Many different religious opinions

[Muffled]

Y'know, very few religions actually set out to be "right". For the majority of us, it's not a race or contest. So the only question to ask is: Is it right for us? That is all that matters.

I believe if it isn't right there is no way it can be right for any person. However there are some injunctions that are right for a particular time and people.

 

[Muffled]

No, but truth has never been a priority for the religious. Scientists collect data and think up experiments to get to the truth and (sometimes after decades) they find a consensus. Believers don't like their believes to be tested and pretend that the differing opinions don't exist.

I believe tests help bring out the truth. However some tests do not work.

 

[PureX]

Except the customers who decide to stop relying on promises and move on to something that provides more reliability.
Likely why parts of the world have been becoming less religious.

Probably. The "Santa-God" thing was never a big crowd pleaser. But of course for most people there's far more to it than just blatant selfishness.

Still I can see for many, faith is more important to them than reliability.

Reliability is good for the long term solutions. But a lot of people are just trying to get through the crisis in front of them. And there are a whole lot of things in life that will never be reliable.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I believe if it isn't right there is no way it can be right for any person.

That's not for you to decide.

 

[Alien826]

That’s an interesting story. What changed your mind from believing this was a response from “something” having communicated with you to it was cooked up by your mind? Why did you give up after trying Christianity rather than exploring other spiritual callings?

It's a long story, but this how it went. Having "established contact" so to speak, I joined a Christian church (United Methodist) and joined in the activities there. I continued with my "conversation" with "something" and felt I was guided to certain things, like the writings of Marcus Borg and a group in church that was also exploring Christian belief. Though this all seems vague there were other things that helped my belief. I asked for help in my attempts to be a better person, and that seemed to happen. My shaky relationship with my then wife got dramatically better.

Anyway, this continued for some years. Then the marriage went back to "normal" and we got divorced, and I found myself less and less interested in attending church, until I never went at all. I no longer felt the presence of "god' as I once did. I found myself realizing that it had all slipped away.

So, the "cooked up" thing is just my best guess. Maybe God got fed up with me not believing in the Trinity and gave up on me. Though I've had my mind play the strangest tricks on me before, so it's not totally unreasonable.

As for trying another religion, it wasn't Christianity that didn't work, it was my total search. In a sense, I no longer felt the urge to get to the bottom of things religious. I went to the bottom and it was empty. For me at least.

The good thing (there has to be something, right?) is that I seem to have settled down to be comfortable with "I don't know" about spiritual matters. Maybe I'll find out when I die. Maybe not.

Oh, and I come here because I enjoy discussing things.

 

[Alien826]

But you dont have to. Or wouldn't have to if you realized you have a choice.

Faith is a choice. And it works a lot of the time for a lot of people. Even you. (Yes, you choose faith regarding lots of things, too.) So your skepticism is not being forced on you. You are choosing it. And we all choose it in many instances. No one is totally faithful or totally skeptical. So why do people claim they have no choice?

I think it's because they don't understand that they do have a choice, and so they don't take conscious control of their options.

Perhaps I overstated the "have to". The reality is that I feel very uncomfortable not understanding things. Skepticism is so much part of my personality that changing it would be close to impossible. And in any case, why should I? It's proven to be very useful, as many a salesman has found out. And no, I can't "choose" faith. What I can do is decide if something is important enough to me to put the effort into examining it. For those things that aren't, I tend to apply provisional answers, that are "good enough". If that looks like faith to you, then call it what you will.

 

[PureX]

Perhaps I overstated the "have to". The reality is that I feel very uncomfortable not understanding things. Skepticism is so much part of my personality that changing it would be close to impossible. And in any case, why should I? It's proven to be very useful, as many a salesman has found out. And no, I can't "choose" faith. What I can do is decide if something is important enough to me to put the effort into examining it. For those things that aren't, I tend to apply provisional answers, that are "good enough". If that looks like faith to you, then call it what you will.

I think you're mixing up the object of the faith with the choice to place you faith in the object. For example you (and most other people) will choose to place their faith in their own ability to determine the likelihood of an outcome. We don't know what the outcome will be. We don't even know that our assessed probability of a given outcome is correct. But we choose to trust that it is correct even though we don't now it to be so.

That is faith. That decision to trust in an idea, with our actions, that we can't or don't know to be correct. And we all do it all the time. BY CHOICE. You do it all the time, and by choice. But if you don't see yourself doing it, or don't recognize it as being an act of faith, you think you don't act on faith. Or that you have no choice. But you do. We all do.

