Can we be sure?

[Spirit of Light]

Maybe the way many people (including me) often tend to say to others, Your belief is wrong (spiritually/ Religious) But how can we be sure we are the ones who believe correct?

May it be that we are all correct in different ways?
May it be that we, ourself does not grasp the full truth of the religion or spiritual teaching we follow?
Or for those who do not believe there is any God/s or other spiritual beings, Can you be sure that it is no sentient beings? But of some reason, you can not grasp it since you can not see them or feel them?
Or maybe we are all wrong and when we die as a human being it becomes nothing left?

 

[David1967]

But how can we be sure we are the ones who believe correct?

On this plane of existence? I must humbly admit that I can't.

 

[Nimos]

Maybe the way many people (including me) often tend to say to others, Your belief is wrong (spiritually/ Religious) But how can we be sure we are the ones who believe correct?

May it be that we are all correct in different ways?
May it be that we, ourself does not grasp the full truth of the religion or spiritual teaching we follow?
Or for those who do not believe there is any God/s or other spiritual beings, Can you be sure that it is no sentient beings? But of some reason, you can not grasp it since you can not see them or feel them?
Or maybe we are all wrong and when we die as a human being it becomes nothing left?

I don't believe in any Gods, can I be sure, im right? Certainly not... Don't know if you have seen the Netflix series "Love, death + robots"? if not its a series of small animations telling some short stories. One of them is called Ice age, which the image below is from, where a couple find a world inside their freezer and can see how it develop from early man into basically the space age. How do we know that we don't live in such universe, but we are simply unable to observe it.

The fact is that we don't and most likely we will never find out as we can't travel back in time. But what we can do is try to look at what is most likely, based on what we can observe about the Universe in which we live. Ways we can try to judge whether we ought to believe one thing over another is to add things up and see how many things one ought to believe in to take a certain position.

So we could look at the something like us living in a simulated universe compared to a multiverse. Both offer no explanation to how everything got started, where does the multiverse come from or who made the simulation. So in that regard we can leave both as unknown. Then we can look at how the fine tuning of the Universe could explain why it is a simulation, but on the other hand we have no clue if these "values" could be any different, only that if they were, that things would go wrong. Also adding in the amount of energy to run basically an infinite amount of Universe simulations is very unlikely and also we would expect to observe bugs and shortcuts all over the place, which we don't. Just looking at a human, no programmer with a brain would design a "character" with such complexity that we observe, it would be a complete waste of time.

Obviously you can examine a lot more things about these ideas, but eventually you can add up all the things and at least to me, the simulation idea doesn't seem to cut it. And to me the best position to hold so far, is simply that we don't know. Obviously religion have their views as well, but again adding a God on top of it all and say he did it, is not going to solve anything, its basically just to push the question further out and just accept that God is outside time and space, without being able to proof it. Its no different than to just assume that the multiverse is possible, "because... it is" But the biggest difference is, that those that suggest the multiverse idea, does not impose certain rules on people, either you agree with them or you don't, either way no harm done to anyone. And also those that proprose a multiverse have no issue admitting that its just an idea and nothing else.

 

[Spirit of Light]

On this plane of existence? I must humbly admit that I can't.

Maybe my English was a little bad Yes in this plane of existence, but my thought when writing the question was more like, For me as a Buddhist i do believe Buddha did give a righteous teaching, but I can not say that other teachings also can be correct, just in a different level of wisdom (enlightenment)

Your answer was good in both cases

 

[Spirit of Light]

I don't believe in any Gods, can I be sure, im right? Certainly not... Don't know if you have seen the Netflix series "Love, death + robots"? if not its a series of small animations telling some short stories. One of them is called Ice age, which the image below is from, where a couple find a world inside their freezer and can see how it develop from early man into basically the space age. How do we know that we don't live in such universe, but we are simply unable to observe it.

The fact is that we don't and most likely we will never find out as we can't travel back in time. But what we can do is try to look at what is most likely, based on what we can observe about the Universe in which we live. Ways we can try to judge whether we ought to believe one thing over another is to add things up and see how many things one ought to believe in to take a certain position.

