  There is context and there is provocation ... there is word salad, and there is politics dressed up in a cassock.  There isn't any theology, of any flavor, that I personally approve of ... in the sense of creed, doctrine or dogma.  Dogma ... sounds like something a dog spit up, no?  Yes, I would agree that theology is a pseudo-science, in the ancient usage that science = knowledge ... not the modern usage.  I don't think that theology is even legitimate philosophy.  As a good teacher once taught me ... good theology is a circular argument.  Another different teacher taught me that a circular argument was by nature, fallacious.  The dictionary taught me, that all human languages are a vast web of circular arguments ... so there was no way to use human language in a consistent manner.  And then my Zen sensei (if I had one) sagely nodded ... I told you ... ah so!

So I don't get your last statement ... nothing in philosophy  withstands the rigors of conventional scientific methodology ... and nothing in theology withstands the rigors of conventional academic philosophy.  This is the whole point of academic philosophy trying to kick the schools of theology in their midst, to the curb.  Nevertheless, in my personal experience ... pre-retionalizing experience, theism makes more sense than non-theism ... but I understand why some folks come to different conclusions.  I know I can't prove my point in argument, because it is pre-rational.  This is why a rationalist like Descartes, has to make a clean break with religion.  But for me, I don't find the world to be rational, so I make a clean break with Descartes ;-)  I fart, therefore I stink!

[SkyChief]

 Baruch,  I think we're on the same page here.

" As a good teacher once taught me ... good theology is a circular argument."

This makes sense.

I'm just gonna let that stand on it's own merit. 

[Baruch]

Perhaps on that account, a prophet is so far seeing that he can see the back of his own head ;-)