posted
I wasn't raised in any religion. Every Sunday I was plopped down in front of a TV showing NOVA, so I have the background of a cultural elitist, even if I'm not one.
Back when I was a pugnacious teen and confirmed atheistic poser, I would sometimes try to persuade people their beliefs were wrong.
Older now, I realize I don't have the answers myself, but the question I posed back then (though it was really an attempt at provocation) has become a genuine question to me now. I am sincerely curious.
How can someone believes in a particular religion that asserts as truths things which contradict other religions? How can someone be a Muslim or a Christian? Aren't beliefs most often determined most often by what a person was taught when they were young, or, less often, by what was around them at a certain place or time.
Most Mormons (just as an example) wouldn't be Mormons if they'd been born in India. None would be if they were born in ancient Greece.
If a person's religious beliefs are determined in large part by their environment, and thus sort of random, doesn't this make them suspect?
Back when I was that preening psuedo-smarty I'd go about it like this (in my defense, it really only happened 2 or 3 times, it wasn't a hobby):
1) Get person to admit they would be Muslim if they lived in the Middle East, and that they'd probably believe in that faith as strongly as they do their current one.
2) Attempt to establish the following arguement in increasily shrill and hectoring tones: If all other current religions are misguided (at least) and all ancient religions are outdated superstition, and you can admit you believe your religion in large part because of where and when you live, you must be pretty arrogant to think you were chosen to live in the precise time and place where the prevailing beliefs happened to be the correct ones and that there won't come a future where the current supernatural beliefs are seen as outdated superstitions.
I had a surprising amount of success getting people to concede part one, but understandably (due to the tone) less success with the second part.
But I am still curious how people reconcile this? To some degree isn't holding a view on religion (which is beyond the realm of first-hand observation)self-centered? I am right, and they are wrong because I am me?
I don't know, that's how it feels to me, as someone who's always been on the outside looking in.
Now I know some people do examine multiple religions and settle on one after some comparison of the differences. I remember OSC in a past post, which I couldn't find, said that LDS gave him more satisfactory answers than he could find anywhere else. But I think most apples lay near the tree.
Any thoughts on this?
Posts: 24 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Ancient religions aren't always outdated superstitions. I'm sure the ones made as an excuse for slavery or some such are, but the main modern relgions stem all the way from Egypt if you think about it. They've just adapted, a lot. The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine stll do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments, and in the LDS church, if I recall rightly (I'm not a member, halfway there:)) they have the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Commandments.
Likewise, the Jews didn't agree that Jesus was the son of god, and so continued their faith in Moses and are still waiting for their Messiah to this day. Christianity did accept it and people from all over the known world suddenly became christians. Religion doesn't really have much to do with location, except in the case of being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Same with being born eg. American, male, white, etc.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
"Religion doesn't really have much to do with location, except in the case of being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Same with being born eg. American, male, white, etc."
That's close to the point I was trying to make.
Is it right to be American, male, white? People who claim the last two are labeled sexist and racist.
But people feel it makes sense that their religion is right, though it is highly dependent on their place and time in history.
A current Christian would likely have been a Muslim had he been born in Saudi Arabia, a Hindu had he been born in India, believed in Zeus if he hailed from ancient Greece.
Yet his is right in his current situation. Those from the other places or times are wrong.
Isn't there something wrong with this?
Posts: 24 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:in the LDS church, if I recall rightly (I'm not a member, halfway there:)) they have the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Commandments
That's Kingdoms, not Commandments Those are our "three heavens", so to speak. Though Mormons do talk about "obeying Celestial law", etc, what that usually means is, "living in a way that is worthy of the Celestial Kingdom".
One flaw in the argument in the first post, though, is the fact that it depends on a person growing up in a place where not only would they have been raised to believe something else, but they also would have little to no access to the beliefs they espouse in real life. I mean, of course I wouldn't be a Mormon if I had never heard of Mormonism. Duh. I'd be something else, and I'd probably think it was the best thing out there.