 

[Alien826]

I think you're mixing up the object of the faith with the choice to place you faith in the object. For example you (and most other people) will choose to place their faith in their own ability to determine the likelihood of an outcome. We don't know what the outcome will be. We don't even know that our assessed probability of a given outcome is correct. But we choose to trust that it is correct even though we don't now it to be so.

That is faith. That decision to trust in an idea, with our actions, that we can't or don't know to be correct. And we all do it all the time. BY CHOICE. You do it all the time, and by choice. But if you don't see yourself doing it, or don't recognize it as being an act of faith, you think you don't act on faith. Or that you have no choice. But you do. We all do.

I think we may be just talking about the definition of "faith". To me it's believing something where "I don't know" would be a more accurate statement.

What you said seems to be a reduction exercise where every decision involves some level of uncertainty. You're right about that of course, we can never be completely sure of anything. But there are gradations of uncertainty. How about prior experience? If see a dark cloud and expect rain, that's not faith. It's based on previous experience of clouds. It may not rain of course, but that's factored into my decision to take an umbrella. I'm not sure but it can't hurt. What I do is to use my prior experience and intelligence to come to a best assessment of what is likely to happen, and then go ahead on the basis that I'm more likely to be right than wrong, and knowing that I could be wrong. That's not faith by any definition that I use.

 

[YoursTrue]

And do you accept the obvious corollary? Let's take the issue of good health and longevity, for exampe. What, in the end, is the reason that some men in a given family seem to enjoy long and healthy lives, while some do not? If you are going to thank something for the gift of a long, healthy life, what or who do you blame for those who mysteriously were left out?

Sometimes, things just are what they are. Inheriting "good genes" isn't a given, and you can't point to anyone or anything that decides which of your father's DNA met up with which of your mother's.

As to your point about the mystery remaining, and thus why not label it -- I put it to you that it already has a label: the one you gave it first -- mystery. That's the problem, we humans just find it so damned hard to say "I don't know." So we invent stuff, make up labels and concepts that seem to explain, but in fact explain nothing.

I can't speak for everybody, but many believe life is a gift. From a superior force. With intelligence. If I understood it all I'd be God. If it is not realized as a gift most of us would not be sorrowful and unhappy when the gift is taken away or removed.

 

[YoursTrue]

It's a long story, but this how it went. Having "established contact" so to speak, I joined a Christian church (United Methodist) and joined in the activities there. I continued with my "conversation" with "something" and felt I was guided to certain things, like the writings of Marcus Borg and a group in church that was also exploring Christian belief. Though this all seems vague there were other things that helped my belief. I asked for help in my attempts to be a better person, and that seemed to happen. My shaky relationship with my then wife got dramatically better.

Anyway, this continued for some years. Then the marriage went back to "normal" and we got divorced, and I found myself less and less interested in attending church, until I never went at all. I no longer felt the presence of "god' as I once did. I found myself realizing that it had all slipped away.

So, the "cooked up" thing is just my best guess. Maybe God got fed up with me not believing in the Trinity and gave up on me. Though I've had my mind play the strangest tricks on me before, so it's not totally unreasonable.

As for trying another religion, it wasn't Christianity that didn't work, it was my total search. In a sense, I no longer felt the urge to get to the bottom of things religious. I went to the bottom and it was empty. For me at least.

The good thing (there has to be something, right?) is that I seem to have settled down to be comfortable with "I don't know" about spiritual matters. Maybe I'll find out when I die. Maybe not.

Oh, and I come here because I enjoy discussing things.

Oh boy, what an interesting response. About hitting bottom -- The things we don't understand must be explained in the light of what we recognize. In other words, there are some things scientists cannot explain. It's kind of like what Jesus said about his church. It would be built on him. That means that there is a foundation, just as he said. While I accept gravity as a force I cannot defy, I also believe there is a greater force that can overturn gravity without upsetting consequences to the general status of things.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

it seems to be almost impossible to have coherence within any one religious faith….

I fully believe, from my own experiences and those of others, that there is global unity and brotherhood among the 8.7 million members who worship Jehovah (through Christ) as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I fully believe, from my own experiences and those of others, that there is global unity and brotherhood among the 8.7 million members who worship Jehovah (through Christ) as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But isn't your faith still apart from those which come under the umbrella belief system that Christ inspired? It just seems to be the nature of religious beliefs - that they either develop and/or fracture over time or they try to stick to the original doctrine (whatever that was) - and remain rooted in the past.

