But I disagree in two particulars with that otherwise fine closing statement.
First, it's not a "bad dream" to find an answer to a difficult question. It's a good dream come true.
Second, the theologians have not been sitting there for centuries. They've been stumbling around in the general vicinity, arguing with each other (and often killing each other) over minuscule details of their misinterpretations of the nature of Creation. They have less clue than than scientists, who (when they finally confront the necessity of a Prime Mover) recognize that the PM must have certain characteristics, and propose one that matches them. The theologians anthropomorphize their gods based on themselves, and then fantasize that they each were created in God's image. None of them have any idea what God's image is.
My God created the Universe from nothing at the time of the Big Bang, and then has watched The Experiment unfold for billions of years, with infinite patience. I am exceedingly pleased and proud to participate in this Great Experiment.
Your mileage may vary, of course. ;-)
I believe it is a mistake to interpret God’s “image” as God’s material “likeness.” I do not believe God has a material being. Being created in his image, to me, can only mean that I am a creature of his “imagining,” a material projection of his “mental” image of his human creatures. That’s the best I can do, the product of a fallible human mind striving to describe a mystery. If that sounds confused and confounded, so be it.
I mostly agree with you. Theologians, however, also base their thoughts on empirical data, just much more indirectly. Aquinas once said something to the effect of “All that we know we know through our senses.” For both professions it boild down to having the humility to see what is there and not what you want to be there. Scientists have a tendency to want to see preditability and mathematical certainty with God, and theologians, as you said, want God to be essentially their conception of the ideal man.