Your religious beliefs are probably wrong

[idea]

Where did everything come from? at least we know what currently exists. The difference between what is alive, and what is not alive - self-awareness, free will, the ability to act and not just be acted upon - to me, spirit is the difference between what is alive and what is dead. To see spirits in what currently lives makes it easy for me to see spirits in the eternities too. What is the universe made of? Matter, energy, information, and intelligence/spirit. What currently exists has always, and will always exist I think.

This is just an assertion. Bacteria are alive and don't have self awareness or free will.

Ask a biologist to determine whether something is a live instead of a philosopher of theologian. A good example is the virus--it is in between alive and not alive as it misses key attributes that modern biologists define as living.

And where did everything come with? Who knows, but its unlikely religion magically has the answer.

Some forms of life have more spirit than others, but spirit/self-awareness/conscience/intelligence - these are real entities that do actually exist.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Beliefs are right when they benefit believers.

It would be nice to think that beliefs can evolve as well.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Agreed. Used to do a podcast with a really nice conservative atheist who lives in Illinois. I was born just outside Chicago, in fact.

It's a great city, but I've never been so cut off from nature, it's a day's drive just to see a farm field.. I think there is definitely a connection there with beliefs, regardless of culture I mean, not being able to see the stars, forests, wildlife.... the question 'where did all this come from' just doesn't resonate so much in artificial surroundings..

 

[Etritonakin]

Given that so many different religions exist, many of which are mutually exclusive, and most claim they contain the truth of reality, the odds aren't in your favor that you picked the right religion. This is based on pure statistical analysis, and that's assuming that one religion we have is actually correct.

True -though God puts all people on the right course in due time.
I like this quote..... Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.


We, as humans, all begin to exist at a certain point in time -essentially ignorant of all that has happened throughout eternity and of any beings with whom we do not interact -and our awareness and knowledge grow.
(Some might disagree, but we will all agree eventually)

God knows those things, knows us and knows himself.

Time and experience are necessary to learn how to exist together in peace -and to learn about God -a time of ignorance and mistakes.

God chooses to reveal himself at various times and in various ways -and is essentially otherwise unsearchable -except by the things he has made -including us. By such things God can be known somewhat.

Some have known God, but yet have not. Some have had direct contact, but did not truly know the one with whom they had contact.
He explained himself and the situation, but some disagreed, doubted, and rejected him -because they did not yet have proof that he was who he said he was -and that what he was saying was true.

So -even as we exist in ignorance, we learn the things of God by personal experience now -with some recorded/shared history and lessons -and by all collective human experience later.

Then -when all see God, they will have a reference from which to discern that he is God and that what he says is true.

We will all agree on the true religion -which is that which proceeds from God -because all will be aware of it, and it will then be obviously true. There will be no opportunity for doubt.

Fortunately, then all that has been destroyed or damaged can and will be repaired -even our calloused hearts.

Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

 

[serp777]

Look at nature. It's trying to get life right by diversity. Maybe the same forces are in play when it comes to religion. Beliefs are right when they benefit believers.

Truth exists regardless of humans and belief. There are an infinite amount of prime numbers regardless of someone who benefits from the belief that there are a finite amount of prime numbers. Its extremely egocentric to say that human belief determines what is right and wrong.

 

[serp777]

True -though God puts all people on the right course in due time.
I like this quote..... Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.


We, as humans, all begin to exist at a certain point in time -essentially ignorant of all that has happened throughout eternity and of any beings with whom we do not interact -and our awareness and knowledge grow.
(Some might disagree, but we will all agree eventually)

God knows those things, knows us and knows himself.

Time and experience are necessary to learn how to exist together in peace -and to learn about God -a time of ignorance and mistakes.

God chooses to reveal himself at various times and in various ways -and is essentially otherwise unsearchable -except by the things he has made -including us. By such things God can be known somewhat.

