Religious Belief as a Function of Geography

Sam Vimes

joe_chicken wrote:

I wouldn't argue with that, the argument I'm making is why does this lessen the validity of your belief?

because believing something because your parents do is no more valid than believing something because your neighbours do.

a scientific mind believes something because it can be demonstrated to be true or in the absence of definitive proof, because it is statistically likely.

religion cannot be demonstrated to be true, nor is it statistically likely and even if it were, 90% of people never put their religion to these tests, they simply accepted the religion of their peers (including parents).

and as for the people that change religion, there is no more evidence that the religion they change to is more "true" than their old one, it simply agrees more with their own beliefs, which are not necessarily god's beliefs. pretty arrogant to think that god thinks the same way they do and therefore their parent's religion is wrong

i think they forget that the point is to find the true one, not the one they like the most and since there is no evidence for any one religion over another, it is impossible to find the "true" one, therefore the only logical choice is to reject all religions


if there is a god, i think not praying to him is less likely to piss him off than praying to the wrong one your whole life

Dades

joe_chicken wrote:

It is ridiculous, but then so is belief. It needs a lot bigger leaps of faith than the one this thread is about.

I'm thinking the point of this thread is that most people's belief involves no leaping whatsoever - as they simply subscribe to the family faith. Real leaps of faith happen when someone changes religion.

Commander Vimes wrote:

therefore the only logical choice is atheism.

Uh oh...

Scofflaw

joe_chicken wrote:

Originally Posted by Alternate universe Scofflaw
That means that you are in the 'one true religion' and You are Chosen By God as one of his chosen People. First, that means punishment of unbelievers is thereby elevated to a Divine act of God's Justice. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it means that God's 'truth' Moves in Mysterious Ways

I just changed a few (ok, maybe a lot) of the words to show the theist side to that argument

Sure - "count thy blessings, my son, for verily thou art lucky enough to be born amongst the chosen rather than in heathen lands where they are all damned".

Indeed, if you consider it, the Christian implicitly adds the rider "and after Jesus came to Earth".

In more robust times, people accepted that this consigned the majority of humanity to Hell based on the accident of birth - but hey, they were already consigned to being inferior by virtue of not being white (or Aztec, or whatever). Not everyone, even then, was able to accept such an argument - hence the Circle of Happy Pagans in Hell - non-torturing etc.

It's just that such a position is logically incompatible with an all-loving deity. The Biblical God suffers rather from obviously originating as a tribal divinity.

cordially,
Scofflaw

joe_chicken

Commander Vimes wrote:

i think they forget that the point is to find the true one, not the one they like the most and since there is no evidence for any one religion over another, it is impossible to find the "true" one, therefore the only logical choice is to reject all religions

I'm quite confused by your argument.
1) You claim that people don't follow a "true" religion, just the one they "like".
2) Then you say there is no way to find out if their religion is true - so why is the religion they "like the most", not true?

Commander Vimes wrote:

if there is a god, i think not praying to him is less likely to piss him off than praying to the wrong one your whole life

But that's the point of belief, you are praying to the right god. There is no question.

Sam Vimes

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm quite confused by your argument.
1) You claim that people don't follow a "true" religion, just the one they "like".
2) Then you say there is no way to find out if their religion is true - so why is the religion they "like the most", not true?

the question isn't "why is their religion not true", its "why is it true". they believe x and y so they believe z religion. but how do they know god believed x and y?

do you not think its arrogant to say to yourself "i think this way so god must have thought this way, therefore the religion i was brought up with is wrong and this one is right."

and i'm saying the people who switch religion pick the one they like the most. most people just accept their parents one

joe_chicken wrote:

But that's the point of belief, you are praying to the right god. There is no question.

and that's what these debates always come back to. theists believe because they want to. there is no evidence that what they believe is true

and also, that can be a very dangerous belief. if there is no question in your mind as to whether your belief is right, you'll do whatever the leaders of your religion say

joe_chicken

Scofflaw wrote:

It's just that such a position is logically incompatible with an all-loving deity.

Ok, so at it's core, the original argument is "Why does God do bad things?"

