Atheists vs. theists (my Article in American Atheist Magazine

[kowalskil]

My article about futile confrontations between theists and atheists#appeared in the April 2012 Issue of#American Atheist Magazine. The link is:

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/theo/atheist.html

Please share this link with other potential readers. Thank you in advance,

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)#

[slapout9]

Originally Posted by kowalskil

My article about futile confrontations between theists and atheists#appeared in the April 2012 Issue of#American Atheist Magazine. The link is:

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/theo/atheist.html

Please share this link with other potential readers. Thank you in advance,

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)#

IMO it is organized Religion(which is created by man)that is far confrontational than the atheists vs. theists confrontation.

[marct]

I can understand why there is a separation of "science' and 'theology", but I have never found the Gould two magisteria model to be compelling. First off, modern science comes from a form of theological discourse - the via negativa or "God is Not" school of epistemology. Characterizing all "theology" as using the via positiva or "God is" school is both inaccurate and dis-ingenuous, as is characterizing all "science" as grounded in the via negaitiva.

A second conceptual flaw is the semantic conflation between "theology" + "religion" = "Christianity" (or one of the three monotheistic religions from the Near East). If we are going to choose a term for this supposed magisterium, then "Magnum Mysterium" would probably be better; in that case, at the minimum, "theology" would refer to attempts to explain and communicate individual insights inside that realm, a function that that particcular term is semantically incapable of reflecting .

BTW, Kowalski, SJ Gould was not the first person to develop this type of a model: Gregory Bateson was using it in the 1950's and 1960's, but in a much more sophisticated manner, and he was only building on the work of Jung and others. The greater sophistication comes in in the areas of overlap and interconnection, something that Gould's model tends to leave out. But it is these very areas of overlap and interconnection that are of crucial importance when it comes to questions of reducing conflict.

[kowalskil]

Originally Posted by slapout9

IMO it is organized Religion (which is created by man) that is far confrontational than the atheists vs. theists confrontation.

The situation was very different in Russia, after the revolution. Atheists were in power and theists were persecuted.

L.K.