Some have known God, but yet have not. Some have had direct contact, but did not truly know the one with whom they had contact.
He explained himself and the situation, but some disagreed, doubted, and rejected him -because they did not yet have proof that he was who he said he was -and that what he was saying was true.

So -even as we exist in ignorance, we learn the things of God by personal experience now -with some recorded/shared history and lessons -and by all collective human experience later.

Then -when all see God, they will have a reference from which to discern that he is God and that what he says is true.

We will all agree on the true religion -which is that which proceeds from God -because all will be aware of it, and it will then be obviously true. There will be no opportunity for doubt.

Fortunately, then all that has been destroyed or damaged can and will be repaired -even our calloused hearts.

Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

The first quote from the bible you posted is extremely ironic considering it is from a man. I don't find quote from scriptures convincing regardless though--there are thousands of different scriptures you could quote from--from the quran to the scientology manifesto.

And i don't see why God makes it so challenging and difficult to believe, as demonstrated by the huge number of different religions that are mutually exclusive. All God would have to do is rearrange the stars to write "Yahweh is here" in aramiac. Boom, then everybody is a believer in the judeo christian faith. There's no need to go through these abritrary and unlikely methods of convincing people. God is all powerful so he should know what it would take to convince everyone, and he should do that if he cares about humans believing. Henceforth he probably doesn't care about the beliefs of humans and that means judeo christian faith is wrong and that prayers, etc don't matter.

Here you talk a lot about ignorance and I think that we are definitely ignorant about anything related to God and that probably nobody has ever had a hotline to God where he/she heard a magical message about truth and morality.

 

[serp777]

An interesting point, though it depends on what one means by "right." One of the problems I'm noticing with this thread is that some are taking "right" to mean "factually true" according to some standard that the speaker happens to value. Some aren't thinking about "right" in terms of "useful or beneficial" or its other meanings that are more common in religions. This is part of why I found the OP absurd from the get go; the framing would make more sense to ask of the sciences, not of religions. And if we bothered to start assessing different sciences and different religions by "right" as it would make sense in their own contexts, we'd get quite an interesting picture, I'd wager.

This is ridiculous. Religions make many true or false claims--God exists, God listens to prayers, there are multiple Gods, God sent his son down to save us from sins committed by a non existent forebearer, Allah is the perfect messenger of God, etc, etc. Given so many mutually exclusive claims and the scant evidence, its unlikely anyone has had a hotline to God, or Gods, about the truth of the universe. So there isn't anything absurd in my post and you definitely haven't demonstrated it. OP is mainly about the factual statements religion makes.

So regardless of the alleged benefits religion brings, which it definitely doesn't given that religion is inherently divisive and has caused untold conflict, it says nothing about truths and falsehoods of the nature of reality.

 

[serp777]

What I glean from your post:

A lot of truth with some error is no better than no truth. Better to remain agnostic apparently.

Also, you seem to be implying none of us can know God and none of us can determine God has communicated truths to His creation.

Kind of leaves one free to do as he pleases, the easy way out and, again, what you seem to be implying.

FYI, the Catholic Church and its popes and all its traditions ( which you insinuate are self-serving man made ideas with no divine counsel or revelation behind it) yield strong evidence they have been around since Jesus walked the earth. And since Jesus carries enormously more credibility than any other figure in human history, I am suggesting God has spoken to mankind. You are simply not comprehending, imo.

The miracles, signs and wonders of Catholic/Christian origin are legion. They are empirical reasons to believe. You can dismiss them, we cannot.

FYI, Catholicism is not regional. There are Catholic masses and faithful in nearly every nation on earth. And since your avatar delights in mocking the Catholics by showing a heartless crusader laying some pagan to the sword, again, you do not comprehend. It is a spiritual battle we are engaged in. Engaged in by Christians who also happen to be weak and sinful at times. Islam conquered and subjugated millions of innocents and set out to destroy Christianity in the Holy Land without prejudice. Sometimes we are called upon to defend truth and justice via military means. Tragic world we are on trial in.

