What makes one religion "true", but another not?
"Belligerous"
Is that a portmanteau of "belligerent" & "religious"?
If so, I like it.
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Real believers and war
- Thread starter Remté
- Start date
"Belligerous"
Is that a portmanteau of "belligerent" & "religious"?
If so, I like it.
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
That is simple: if one survives with the tenets of one's religion such that no one can counter it through arguments and evidence presented, it is a true religion: if one can find faults and gaps in ones understanding and beliefs than it is not a true religion. You need to provide evidence that you survive with your religion and are not exposed as delusional. For example, does God exist: what is your evidence for it; what man proposes, God disposes: what is your evidence for that, etc.
Moral insight, mainly.
So do I. But it was an accidental typo. I meant "belligerent". Thanks for pointing that out.
No religion that I know of yields to counter-arguments.
So any religion which survives is "true"?
Remté
Active Member
Delusion is when you can't find "gaps" in your understanding
Don't they all have moral insight of one kind or another?
Or are the "true" religions the ones whose morals you like?
(I like Bokononism, but it isn't even remotely true.)
I'm sticking with "belligerous".
You're both brilliant & modest.
Augustus
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Much of this list is based off a reddit post a random person made years ago that is uncritically repeated by internet atheists despite being one of the most obviously wrong things in the world ever (AIDS in Africa is largely due to the Catholic Church! 80 Million died in the Muslim conquests of India! Leopold's colonisation of Congo was for religious reasons! etc. etc.)
It is an interesting case study in internet dynamics as it pops up in all kinds of places either verbatim or in modified forms as if it is actually based on credible scholarship and the careful consideration of evidence rather than simply being what one random chap posted on a discussion board.
The funny thing is that it tends to be posted by people advocating the importance of us being more rational and less credulous
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
The evidence assessed by a rational mind alone determines whether a religion yields to counter arguments: the adherents of a religion have to come to a forum such a this one and argue their cases. My religion of existentialism is the only true religion because if have irrefutable evidence of what I prescribe for truth accommodation leading to survival of the self and of the belief system. Yes any religion that survives is true. The question is how do you determine whether a religion has survived or even has the wherewithal to survive when it comes under heavy criticism.
All movements that claim to be religious?
No. Not by a long shot. Quite a few, even among the very influential ones, are actually insane to some degree, and some are significant obstacles to such insight.
That is an interesting question, and a permanent challenge. There is of course the tendency to confuse the two things.
Neither actually. But don't let me stop you...
A rational mind wouldn't believe unverifiable claims to be "true".
Yet this is the hallmark of major religions, ie, to treat myths as inerrant reality.
(I don't consider existentialism to be a religion.)
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
That is the situation when total knowledge has evaded one.
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
Does the rational mind have the capacity to verify the provisions of a religion: it needs practice of the religion to asess the religions merits and demerits.
Existentialism becomes a religion when it is God-prescribed.
It would be irrational for me to practice a religion I don't believe in,
with the objective of assessing its "truth" once I believe in it.
First, I cannot believe something which I find unbelievable.
Second, if I did start believing it, I'd lose all objectivity.
Do you have a copy of that prescription...one with his signature?
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
A scientist must experiment to determine the validity of any proposition made on what is real and what is unreal, so you cannot be a scientist. That is an essential element in determining objectivity.
With regards to existentialism: what I know comes from experience and studies of the nature of God.
Remté
Active Member
There is no such thing as total knowledge for man.
Remté
Active Member
A man naturally has a rational mind. Even a religious one.
But a proper scientist doesn't believe a theory to be "true" before (or even after) an experiment.
It wouldn't be objective to leap to belief.
Btw, I'm not a scientist....I'm only an engineer, & a recovering one at that.
OK then.
I find that people are naturally irrational.
Rational thought requires great effort & discipline.
Many never take that step.
It varies, even by denomination, within religions. But there certainly is a connection between the sacred and violence - there always has been.
Why else is animal sacrifice - and blood sacrifice of whatever form - among the earliest and most universal phenomena of worship? Priests in the ancient world partook of industrial scale slaying of animals and in more primitive cases, people.
The Aztec religion was effectively founded upon an endless tumult of dead bodies, both of colonized peoples and human sacrifice victims.
Ancient Roman religion, likewise, explicitly justified the conquests of the empire as a divine mission blessed by Jupiter to subjugate the known world.
It's only around the so-called axial era - roughly 600 BCE to 200 CE - that we see the emergence of avowedly pacifist religious teachings in a number of places, which decry traditional rites such as blood sacrifice, warfare and violent reprisal more generally.
The Jain scriptures, Hindu Upanishads, the Buddhist Tripitaka and the teachings of Jesus in Christianity are part of this trend that "reformed" ancient notions of religiosity in India and the near east, respectively (and through their spread, in other domains).
But that was a relatively recent phenomenon if one considers the grandsweep of religious history.
Why else is animal sacrifice - and blood sacrifice of whatever form - among the earliest and most universal phenomena of worship? Priests in the ancient world partook of industrial scale slaying of animals and in more primitive cases, people.
The Aztec religion was effectively founded upon an endless tumult of dead bodies, both of colonized peoples and human sacrifice victims.
Ancient Roman religion, likewise, explicitly justified the conquests of the empire as a divine mission blessed by Jupiter to subjugate the known world.
It's only around the so-called axial era - roughly 600 BCE to 200 CE - that we see the emergence of avowedly pacifist religious teachings in a number of places, which decry traditional rites such as blood sacrifice, warfare and violent reprisal more generally.
The Jain scriptures, Hindu Upanishads, the Buddhist Tripitaka and the teachings of Jesus in Christianity are part of this trend that "reformed" ancient notions of religiosity in India and the near east, respectively (and through their spread, in other domains).
But that was a relatively recent phenomenon if one considers the grandsweep of religious history.
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
If you wish to know something you go out and find out the truth of what you want to know: nothing evades the human mind. That is how mankind has progressed to this modern era.