 

[stvdv]

Many different religious opinions

Can they all be true?

Irrelevant, as you talk about opinions
When you talk about facts then truth "can enter"

Different opinions imply different Paths
Different Paths imply "it's not Truth, just the way to"

Paths are the ways to get to the Truth
Knowing your Path has nothing to do with knowing Truth

 

[PureX]

I think we may be just talking about the definition of "faith". To me it's believing something where "I don't know" would be a more accurate statement.

That's only ONE dictionary definition of the word. As with many words, there are more than one definition. And to my mind, what you are describing here belief, not faith. Thanks to the persistent dishonesty of some religions, these terms have become synonymous when they are not really synonyms at all. Faith is something quite different than belief. That difference being the recognition of and appreciation of doubt (as in faith), as opposed to the blind denial of doubt (as with belief).

What you said seems to be a reduction exercise where every decision involves some level of uncertainty. You're right about that of course, we can never be completely sure of anything. But there are gradations of uncertainty. How about prior experience? If see a dark cloud and expect rain, that's not faith. It's based on previous experience of clouds. It may not rain of course, but that's factored into my decision to take an umbrella. I'm not sure but it can't hurt. What I do is to use my prior experience and intelligence to come to a best assessment of what is likely to happen, and then go ahead on the basis that I'm more likely to be right than wrong, and knowing that I could be wrong. That's not faith by any definition that I use.

Keep in mind that these are all also actually generators of and excuses for bias. We flip the coin 3 times and get heads 2 of the 3. And so now we think we can expect to see heads on the next flip of the coin. And that's a very simple example. It becomes far more complex and entrenched when we're talking about presumptions of the "truth of reality". Because those presumptions are being used by our brains to define and understand all our new and incoming experiences of reality. We quite literally see, hear, smell, and touch what we expect to see hear, smell and touch. Because it's those expectations that we are using to define and understand the sensory phenomena we receive. And that a HUGE bias that we routinely ignore.

To say that we don't really know what we presume to know is an understatement. And although I understand this is how the human mind works, and is mostly unavoidable, I think it's still very important to remember just how wrong our minds can be. About anything. No matter how sure we think we are. And in fact, the more sure we think we are, the greater the bias.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Again, your getting religion caught up in politics. Politicians and their minions will use anything to justify their desire to control and exploit other people. Not just religion.

You draw a hard line between politics and religion as if the one has never influenced the other. That's not even close to true.

 

[SalixIncendium]

It depends on your definition of true.

If you think 'what you believe' is true then they are all true.

If you believe 'fact or reality' are true then non are true.

Depends on your definition of ‘reality.’

None are true? Am I to believe that you have investigated and discounted every religious opinion that exists in every religion? If so, that’s quite an accomplishment.

 

[SalixIncendium]

They're opinions. There is no true/false in an opinion.

Is this your opinion? Or is it the truth?

 

[ChristineM]

Depends on your definition of ‘reality.’

None are true? Am I to believe that you have investigated and discounted every religious opinion that exists in every religion? If so, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Reality is easy, it can be physically weighed, measured, observed to exist.

I can't say I've heard the same for any supernatural religion. Unless you know different.

 

[Vinayaka]

Is this your opinion? Or is it the truth?

It's too early for me to think, so I will defer to a wiser person ... you.

 

[PureX]

You draw a hard line between politics and religion as if the one has never influenced the other. That's not even close to true.

The line I am drawing is conceptual. And is important.

Religion and politics are different human endeavors. While this innate human desire to control everything and everyone around us to our own advantage crosses all conceptual boundaries and infects all our human civil and cultural endeavors. This obsessive desire to control is NOT PROPER RELIGION. And is NOT PROPER POLITICS, either. It's our self-centered fear infecting our efforts in these other areas of civil discourse. So if you want to address that selfish fear, then fine. But stop blaming it on the various human endeavors that it infects, like religion or politics (and commerce, etc.). Because they are not the cause. They are the victims. We humans NEED religion and politics within our social systems. So we NEED to somehow rid them of this fear-driven obsession with control.

That's where our efforts ought to be. Not in blaming and trying to destroy religion and politics.