How can we be sure that all religions are wrong?

@reasoning logic,

Reason this logic: we can be sure that all religions are right, but we can't be sure that none are.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Reason this logic: we can be sure that all religions are right, but we can't be sure that none are.

You have me stumped. What is the logic behind this reasoning?

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@reasoning logic,

Since all religions differ in some ways, all cannot be right, and since we have no way of knowing whether or not there is a God and what he might want, we can't conclude all of them are wrong.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

since we have no way of knowing whether or not there is a God and what he might want, we can't conclude all of them are wrong.

Is this your way of saying you are agnostic or atheist?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Since all religions differ in some ways, all cannot be right, and since we have no way of knowing whether or not there is a God and what he might want, we can't conclude all of them are wrong.

Similar to Bertrand Russell's observation that, at most, only one of them could be right. He chose to believe none. I choose to believe one.

So, we are all pretty much the same

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@reasoning logic,

Quote:

Is this your way of saying you are agnostic or atheist?

It would be my own personal way of explaining why I am a theist...

Only a God could know how correct they all are, maybe, or how far away they are...which one is correct, or if none are...

Only a God could know how incorrect they all are, maybe, or how far away they are...which one may not be correct, or if any are correct...

Nothing beneath an incomprehensible being could know if they all are, unless one embraced them all, but then they would not be much of any faith other than one who could be seen simply as a theist...since the answers are incomprehensible...

Nothing beneath an incomprehensible being could know if they all are incorrect, unless they embraced them all, not rejected them all, so they could validate how they all are incorrect in an empirical way...but then they would not be much of any single rejection other than one who could be seen as an atheist...because they do not believe in God...and do not reject this belief they have...and they would have to believe them all, (or the centralism of them, God) to know they doubt them all...(God)...Since the answers of the centralisms of religions (God) is incomprehensible...

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@reasoning logic,

Quote:

Is this your way of saying you are agnostic or atheist?

How do you claim to know that you are an agnostic or atheist?

Is it because you embrace the centralism of them all (God) and reject them all and God?

Or is it because you know you reject the main centralism of them all (God) And reject this is true? Or do you know you do because you believe it?

1 Reply

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
since we have no way of knowing whether or not there is a God and what he might want, we can't conclude all of them are wrong.

Is this your way of saying you are agnostic or atheist?

Nope

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@neologist,

Me and Bertie

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@Finn dAbuzz,

We differ by only one

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At the risk of boring you all, I am drawing your attention that this thread as stated is about "religion" not "gods". My argument is that the religion as a social entity has shown itself to be pernicious. Since arguments about evidence about "existence of gods" are futile, social parameters are the only valid criteria for "right" or "wrong".

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@fresco,

Do you personally think that these social parameters can be obtained without the conceptual notion that there is an innate higher reasoning or purpose?

If you think it can be done...What would be a way to eradicate the fatal effects of beliefs, or blind beliefs? While also striving to show individuals what this higher reasoning actually is?

If you think that it can be done, but in a different way where this conceptual notion is understood without the fatal effects of this "social entity" please explain what you think should be done...if you are interested...

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
Lemme see if I can inject some humor into my reply.

I find you to be humors at times and I think you mean it that way but I also find you to be serious at times and was curious what your serious view of this might be.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89846239

I saw the movie based on this story...and it was mildly interesting...although not something that "held me rapt." Human interest stories are just that...interesting.

The fact that an individual can be both talented and defective at the same time holds that same kind of interest for me...although I suspect that situation is a LOT more common than is generally appreciated.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

At the risk of boring you all, I am drawing your attention that this thread as stated is about "religion" not "gods". My argument is that the religion as a social entity has shown itself to be pernicious. Since arguments about evidence about "existence of gods" are futile, social parameters are the only valid criteria for "right" or "wrong".

Seems like the word "wrong" is ambiguous. One possible connotation is that all religious beliefs could be incorrect in their claims, and the other is what you mention, that they are pernicious.

While agree with you that social parameters are far more likely to yield results than investigations into claims for the supernatural, it seems practically impossible to tally up the good that religions have done, the harm that they have done, and compare the totals. I think it would degenerate into a non-productive tit-for-tat. Would be glad to hear how you would go about it, though.

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@FBM,

Quote:

While agree with you that social parameters are far more likely to yield results than investigations into claims for the supernatural, it seems practically impossible to tally up the good that religions have done, the harm that they have done, and compare the totals. I think it would degenerate into a non-productive tit-for-tat.

I found this thread to be ridiculous precisely because it was a sweeping generalization, and because the use of "we" implies that everyone is attempting to assure themselves that "religions are wrong." To deal with the easiest and most obvious objection first, if everyone thought that religions are wrong, there would be no religions to discuss. People of religious conviction obviously believe that at least one religion is right.

On the subject of whether or not any one religion, never mind all religions, are "wrong," though, it is even more hilariously nonsensical. Not only would ascribing good or harm to a religion be a nearly impossible task, as FBM says here, it is an absurdity to think that any one religion could be definitively shown to be all good or all bad. This thread is typical of the fuzzy-headed thinking for which RL ought to be famous.

Bishop Burnet, a prime source for the Restoration, once said in a letter to an acquaintance that the king (King Charles II) had a strange notion of god's love. He quoted the king as saying: "The only things that God hates are that we be wicked and that we design mischief." One needn't be a theist to see the excellent simplicity and yet undeniable force of such a point of view. Religion be damned, and RL, too, while were at it.

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@Setanta,

So I take it you are unsympathetic to Weinberg and Harris's argument (paraphrased)

"With or without religion, good people will do good things, and bad people bad things. But it takes religion to make good people do bad things".

It seems to me that without getting into the semantics of "good and bad" or "right and wrong" there is no defense to the gist of that observation.

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@fresco,

All of my adult life, i have said that religion never made a bad man good, nor has the want of it made a good man bad (of course, without descending into a silly discussion of "bad" and "good"). No, i am not sympathetic to the argument. People have been willing to kill others for political and ideological reasons, too. Hell, they've been willing to kill people for speaking or looking different from themselves. The most convincing satire on this propensity is Swift's controversy of the big endians versus the little endians in Lilliput, as well as the political divisions in Lilliput based on high heels and low heels.

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@Setanta,

In that case, Setanta, what is/are the advantage(s) of being religious? The advantages I see of being irreligious is greater behavioral freedom, in that the irreligious can stay home and watch football on Sundays, and that sort of thing, without contravening any religious precepts, doctrine or commandments. Things like stealing, rape, murder, and so forth are still out, of course.

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@FBM,

Quote:

In that case, Setanta, what is/are the advantage(s) of being religious?

Community and the participation therein. Added to that, the comforting conviction that one is right, and more importantly, that anyone who does not agree with you is irredeemably wrong.

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@FBM,

Quote:

Seems like the word "wrong" is ambiguous. One possible connotation is that all religious beliefs could be incorrect in their claims, and the other is what you mention, that they are pernicious.

How about a thread that there is no religion that a rational ten years old would not rejected if he or she had not been feed the religion beliefs system with the mother milk?

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How can we be sure that all religions are wrong?

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