Zillah

*politely shows vimes where the eject button is*

joe_chicken

Commander Vimes wrote:

the question isn't "why is their religion not true", its "why is it true". they believe x and y so they believe z religion. but how do they know god believed x and y?

do you not think its arrogant to say to yourself "i think this way so god must have thought this way, therefore the religion i was brought up with is wrong and this one is right."

and i'm saying the people who switch religion pick the one they like the most. most people just accept their parents one


and that's what these debates always come back to. theists believe because they want to. there is no evidence that what they believe is true

and also, that can be a very dangerous belief. if there is no question in your mind as to whether your belief is right, you'll do whatever the leaders of your religion say

I'm not arguing for theism here.
I agree with most of what you're saying.

I'm just saying that the original argument really doesn't make sense.
It starts off with an assumption that your religion is wrong and then goes ahead to prove that religion wrong.

Scofflaw

joe_chicken wrote:

Ok, so at it's core, the original argument is "Why does God do bad things?"

More or less - perhaps more generally 'is god X worth worshipping?' or 'is it worth believing in a god?'.

There's no fundamental reason why the only true religion shouldn't be that of some minor tribe, but the likelihood of your finding which one is very low - and the same applies to the universalist deities.

Say I line up a couple of thousand pills in front of you, and I say "now, you can choose one of these pills. Each one comes with a set of arbitrary restrictions. If you choose the wrong pill you will be tortured for eternity after death, maybe."

How do you make such a choice? You might hope that popularity would tell you - but no, it turns out that people tend to choose the same pill their parents did...so even the most popular pill has no statistically better chance of being the 'right' pill than the least popular.

Similarly, if most people follow the religion of their parents, or convert for non-religious reasons (social pressure, forced conversion etc), then every religion has the same chance of being true - the choice between religions is (statistically) entirely arbitrary.

What of the believer's argument that they were 'drawn' to the true religion by its 'compelling truth'? That 'Jesus spoke in their hearts and they knew the truth'? Well, again, the evidence suggests that this is statistically meaningless - which is to say, that statistically, people are not drawn to, say, Christianity, in such a way. There is, therefore, nothing objective about the 'draw' of Christianity.

All of this is perfectly consistent with the explanation that religion is a social phenomenon, and inconsistent with the position that one universalist religion has the sole truth. It is not inconsistent with the explanation that a single deity actually exists, as long as that deity is only interested in people of a particular descent or geographical origin.

So, given the choice between arbitrarily submitting to a set of restrictions, or not, and the chances of your being right being equal either way, what is the rational choice?

cordially,
Scofflaw

joe_chicken

Scofflaw wrote:

Say I line up a couple of thousand pills in front of you, and I say "now, you can choose one of these pills. Each one comes with a set of arbitrary restrictions. If you choose the wrong pill you will be tortured for eternity after death, maybe."

I like your image, I'd add a little though:

All of the pills have writing on them.

Maybe some of the pills have English on them saying that they are the best to take. You speak English.

All of the pills are different colours.

Some are green and some are red. You don't want to take the red ones, as you saw someone who took a red one and you thought he was an idiot.

The fact that the pills have a direct effect on your decision making would mean your decision is far from arbitrary.(or to use your statistical lingo; there's far too much correlation between the decision making process and the thing you are deciding, to call it truly random)

Just like choosing a religion is far from arbitrary.

Does the fact that it's green and have English on it mean it's the "right" one?
No.
Does it mean it is the "wrong" one.
No.

It doesn't really make sense as a question.

What is the right one, or is there even a right one?...

That would, maybe, be a more constructive question perhaps.

aidan24326

joe_chicken wrote:

Just like choosing a religion is far from arbitrary.

You're still missing the point Joe, that the religion you're most likelyto subscribe to will not have been a matter of personal choice at all, but merely a function of where and when you were born. Some turn away from their birth religion, the majority don't.

Dave!

Maybe ignorance is another thing that comes into play with regards choosing a religion. How good is the standard of religious education worldwide? I know from my own relatively recent school experience that education in Ireland is pretty poor (at least it was in the school I attended).
Firstly there was no exams on the subject (although I believe there is now), so nobody cared about it. If there was a curriculum, then the teachers paid no attention to it, because it quickly turned into a "philosophy class", with no education of other religions. It was a Catholic school as most schools are, with a chaplin, chapel, etc., and on top of that, the teachers had an agenda in that everything had Catholic undertones ("just TRY and pray to god... you dont have to make your confession, but you SHOULD...") right down to the religion teachers highjacking our graduation ceremony and making it a mass with religious songs played (by us, yay!).

