What evidence out there crushes religious faith?

[PoetPhilosopher]

And now whenever someone tells me my town, I, everyone else, is normal, that there is no paranormal, and it's all in my head... I've decided to post that Jesus tree in my town, for starters.

 

[Heyo]

What evidence out there crushes religious faith?

No evidence ever crushes religious faith. That's the problem.

 

[Samael_Khan]

And the objections to those evidences?

Soul, spirit, God in the general sense, and underlying conscious reality in the general sense.

Just curious!

I'm not after a specific religion. So nothing about specific religions.

Proofs will suffice too!

Stick to objective facts, and inferences!

Just asking what their evidences are and where they logically follow tends to crush religious faith or at least make people doubt.

 

[osgart]

What evidence out there crushes religious faith?

No evidence ever crushes religious faith. That's the problem.

I do have one that drastically reduced my faith. The case of a patient that had their hippocampus removed. They were no longer able to have new memories, however their procedural memory was still good. If memory is important to the soul, then permanent loss of memory is a big deal.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Just asking what their evidences are and where they logically follow tends to crush religious faith or at least make people doubt.

Depends on who's the craftier debater. It's a cat and mouse game.

 

[osgart]

Just asking what their evidences are and where they logically follow tends to crush religious faith or at least make people doubt.

So you have experience with this. Would you say that is always the case?

Some people are more sophisticated in their religious convictions; people like authors' Josh Rasmussen, and Fr. Robert J. Spitzer.

The average religious person is more subjective about it.

 

[Samael_Khan]

Depends on who's the craftier debater. It's a cat and mouse game.

Definitely so yes.

 

[Samael_Khan]

So you have experience with this. Would you say that is always the case?

Some people are more sophisticated in their religious convictions; people like authors' Josh Rasmussen, and Fr. Robert J. Spitzer.

The average religious person is more subjective about it.

To be honest I think I overstepped with my words there, as I had proselytising religions in mind and not religions like Falun Long, Hinduism, Buddhism.

My experience using this reasoning isn't even with Catholics and Jews.

This reasoning works with Fundamentalist Christians and Sunni Muslims when they try to propagate their religion.

I really did not think my answer through.

 

[Mindmaster]

And the objections to those evidences?

Soul, spirit, God in the general sense, and underlying conscious reality in the general sense.

Just curious!

I'm not after a specific religion. So nothing about specific religions.

Proofs will suffice too!

Stick to objective facts, and inferences!

It's merely a question of who is the bigger idiot. The person who believes science is a religion and the person who believes that their beliefs can be proven with evidence and justify their faith. A rational person realizes that science is not the tool for the job as it is incapable of objectively studying beliefs in anything but a factual or historical way, and the balanced religious person realizes there is no need to make an argument of that which you are aware of in your subjective universe. It's real, in that case, if it is real for you.

Essentially, the conundrum is that belief doesn't require external evidence so it has nothing to do with the initial criteria in the first place. Science, properly applied, realizes these things are just out of scope. There are plenty of highly-religious scientists so they're not as juxtaposed as one would think it to be on its face.

 

[Aupmanyav]

And the objections to those evidences? Soul, spirit, God in the general sense, and underlying conscious reality in the general sense.
Proofs will suffice too!Stick to objective facts, and inferences!

What kind of religions? The God kind or No God kind?
In No God kind of religions Soul, Spirit, Ghost, heaven, hell, judgment, deliverance, reincarnation, do not find any place because there is no evidence for them. Some No God kind of religions even discount creation, birth and death. Also there is no proof of people being sent on a mission or with a message (prophets / sons / messengers / manifestations, mahdis) by any God or Allah.
At the same time science provides proof for creation like in Big Bang, Abiogenesis and Evolution.

To be honest I think I overstepped with my words there, as I had proselytizing religions in mind and not religions like Falun Long, Hinduism, Buddhism.

Ah! That is nice. Proselytizing religions, Hinduism. Well, Hare-Krishnas are there, but many Hare-Krishnas do not consider themselves to be Hindus. And what about Christianity, Islam (the fastest growing religion - no?) and the most active in this forum, the Bahai?

 

[osgart]

What kind of religions? The God kind or No God kind?
In No God kind of religions Soul, Spirit, Ghost, heaven, hell, judgment, deliverance, reincarnation, do not find any place because there is no evidence for them. Some No God kind of religions even discount creation, birth and death. Also there is no proof of people being sent on a mission or with a message (prophets / sons / messengers / manifestations, mahdis) by any God or Allah.
At the same time science provides proof for creation like in Big Bang, Abiogenesis and Evolution.

I am more interested in the no God kind, but either one will do. Do you see that science refuted all religions, or most?

 

[Aupmanyav]

I do not know about Dao (if it is taken as a religion), but science does not refute much in Buddhism and absolutely nothing of my Advaita (non-dual) belief.

