Richard Dawkins’ Ignorance (a theological fact to learn)

Again accused of ignorance of theology. But what is there in “theology” to be ignorant ABOUT? Tell me 1 theological fact & I’ll learn it.

Richard Dawkins on Twitter
24 December 2012 ((

h/t Kyle Cupp ))

Dawkins is evidently ignorant of the obviously and necessarily theological character of his atheism; or unaware, or incapable of recognizing, that any atheist argument is expressly and necessarily a theological argument, or that there is no conceivable significance of atheism intrinsically (as ideology or belief system or ism, arguably also as phenomenon) that would not be inherently a theological significance. Atheism offers as theological fact a supposed, and supposedly significant, non-factuality of the subject of theology. The notion of a non-existence of theological fact is the opposite of the atheist thought, which originates in, constitutes, and upholds a position on its own absolute theological facticity. The doubt as to the existence of theological fact at all would be the beginning of the agnostic or possibly the anismic, not the atheist, inquiry.

2 comments on “Richard Dawkins’ Ignorance (a theological fact to learn)

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    • The notion of “a theological fact” is Dawkins’ notion, and apparently yours. It may or may not be a notion that some of the people who accuse him of ignorance also share. I suspect that they were referring to his general ignorance of theological discourse, the history of theology, what theologians think they are doing, and so on. Atheism for Dawkins and apparently for you entails, again, the presumption of s fact whose meaning is precisely theological, a statement about the divine, specifically of its non-existence, or the fact of its non-factuality. To presume that that statement is a sensible and important statement is to assert the existence of a theological fact. To put it most simply, atheism is a theism. Atheism is theological. What would an “atheist fact” be for us to learn? Some statement about god: a theological statement.

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