Doggerel #168: "Theology"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

You've probably watched some fanboys or not-far-off parodies of them get into a violent argument about whether Picard or Kirk is the better captain (hint: it's Picard) or whether Superman could beat Dragon Ball Z's Son Gokuu in a fight. To us atheists, that's what theology looks like, and it's prone to starting more than just a slap fight.

Whenever fans of a fictional series argue, they can refer to the material the authors put out, and convention goers often get the opportunity to ask questions directly. Theologists have a canon they can refer to, and many people claim to get answers when they pray, but there's a lot of contradiction when different people ask.

Fiction and theology often end up looking much the same when you try to apply their principles to the real world. No, a katana can't cut through a machinegun under normal conditions, no matter how many times your favorite anime ninja did it in the show. The mythbusters tried it. Within that anime, you can say additional forces are generated by the ninja's chi, but we recognize that as fictional physics that apply in the show's "universe." Theologists, however, expect their system of rules to be treated as real as any scientific theory. They don't stand up well to any tests.

That's why we don't take theology seriously, no matter how intricate, detailed, or whatever you say it is: If the foundation doesn't stand up to scrutiny, why should we take everything built on that seriously? Mobile Suit Gundam is a series that invented some detailed physics for a fictional Minovsky particle that powers much of what the titular giant robots do. Real-world physicists aren't jumping onto that bandwagon for a simple reason: No one's found a real Minovsky particle, yet.

No one's defined and found a deity yet.