So we could look at the something like us living in a simulated universe compared to a multiverse. Both offer no explanation to how everything got started, where does the multiverse come from or who made the simulation. So in that regard we can leave both as unknown. Then we can look at how the fine tuning of the Universe could explain why it is a simulation, but on the other hand we have no clue if these "values" could be any different, only that if they were, that things would go wrong. Also adding in the amount of energy to run basically an infinite amount of Universe simulations is very unlikely and also we would expect to observe bugs and shortcuts all over the place, which we don't. Just looking at a human, no programmer with a brain would design a "character" with such complexity that we observe, it would be a complete waste of time.

Obviously you can examine a lot more things about these ideas, but eventually you can add up all the things and at least to me, the simulation idea doesn't seem to cut it. And to me the best position to hold so far, is simply that we don't know. Obviously religion have their views as well, but again adding a God on top of it all and say he did it, is not going to solve anything, its basically just to push the question further out and just accept that God is outside time and space, without being able to proof it. Its no different than to just assume that the multiverse is possible, "because... it is" But the biggest difference is, that those that suggest the multiverse idea, does not impose certain rules on people, either you agree with them or you don't, either way no harm done to anyone. And also those that proprose a multiverse have no issue admitting that its just an idea and nothing else.

I really liked you answer

 

[David1967]

Buddha did give a righteous teaching

I agree, and I'm not even Buddhist.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Maybe the way many people (including me) often tend to say to others, Your belief is wrong (spiritually/ Religious) But how can we be sure we are the ones who believe correct?

May it be that we are all correct in different ways?
May it be that we, ourself does not grasp the full truth of the religion or spiritual teaching we follow?
Or for those who do not believe there is any God/s or other spiritual beings, Can you be sure that it is no sentient beings? But of some reason, you can not grasp it up since you can not see them or feel them?
Or maybe we are all wrong and when we die as a human being it becomes nothing left?

I honestly feel when we die there is nothing left. Those I notice seem spiritual are those who accept death however they see it. Individuals who don't judge. One thing that sticks out like a sour thumb is religious pride.

When one sees the light insomuch it ironically blinds them to the beauty in the mundane.

If we can get over that pride, we may accept each person journey is their own. One believes God and the other does not, so what. We don't need to make everyone believe the same so our pride will benefit in a new green earth. Vanity.

Since all ends in death, I disagree with all religions that have a form of continued or afterlife; it's wrong.

But why do we need a single truth. No "all are right". No one, is right. When we accept we are not the center of the universe, we'd be fine.

-

"Vanity, definitely my favorite sin." John Milton

"Behold I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves."
Alice Lomax

 

[Spirit of Light]

I honestly feel when we die there is nothing left. Those I notice seem spiritual are those who accept death however they see it. Individuals who don't judge. One thing that sticks out like a sour thumb is religious pride.

When one sees the light insomuch it ironically blinds them to the beauty in the mundane.

If we can get over that pride, we may accept each person journey is their own. One believes God and the other does not, so what. We don't need to make everyone believe the same so our pride will benefit in a new green earth. Vanity.

Since all ends in death, I disagree with all regions that have a form of continued or afterlife; it's wrong.

But why do we need a single truth. No "all are right". No one is right. When we accept we are not the center of the universe, we'd be fine.

"Vanity, definitely my favorite sin." John Milton

"Behold I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves."
Alice Lomax

I agree that spiritual people do need to be more humble toward all other people, no matter what religion or none religion they live by

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Maybe the way many people (including me) often tend to say to others, Your belief is wrong (spiritually/ Religious) But how can we be sure we are the ones who believe correct?

May it be that we are all correct in different ways?
May it be that we, ourself does not grasp the full truth of the religion or spiritual teaching we follow?
Or for those who do not believe there is any God/s or other spiritual beings, Can you be sure that it is no sentient beings? But of some reason, you can not grasp it since you can not see them or feel them?
Or maybe we are all wrong and when we die as a human being it becomes nothing left?

For any claim or belief, there are 4 possibilities:

1. It's well-justified and true.
2. It's well-justified, but actually false.
3. Its poorly justified and false.
4. It's poorly justified, but coincidentally true by dumb luck.

Justification of a belief deals only with our knowledge in the here-and-now. Nothing out beyond the perception of humanity can help you justify your claims to me right now.

So I can judge justification. What I may not be able to judge is actual truth: I may not be able to distinguish between case 1 and case 2, or between case 3 and case 4.

Distinguishing between cases 1 and 2 is definitely a problem. I try to minimize the risk that I've accepted something as true when it's false by looking for independent verification.