My claim is that you probably don't have a magic hotline to God that gives you special knowledge about the truth of reality. I can't claim certainty, but its pretty unlikely given all of the hallucinators, liars, and charletons out there who claim to have special access to divine knowledge. Given so many mutually exclusive claims, interpretations, and moralities from religions, its very unlikely that any of them are correct.

I am suggesting God hasn't spoken to mankind but you aren't comprehending. If God wanted to convince us it would be easy. Since he is perfect he should know what would convince all of us and do that, instead of making things am entrapment scenario, where we are expected to believe given scant evidence and frequent religious fraud. God could simply rearrange the stars in aramaic to write Yahweh is here, and suddenly everyone would be believers. I'd be very willing to convert if it were true, and God could make that happen easily. He made us skeptical of questionable claims, and then religion offers questionable claims and tells you to accept based on faith. Well why don't you believe that the prince of nigeria wants to give you 1 million dollars if you give him your bank account info and social security number.

Also the alleged miracles aren't convincing. When the pope allegedly cures cancer by blessing people, suddenly people say COSMIC MIRACLE! But cancer remissions occur in 3% of cancer victims, so how do people know it wasn;t a coincidence? And they forget all the times where the blessing hasn't wroked. Its called selection bias and magical thinking. correlation does not mean causation and is one common, flawed thought process of religious people.

 

[Cephus]

So regardless of the alleged benefits religion brings, which it definitely doesn't given that religion is inherently divisive and has caused untold conflict, it says nothing about truths and falsehoods of the nature of reality.

I really don't see those benefits. Sure, there are things that adherents of religion claim to get from their beliefs, but there is so much bad that comes along with the claimed good. I'm sure you can find people who claim to get benefits from injecting heroin into their veins too, that doesn't make it a good thing, there are a lot of negatives that come along with any of those supposed positives and I'm sure the heroin addict isn't going to acknowledge any of the bad. The same is true of religion. Religion addicts don't see the evils of what they do, only the good parts, which can be gotten through entirely secular means without the evils.

 

[serp777]

Nothing has ever been brought forward that could sincerely explain away the supernatural events at Fatima, Portugal, 1917. Three young shepherd children have reported seeing the Virgin Mary each month. On July 13th (the third apparition) they tell the anxious crowd assembled that the Virgin Mary will perform a miracle for all to see in 90 days on October 13. This explains why 70,000 believers and scoffers assembled on October 13, a very dark, rainy and muddy day. The three children arrive and soon after Lucia points to the sky. The sun splits the grey clouds and begins to twirl, bounce and dance defying cosmic laws. It shoots of multi colored rays across the whole landscape changing the color of the people's faces, blue, green, yellow. All are spellbound. This lasts approximately 12 minutes until for a climax the sun grows in great size, turns blood red and charges the earth. All are terrified, but just as suddenly the sun recedes and all is peaceful. The very muddy ground and drenched clothes of those present are inexplicably now dry.

The Marxist and anti-clerical journalists from ‘O Seculo’ Lisbon newspaper there initially to mock this event humbly report the truth in their newspaper. There are also countless testimonies in print and on film as to what took place including that of scientists. It’s all there for anyone’s serious research. Some of the 70,000 do not see this phenomenon, but the vast majority clearly do and their accounts are very much the same. If God chooses to deny some a gift or manifestation how does that discount the accounts of all the other eye witnesses? This is no minor miracle. It was predicted 90 days in advance to the exact day it would occur by three small children back in July. And this does not impress the doubters? Mass hallucination has no validity if one is honest about all of the facts and details. It is a hyper improbable theory at best. God did what he chose here to show the world He is real and that He is the God of Jesus Christ, not Buddha, Muhammad or any others. It is the one salient miracle that remains unassailable and incontrovertible, in my opinion, and should be in the opinions of unbiased honest men. Again, this miracle does not stand on its own, but is a remarkable empirical event in history which lends solid evidence to support all other events and claims surrounding Jesus Christ.

