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MugaSofer comments on Rationality Quotes April 2013 - Less Wrong
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Hmm, interesting point. At a guess, I'd say there probably is more disagreement among theologians than climatologists, so there does seem to be some asymmetry there.
On the other hand, if God is analogous to Global Warming (or whatever) then I suppose the analogy for those disputed details might be predictions of how soon we'll all be flooded or killed by extreme weather or whatever and what, exactly, the solution is (including "there isn't one".) So there's that.
If "God" refers to what theologians and atheists disagree about, and "Global Warming" refers to what climatologists and climate skeptics disagree about, then sure. I'd be cautious of assuming we agree on what those labels properly refer to more broadly, though.
Well, OK. Using that analogy, I guess I would say that if climatologists disagreed with each other about Global Warming as widely as theologians disagree with each other about God, I would not consider climatologists any more reliable a source of predictions of how soon we'll all be flooded or killed by extreme weather or whatever and what, exactly, the solution is, than I consider theologists reliable as a source of predictions about God.
Yup. Hence the "or whatever".
The point, of course, is that while they may disagree about the details, they all agree on the existence of the thing in question. Although TBH climatologists do seem to have more consensus than theologians.
It is not clear to me how to distinguish between "Christian, Buddhist, and Wiccan theologians agree on the existence of God but disagree on the details of God" and "Christian, Buddhist, and Wiccan theologians disagree on whether God exists"
This is almost entirely due to a lack of clarity about what "God" refers to.
Well, Buddhist, and Wiccan theologians are in a minority compared to Christian, Hindu, Deist and so on. And there is a spectrum of both Wiccan and Buddhist thought ranging from standard atheism + relevant cosmology to pretty clear Theism of various kinds (plus relevant cosmology.) Still, it's probably more common than among climatologists, depending on how strictly we define "theologian". (And "climatologist" for that matter, there are a good few fringe "climatologists" who push climate skepticism.)
Yup, agreed that how we define the sets makes a big difference.