Many different religious opinions

[Fool]

Can they all be true?

only love is true and no one or religion has a monopoly on it.

 

[Nakosis]

According to who's criteria for truth? Yours, or theirs? Because if it's yours, your resulting opinion is no more credible than anyone else's. AND it's effectively judging apples and grapes by the model of an orange. Which is quite irrational.

Whether or not it works in actuality.
Apples, grapes and oranges can all be verified to exist by independent individuals.
Might be a little much to ask from religion but hey, go for it.

 

[DharmaCatLamp]

Can they all be true?

This is something that is a bit more complicated than it might appear on the surface.

There are beliefs that cannot be true at the same time. If You believe for instance that Christ is the only way to heaven you cannot also believe that you can worship Krishna and also go to heaven.
Some doctrines exclude each other by their very nature.

What I have noticed though is there is a string that connects just about all religions. There are even some non religious folks who have experienced the same thing. Mystics and mystical experiences seem to line up very well with each other in terms of what is seen and deriving a great deal of meaning from these experiences. I read a book called how to change your mind. It's about psychedelics and their history / usage in things like therapy. During one section of the book a woman who was an atheist described her experience as being bathed in god's love. She remained an atheist afterwards and the reason she used the term God is cause there just isn't another word for what she was experiencing.

These experiences whether derived from substances or rituals or meditation etc have certain commonalities. If you read Sufi mystics like Rumi and the experience of various Hindu saints they can be incredibly similar.

Now I don't think if you sat down Rumi and this atheist lady they would be saying the exact same thing. It seems to me that mystical experience still has to be filtered through our own perceptions and understanding. So even though we might be experiencing the same thing or something very similar it still has to go through us to be translated out to people. Often the language just doesn't do the experience justice.

If you read about the way people think you might notice that people tend to do things then justify what they have done afterwards. I think on some level a lot of religion is people just trying to make sense of their experience and their connection with the divine. You just do rituals, maybe that makes you feel closer to god, then you say that everyone has to do this ritual.

So as far as I can tell there is an underlying basis where all religion can be true on some level if it subscribes to mysticism and the mystical experience. If you are talking about the orthodox religions all being simultaneously true then no. However you can practice your religion pretty much however and if you are sincere and enduring you'll experience that truth.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, they can't. Many if not most religious opinions are logical contradictions with each other. And so are many if not most fictional stories. It's almost as if religion and imagination have a lot in common.

If you look at brain scans of people while they describe their own opinion, someone else's opinion, and their god's opinion, theirs and their god's opinions show identical patterns of activity, while their description of other people lights up a distinctly different set of neurons. It's almost as if god's voice and self-reflection have a lot in common.

If you look at the many different interpretations that people favor, which each person insists is the result of "proper interpretation" of whatever scripture they revere, it always seems to match their prior tastes and values, and their personality type. It's almost as if religion and subjective preference have a lot in common.

In the end, that depends on if objective reality is logical as it is to humans.
Further that it is not limited to religion. It also happens in some variants of naturalism, materialism and physicalism.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, but truth has never been a priority for the religious. Scientists collect data and think up experiments to get to the truth and (sometimes after decades) they find a consensus. Believers don't like their believes to be tested and pretend that the differing opinions don't exist.

Well, I like to be logical and religious, but I am already odd in other senses.

 

[PureX]

Interesting point. Atheists are equal opportunity critics of any claim that is non-factual, non-rational, and dogmatic. I have noticed some theists will be "hands off" on being critical of dubious religious claims, and i wonder if it is to avoid being critical of anyone who is a believer in some sort of supernatural being.

That's probably because most theists understand the difference between a reliance on faith and your reliance on "objective evidence". So they see no reason to argue with the tenets of someone else's faith choice, as you do. They recognize the value of faith even if someone else has envisioned the object of that faith somewhat differently.

Believers do have a broad range of differing concepts and degrees of certainty, but one thing all theists have in common is the belief that there is some supernatural functioning in the universe. The lack of evidence for any supernatural means that theists do have a motive to avoid challenging any other theist.

Not really. You're the only one that thinks the term "supernatural" refers to something absurd or unlikely. Most theists would see the "supernatural" more as the mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of existence. Not an absurd or unlikely idea at all.

What beliefs do atheists have that you are referring to here? Do you accept that non-belief isn't a belief?

The belief that if God/gods were to exist, they would be able to find and recognize the "objective evidence" for it. Even though they have no idea at all what to look for or how to determine that it's God related.

 

[Alien826]

Very few religious people do that. They may believe their religion is right, because they believe it's right for them. But they don't go around trying to prove everyone else's religious beliefs are wrong.

It seems to be the atheists that are constantly trying to do that.

"Very few" may be correct, but there is a very vocal section of believers that do indeed oppose other religious beliefs. Evangelicals are an obvious example.

Incidentally, atheists that self identify that way are a small minority too. Most people that are technically atheist (that is they lack belief in gods) simply don't think or talk about religion from one month to the next.