Oh wait i think i can explain it! Its called lying and fervent beliefs leading to a mob mentality. Its just like the groups of alien abduction experts. Also where are the photographs? And charges the earth? Not likely--charging the earth would defy the laws of physics--it would require such a strong electric field to charge the earth that it would kill everyone on the planet and rip off the atmosphere.

 

[serp777]

I really don't see those benefits. Sure, there are things that adherents of religion claim to get from their beliefs, but there is so much bad that comes along with the claimed good. I'm sure you can find people who claim to get benefits from injecting heroin into their veins too, that doesn't make it a good thing, there are a lot of negatives that come along with any of those supposed positives and I'm sure the heroin addict isn't going to acknowledge any of the bad. The same is true of religion. Religion addicts don't see the evils of what they do, only the good parts, which can be gotten through entirely secular means without the evils.

Well i'm inclined to agree with you do which is why i said alleged benefits. Also heroin is at least healtheir than cigarettes and alcohol; its just more taboo so people tend to freak out. That's just a tangent though.

 

[Quintessence]

This is ridiculous. Religions make many true or false claims--God exists, God listens to prayers, there are multiple Gods, God sent his son down to save us from sins committed by a non existent forebearer, Allah is the perfect messenger of God, etc, etc. Given so many mutually exclusive claims and the scant evidence, its unlikely anyone has had a hotline to God, or Gods, about the truth of the universe. So there isn't anything absurd in my post and you definitely haven't demonstrated it. OP is mainly about the factual statements religion makes.

So regardless of the alleged benefits religion brings, which it definitely doesn't given that religion is inherently divisive and has caused untold conflict, it says nothing about truths and falsehoods of the nature of reality.

One, I wasn't talking to you. Two, I never said some religions don't make factual truth claims. Three, until you demonstrate active listening, I'm not having any conversations with you. Blow hot air at someone else.

 

[serp777]

One, I wasn't talking to you. Two, I never said some religions don't make factual truth claims. Three, until you demonstrate active listening, I'm not having any conversations with you. Blow hot air at someone else.

Well I am glad you don't want to post to me anymore. It will spare your inconsistency and hypocrisy. You were talking about me for starters, so obviously im justified in responding. I made the op.

"This is part of why I found the OP absurd from the get go"


Second you have no clue what active listening is.

Third spare me your superiority complex; you're the one full of hot air.

Fourth I never said you said religions don't make factual claims, so why don't you improve your listening skills first? Either you're demonstrating poor listening or a serious lack of comprehension

 

[Banjankri]

Truth exists regardless of humans and belief. There are an infinite amount of prime numbers regardless of someone who benefits from the belief that there are a finite amount of prime numbers. Its extremely egocentric to say that human belief determines what is right and wrong.

There is no free floating truth, infinity, prime numbers, or right and wrong. All those are man made beliefs. It's not egocentric to believe that, it's ignorant to think otherwise.

 

[JRMcC]

I think it's impossible to know of some objective truth that can be called the way things work. When you start digging down deep and asking enough questions things stop making sense. Maybe someday science will change that, but for now I think the only thing a rational person can do is try to understand in a general sense. Buddhists, Advaitas, and atheists all do this in different ways, and to say that one way is objectively correct (at least at this time) is dogmatic.

 

[serp777]

There is no free floating truth, infinity, prime numbers, or right and wrong. All those are man made beliefs. It's not egocentric to believe that, it's ignorant to think otherwise.

Its illogical, egocentric, and ignorant to think that human belief determines reality. Believing in something does not make it true. Nature commonly follows mathematical patterns that would exist without humanity, some of which depend on prime numbers, or fractals, etc. And no free floating truth? Really? How about that there is a universe, or that the planets orbit the sun, or that light can be a wave and a particle? Your belief isn't going to make the planets suddenly stop orbiting the sun, regardless if a differing belief would help someone.

They're not man made beliefs, they were discovered by man--an important distinction.

