Theological Bait-and-Switch

P.Z. Myers on theological bait-and-switch:

Pharyngula: Carroll steps up to the plate...: Category: GodlessnessPosted on: October 30, 2006 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers: The physicist Sean Carroll takes on Eagleton, and also makes a few comments on The God Delusion--key point, I think: Dawkins took on too many issues at once in the book, and opened himself up to criticisms on the weaker parts that are used to dismiss the stronger parts. I agree.

Most of the discussion takes up a weakness in theology, and it parallels the weakness in Dawkins' book: the confusion between different concepts of this god-thingie. Theologians play that one like a harp, though, turning it into a useful strategem. Toss the attractive, personal, loving or vengeful anthropomorphic tribal god to the hoi-polloi to keep them happy, no matter how ridiculous the idea is and how quickly it fails on casual inspection, while holding the abstract, useless, lofty god in reserve to lob at the uppity atheists when they dare to raise questions.

When we complain that the god literally described in the Old Testament is awfully petty and hey, doesn't this business of a trinity and an immortal god being born as a human and dying (sorta) sound silly, they can just retort that our theology is so unsophisticated--Christians don't really believe in that stuff.

It gets annoying. We need two names for these two concepts, I think. How about just plain "God" for the personal, loving, being that most Christians believe in, and "Oom" for the bloodless, fuzzy, impersonal abstraction of the theologians? Not that the theologians will ever go along with it--the last thing they want made obvious is the fact that they're studying a completely different god from the creature most of the culture is worshipping.