If education is like that in other schools, then the culmination of 5/6 years of secondary school religious education, is familiarity with a few chapters from 'Sophies World' by Jostein Gaarder (incidentally the worst book ever written).

If you're not taught properly about other religions in school (which something tells me is the case in Iran, for example), then how are you to know the alternatives? Sure, some people will go to the bother of learning about the other world religions, but is it worth the effort? You know life had to come from somewhere, and the Catholic Church has been around for so long.......

I personally have a slightly more than average (slightly) amount of knowledge on Christianity, a little bit on Judaism, and a little bit more on Islam. That's about the extent of my religious knowledge, and that was after about 10 years studying religion in primary and secondary school and a few months in college (part of the history course) -- but I suppose more from reading up on it when posting on boards or debating/interested in something in particular.

Now take into account that I'm interested in religion, and post on the A&A forum most days (so I'm constantly thinking about it) -- and then compare that to someone without the amount of free time I have (:D) and without the resources at my disposal (internet, library, money...); someone without the necessity for knowing about different religions, because they don't have the agenda that I have. For my/atheism's arguments to be valid they have to apply to all theistic religion, so knowledge of various aspects of different religions is often encountered. But for a theist, all that has to make sense is 1 religion. If they're brought up as Christian, and that makes sense to them, then there's no necessity for learning about other religions -- you're already part of the correct one!!!

So in summary.....lol......I don't imagine Palestinians are sat down by their parents with a synopsis of the beliefs of all the major religions, and told "you can choose whichever you like, or none ".

I wonder if you asked the average person walking down the street, 'what are the main aspects of Islam?' or 'who do Jews pray to?' or 'who was Muhammed?' -- could they tell you? In my experience/opinion, no.

WindSock

You could always say that God/Allah/Brahma decided you would be born at that specific location at that specific time so you would in turn worship Him/Her/It. Remember, it's supposed to be predestined, isn't it?

Scofflaw

DaveMcG wrote:

Maybe ignorance is another thing that comes into play with regards choosing a religion. How good is the standard of religious education worldwide? I know from my own relatively recent school experience that education in Ireland is pretty poor (at least it was in the school I attended).

I wonder if you asked the average person walking down the street, 'what are the main aspects of Islam?' or 'who do Jews pray to?' or 'who was Muhammed?' -- could they tell you? In my experience/opinion, no.

In the US, to my surprise, we're apparently talking pretty low levels - see here .

The more interesting points:

"Fewer than half of us can identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible, and only one third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount."

"Approximately 75 percent of adults, according to polls cited by Prothero, mistakenly believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." More than 10 percent think that Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. Only half can name even one of the four Gospels, and -- a finding that will surprise many -- evangelical Christians are only slightly more knowledgeable than their non-evangelical counterparts."

Joan of Arc...

sniggering,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

a finding that will surprise many -- evangelical Christians are only slightly more knowledgeable than their non-evangelical counterparts."

Watched Jesus Camp a while ago, not suprised at all to be honest, its most shouting and speaking in tongues.

5uspect

I still have to watch Jesus Camp, it just seems too depressing to watch so many people wasting their lives. (But I suppose they're happy).

Anyway, I suppose this general ignorance in the States reflects the desire to have someone else think for you. People don't seem to want to question things themselves. The whole ID debate where people just default to the "I think both points of view should be taught" argument before even considering what ID actually means for science.

I see similar arguments here in Ireland where scientists are asked to explain "without getting to technical". We're supposed to be an educated people FFS, please do get technical it would be quite nice for a change.

Reminds me of a conversation I had in a pub once when I was working in a turbocharger factory. I was asked what a turbocharger does, so I replied that it essentially a pump driven by the exhaust gases from the engine to pump more air into the intake manifold to give you more power. Which was probably the simplest way I could think of saying it. I was met with a response along the lines of "Whoa, that too complex for me!"

People seem happy to know that very important sounding people work at science or religion and these people know all the answers so they don't have to think about it.

ballsofire23

I didn't raise my children to follow religion. I raised my children to ;
1. Do well in study.
2. Their partner must be good looking, descent personality etc.
3. Never care too much about anyone, be placcid and friendly.
4. Avoid religious finatics
5. Avoid guilt or compassion to excess, it's a sign of weakness to ones will and generousity.

I believe in life, we are 1 biological being. Insignificant, so fight for oneself in our short existence is the only way to get through our x amount of years alive.

Dave!

Joan of Arc, LOL