 

[serp777]

I think it's impossible to know of some objective truth that can be called the way things work. When you start digging down deep and asking enough questions things stop making sense. Maybe someday science will change that, but for now I think the only thing a rational person can do is try to understand in a general sense. Buddhists, Advaitas, and atheists all do this in different ways, and to say that one way is objectively correct (at least at this time) is dogmatic.

So its impossible to know some objective truth about the way things work except the objective truth that its impossible? I think its impossible to know whether its impossible as it would require you to know all objective truth.WHat you can say though is that probably no one has had a special hotline to God that grants them special knowledge and objective truth about God.

 

[Banjankri]

Its illogical, egocentric, and ignorant to think that human belief determines reality.

Reality is also just a man made concept, but nowhere did I say that we determine anything. By saying, this is wrong, and this is right, you don't change much.

Nature commonly follows mathematical patterns that would exist without humanity

What the hell is nature if not another, meaningless concept?

And no free floating truth? Really? How about that there is a universe, or that the planets orbit the sun, or that light can be a wave and a particle?

Man made concepts... You are tripping on culture. In fact, we all are.

Your belief isn't going to make the planets suddenly stop orbiting the sun

They did in the past. In few years someone will "discover" that cosmos is just a hologram and "truth" will change again...

If you assume that someday we will get it all right, that there is an unchanging truth, then you are a believer, like we all are.

 

[JRMcC]

So its impossible to know some objective truth about the way things work except the objective truth that its impossible? I think its impossible to know whether its impossible as it would require you to know all objective truth.WHat you can say though is that probably no one has had a special hotline to God that grants them special knowledge and objective truth about God.

Right, I agree on both points there. I wouldn't say it's an objective truth that no one can no the one correct way things work. But in reality things aren't clear enough to indicate which view really is the right one. I dunno that's actually a confusing concept there.
And it all depends on what one deems logical. I think the idea of a Personal and intervening god is an illogical one. So personally I agree that no one has a personal hotline to god and the truth, but many are content in simply claiming that they do have that. Sadly those people can't really be reasoned with. :/

 

[serp777]

Reality is also just a man made concept, but nowhere did I say that we determine anything. By saying, this is wrong, and this is right, you don't change much.

What the hell is nature if not another, meaningless concept?

Man made concepts... You are tripping on culture. In fact, we all are.

They did in the past. In few years someone will "discover" that cosmos is just a hologram and "truth" will change again...

If you assume that someday we will get it all right, that there is an unchanging truth, then you are a believer, like we all are.

"nowhere did I say that we determine anything"
Actually you said that if a belief is beneficial then it is right. In that case belief is determining that something is right. I can go back and cite it if you want.

"By saying, this is wrong, and this is right, you don't change much."
Of course, but that doesn't conflict with my argument.

In science and math, people don't invent, they discovers things that are already there. And how is nature a meaningless concept? It has great meaning to me--the natural world consists of that which is living and forms an ecosystem. The configuration of a tree is fractal so that it can absorb light in the most efficient way for instance.

And reality isn't a man made concept. We interpret reality to some degree of truth and it becomes more accurate over time as science becomes better--without reality we could not exist to have this debate. Reality needed to be real so that we could come into existence. Things still occurred and truth still existed before humans came into existence in order for us to come into existence.

"Man made concepts... You are tripping on culture. In fact, we all are."
I fail to see how this is culture. If light were not a wave and a particle, then solar panels wouldn't work, semiconductors would fail, etc. The concrete application of these ideas to create extremely reliable devices shows that man only discovered a phenomena that already existed long before we existed--different electromagnetic properties would have also greatly affected the progression of the universe we see today as well. Looking back in telescopes we look into the far distant past to times when we didn't exist.

"They did in the past."
But this is an argument from history--if it happened in the past therefore it will happen with the future. I doubt the planets orbiting the sun will become overturned. Even if the universe is holographic, it still operates as if it were 3D meaning that technically the planets would still orbit.