 

[osgart]

I do not know about Dao (if it is taken as a religion), but science does not refute much in Buddhism and absolutely nothing of my Advaita (non-dual) belief.

So then what is Brahman to an atheist, who knows death is final? And what makes it important?

 

[exchemist]

And the objections to those evidences?

Soul, spirit, God in the general sense, and underlying conscious reality in the general sense.

Just curious!

I'm not after a specific religion. So nothing about specific religions.

Proofs will suffice too!

Stick to objective facts, and inferences!

None obviously, the evidence being that religious faith has not been crushed.

The communists tried as hard as possible in the USSR, for decades, but it came back the moment the USSR fell. Even many people who despise traditional religion go in for all kinds of wacky crystals'n'stuff ideas, which are quasi-religious in nature. Trying to crush religious faith puts you up against something very deep in the human psyche. It will never be crushed.

 

[osgart]

None obviously, the evidence being that religious faith has not been crushed.

The communists tried as hard as possible in the USSR, for decades, but it came back the moment the USSR fell. Even many people who despise traditional religion go in for all kinds of wacky crystals'n'stuff ideas, which are quasi-religious in nature. Trying to crush religious faith puts you up against something very deep in the human psyche. It will never be crushed.

Yet many have not one religious bone in their body.

I do agree, it is daunting to go up against religion. And I do not even try to. Just the one's that condemn me for non belief.

I see that those that are know certain of their religious convictions have a lot of energy and motivation, and health from it. I know they get very excited about it. And they are deep into the moral codes of it. That's what I see from it anyway. It unites believers with a lot of zeal. And good for them if it does not condemn those who are not believers.

 

[bobhikes]

And the objections to those evidences?

Soul, spirit, God in the general sense, and underlying conscious reality in the general sense.

Just curious!

I'm not after a specific religion. So nothing about specific religions.

Proofs will suffice too!

Stick to objective facts, and inferences!

There is nothing that crushes Religious faith, religious faith is based on faith not anything logical, scientific or objective. You can with education minimize some of the more outlandish beliefs but even scientists and educators have strong religious faiths.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I also tend to the view that nothing actually crushes religious faith, and we shouldn't even attempt such, it being rather presumptuous to do so - as long as such beliefs don't impose too much of a burden on the lives of others - which unfortunately is the case in many countries, where deviating from the accepted faith all too often makes one an outcast or decidedly in a minority. People will believe what they will - dependent upon their inclinations - such that no amount of discussion or persuasion might get someone to change whatever belief they have. They might not even recognise any indoctrination they might have had too.

The main reason I see for this is that either they have a need for such or they just cannot conceive of (and are alarmed by) a universe that has no essential meaning. But then I know that I might be equally as wrong in my lack of belief - but I am willing to gamble on such, and damn Pascal.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So then what is Brahman to an atheist, who knows death is final? And what makes it important?

Brahman is the stuff / entity, of which all things are constituted - like the soil in case of a brick.
There is no birth or death, there is only seemingly a change in form, recycling.
Nothing important or spectacular in this. All things undergo this apparent change. It happens in every atom in the universe, all the time.

Like my grandpa opined in his 1947 book:

Brahmanastu samutpannah jagaduktam purātanaih, navyā vidyutakanotpannam manyate tadshamshayam.
In older times, they said the universe arose out of Brahman. People of today, believe that to have arisen definitely from atoms.

A father (Uddalaka Aruni) instructing his son (Svetaketu) said in Chandogya Upanishad:
Yathā Soumya, ekena mritpindena sarvam mrinmayam vijnātam syāt,
vāchārambhena vikāro nāmadheyam mritiketyeva satyam.

(My boy, just as by one clod of clay all that is made of clay is known,
the difference being only a name arising from distortions of speech, the clay is the only truth)

 

[Aupmanyav]

None obviously, the evidence being that religious faith has not been crushed.

I do agree, it is daunting to go up against religion.

Why should an atheist try to crush religious thought? It is a free world, people will have various beliefs. I am a staunch atheist and a staunch Hindu. It happens that my religious belief itself is atheistic, like that of Theravada (Sri Lankan) Buddhists - Hinayana (Minimalistic Buddhism). I too am a minimalist. The whole of my family and even the community is thoroughly theist. What I have posted here is in response to what Osgart wrote. Had Osgart not asked, I would not have posted anything here.

 

[Twilight Hue]

And the objections to those evidences?

Soul, spirit, God in the general sense, and underlying conscious reality in the general sense.

Just curious!

I'm not after a specific religion. So nothing about specific religions.

Proofs will suffice too!

Stick to objective facts, and inferences!

The crushing evidence, is the actual lack of crushing evidence.

Can't say something is there when it's really not.