 

[PureX]

"Very few" may be correct, but there is a very vocal section of believers that do indeed oppose other religious beliefs. Evangelicals are an obvious example.

Incidentally, atheists that self identify that way are a small minority too. Most people that are technically atheist (that is they lack belief in gods) simply don't think or talk about religion from one month to the next.

Sounds like a good reason to disregard both groups.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But wouldn't that render religion no different from a psychotherapeutic modality?
Isn't religion a claim of ontological truth?

So variants are. Not mine. Mine is a psychotherapeutic modality dealing the existential of being a human in the Continental tradition of Western philosophy.

 

[PureX]

Whether or not it works in actuality.

Again, it "works" by who's criteria?

I pray for rain, and it rains. So I say the prayer "worked", while you say it couldn't have. See what I mean? You think you're in the "cat-bird" seat and get to decide what is truth and what isn't for everyone else. But you aren't. We all get to decide for ourselves what "works", and why.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Perhaps not, but they all can be untrue.
Which IMO is the more likely of the two.

Or it is unknown for the metaphysical and ontological and not just for religions.

 

[Alien826]

Sounds like a good reason to disregard both groups.

Now who's intolerant?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Whether or not it works in actuality.
Apples, grapes and oranges can all be verified to exist by independent individuals.
Might be a little much to ask from religion but hey, go for it.

My religion works in actuality, since it makes me cope better, since I became religious. Now to some people, that is a crutch, but how is that a problem, as long as I don't demand that others use a crutch.

 

[Alien826]

Back when I had a brief excursion into Christianity, I found that there were distinct divisions among those I met. Many were dismissive of beliefs that claimed ultimate truth, and saw us all on a journey together. Others clung firmly to the dogma and got quite emotional when it was challenged.

I doubt the typical atheist would have much to say to the first group. Once people start claiming "truth" that has to be accepted though, it tends to raise a skeptic's hackles.

And of course, some people on both sides just enjoy a good argument.

 

[Mock Turtle]

But what they are expressing is not their non-belief, because that's not really even possible. What they are expressing is their disdain for other people's beliefs. The very thing they are so often accusing and disparaging theists of doing, when in fact, very few theists actually do that.

Can you see the irony, here?

Perhaps the non-believers are still miffed as to the protected status of religions, and adherents, in so many countries. Apart from the obnoxious beliefs, that is. Hence why they will use whatever they can to make their views known and effect change.

 

[Nakosis]

My religion works in actuality, since it makes me cope better, since I became religious. Now to some people, that is a crutch, but how is that a problem, as long as I don't demand that others use a crutch.

Ok, it works for your needs but does it work as advertised?
Does it like put ads out they say something like, " We exist to help you cope with life"?

 

[PureX]

Perhaps the non-believers are still miffed as to the protected status of religions, and adherents, in so many countries. Apart from the obnoxious beliefs, that is. Hence why they will use whatever they can to make their views known and effect change.

But that's a political issue, not a theological issue. And I don't see how attaching religionists for their religious beliefs because you find them "irrational" addresses the politics of it, at all.

Should be be attacking light-skinned people because they live in a society that affords them special privileges over darker skinned people? Or should we be attacking the prejudice and the policies that enable it?

 

[Nakosis]

Again, it "works" by who's criteria?

I pray for rain, and it rains. So I say the prayer "worked", while you say it couldn't have. See what I mean? You think you're in the "cat-bird" seat and get to decide what is truth and what isn't for everyone else. But you aren't. We all get to decide for ourselves what "works", and why.

By it's own criteria. If you promise "A", one ought to be able to verify "A" was delivered.

 

[PureX]

Back when I had a brief excursion into Christianity, I found that there were distinct divisions among those I met. Many were dismissive of beliefs that claimed ultimate truth, and saw us all on a journey together. Others clung firmly to the dogma and got quite emotional when it was challenged.

I doubt the typical atheist would have much to say to the first group. Once people start claiming "truth" that has to be accepted though, it tends to raise a skeptic's hackles.

And of course, some people on both sides just enjoy a good argument.

Well said.

But I would add that the 'skeptics' perspective can also be quite dogmatically held, and even proselytized. And is, to varying degrees, by many, here. Mostly because they are only skeptical of other people's beliefs, not their own.

 

[PureX]

By it's own criteria. If you promise "A", one ought to be able to verify "A" was delivered.

Religions deliver on their promises. It's why so many people adhere to them. But not everyone seeks the same results, or identifies them by the same reasoning.

So religion "X" promises that it will rain. And it will. But not immediately. So one man believes the promise was delivered, while another man believes it was not. See what I mean when I ask, "by who's criteria"? Most of the humans on Earth find that their religions deliver on their promises. But you don't. And obviously you don't want to, or else you would be willing alter your criteria for a 'promise fulfilled' to see it as having been fulfilled. And you're not. But others will, and do.