Distinguishing between cases 3 and 4 isn't that important to me. If your claims aren't justified, then I can't rely on them. So what if I can't completely exclude the possibility that the conclusion you pulled out of your butt might coincidentally turn out to be correct? It still doesn't mean I should pay any heed at all to what you said.

 

[MonkeyFire]

Faith and science must align on their truth and knowledge or its instant non-sequiter.

 

[Thief]

Or maybe we are all wrong and when we die as a human being it becomes nothing left?

I think that would be the most unlikely scenario

7billion+ copies of a learning device
and all of them fail to produce viable spirits?

and Man would be a mystery
no purpose
no cause to be here
extinction pending

and it all ends in dust?

I am certain of continuance

 

[Spirit of Light]

I think that would be the most unlikely scenario

7billion+ copies of a learning device
and all of them fail to produce viable spirits?

and Man would be a mystery
no purpose
no cause to be here
extinction pending

and it all ends in dust?

I am certain of continuance

I do believe we go on too when we die from this life, but in this thread, I found it important to be open to all possibilities

 

[Howard Is]

I agree that spiritual people do need to be more humble toward all other people,

If ‘spiritual people’ aren’t humble then...it’s fake.

 

[Spirit of Light]

If ‘spiritual people’ aren’t humble then...it’s fake.

Unfortunately, some spiritual people let their ego get in the way of being humble

 

[Howard Is]

Unfortunately, some spiritual people let their ego get in the way of being humble

Then they are not ‘spiritual’, they are fakes, and that is that.

 

[Howard Is]

‘An egotistical spiritual person’ is an oxymoron.

 

[sun rise]

May it be that we are all correct in different ways?

That's the Blind Men and the Elephant story I like so much.

May it be that we, ourself does not grasp the full truth of the religion or spiritual teaching we follow?

I take this as accurate. Can a young child grasp the full truth of what it means to be an adult? Of course not. I think we'd all be better off the more we can keep the child-like eagerness to learn alive.

 

[Howard Is]

That's the Blind Men and the Elephant story I like so much.

It is a great story, but it’s not about how they were each right.
It’s about how they were all wrong.

 

[Nimos]

I really liked you answer

I think its a good question you ask, because eventually people at some point in their life have to address these questions and I think most do it at some point, some probably several times. But I think everyone regardless of beliefs at some point will get frustrated to why no one can really answer their questions with certainty. I think its just part of what it means to be human. There need to be a purpose!! We need to be special!!.... Why?... Well.. if we ain't, what the hell are we then doing here I think our ability to think abstract, is really not geared to not also accepting not being important at the same time and it requires just as much to accept such view as to believe a God have a purpose for us. At least in my opinion.

But I would imagine that for religious people it must be fairly frustrating even after having accepted a belief in a God, that they still don't know what its purpose is with them. I mean why does a God need living beings to worship him? Why all the fuss with angles, hell etc. (If that is what one believes in) So you have all these scriptures telling stories, yet none of them explain the purpose, simply that its the way it is... for whatever reason. So at least to me, I think religious people that seek it because it give comfort for their existence and give them an "explanation" for things, is no better off than an atheist. To me, I just think that atheists for the most part is people that have accepted that we might very well be completely useless in the greater scheme of the Universe and that we are as important to it as whatever random grain of sand on a beach is. Therefore I think for most atheists we tend to approach life in a very humanistic way, because if we want to improve the world, there is no one else to turn to, other than your fellow humans. And either we make it work or we don't and pay the price for it.

 

[steveb1]

Maybe the way many people (including me) often tend to say to others, Your belief is wrong (spiritually/ Religious) But how can we be sure we are the ones who believe correct?

May it be that we are all correct in different ways?
May it be that we, ourself does not grasp the full truth of the religion or spiritual teaching we follow?
Or for those who do not believe there is any God/s or other spiritual beings, Can you be sure that it is no sentient beings? But of some reason, you can not grasp it since you can not see them or feel them?
Or maybe we are all wrong and when we die as a human being it becomes nothing left?

Many of us could be correct in different ways, on the premise that God has many faces or masks and that many roads lead to the divine.

Belief must be tested against one's own private religious experience. Belief alone is empty and dangerous. Spiritual experience should come first, belief - interpretation - should come second.