However, had I been raised to believe something else in an environment where I had access to Mormonism, and were it presented fairly to me, I think I would choose Mormonism over pretty much everything else out there. Mormonism is more than the belief I was raised with — it's also something I believe in because it fits my conscience and I agree with its purposes. We're allies, so to speak. That kind of allegiance arises from more than the coincidence of birth, in my opinion. I mean, there are plenty of people who grow up in the Church and never develop it. So I believe there is more to my acceptance of this Church than just the way I was raised, and I think I would have accepted it, had it been presented to me fairly as an adult, rather than as a child.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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"Duh. I'd be something else, and I'd probably think it was the best thing out there."
But you, in all likelihood have not been "presented fairly" with an array of other religions, which had you been "allied" with for your entire life, might well feel like they fit your conscience, since they helped mold it, and present agreeable purposes, since they helped define what you feel is agreeable.
At the heart of it, to me it seems that there is an inherent and unavoidable egotism in saying you have the correct religion. In the end, it is right because you believe it, not the other way around.
You are right. People of the past were wrong. People in the distance are wrong. People of the future, if the trend of religion in general changing over time does not arrest itself now that the correct form has finally arrived, will be wrong.
And my apologies here; I am back-sliding into those old hectoring/shrill ways. The subject does confuse me, but I swear I am not a troll at heart, and I hereby desist.
posted
joey, I think the problem is you don't seem to understand anything about Mormonism. I'm not Mormon anymore, but I was raised in the religion and have a healthy respect for it.
You seem to be making a false assumption, which is that members of the LDS church believe they have the one true religion, and all other religions are false.
Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches (except when it comes to what they refer to as "The Apostasy"); I don't recall the exact quotes, but basically Mormons believe that most religions contain some measure of the truth, and that there is always value in a community coming together to worship God and do good works.
They also believe, in a way that I don't want to get into a big thing about, but maybe someone else will pick up, that good folks will have the opportunity to convert to Mormonism *after death*, in certain circumstances -- so the Mormon message is not a 'fire and brimstone' message, or really a 'winner takes all' message.
They're not one of those churches saying that the non-Mormon population of the earth is doomed.
Which is actually one of the things that its enemies (specifically certain "Christian" churches) use as an example of why it must be false.
At least, that is my understanding .....
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Further apologies if it seemed as if I were singling out Mormonism.
The arguement I tried to make would apply to any religion that holds itself as the one great truth. I'm no theologian, but I think that constitutes about all of them.
OSC mentioned something about LDS explaining certain difficulties better than other religions. I wonder if the stuff you mention about being saved after death is part of that.
Honestly, I have no idea if there is a God or not. Life after death seems absurd enough to be dismissed out of hand, but then again so does the little bit of quantum mechanics I've read about and not understood at all.
All I know is I don't know the answers and I suspect those who think they do are wrong.
Posts: 24 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
It seems to me that this presents a sort of conundrum:
Either I believe that my religion is correct, or that it is not.
If I believe it is NOT the only correct religion and that other religions are also correct, I am presented with a problem when these religions contradict each other. How can I believe that two contradictory systems or statements are correct? It's like believing that the world is both round and flat; logically it doesn't work.
If I believe my religion IS correct, the rules of logic dictate that I must believe that any other religions or belief systems which contradict it or are not compatible with it are not correct.
So it's not really a case of "it's right because I believe it, and everybody else is wrong because their opinions are different than mine!" so much as a case of "I believe it because, based on everything I have seen and learned and discovered about the world, it's right."
Thanks for starting such an insightful discussion! And everyone's been very calm and rational, not a bit trollish. Posts: 32 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:The arguement I tried to make would apply to any religion that holds itself as the one great truth. I'm no theologian, but I think that constitutes about all of them.
Well, you're wrong. And if your intention is to respond to good-faith responses to your question with blanket statements about "all religions", then I think your questions about religion are spurious and therefore unworthy of further discussion.
Just my two cents.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:If I believe it is NOT the only correct religion and that other religions are also correct, I am presented with a problem when these religions contradict each other.
I think the LDS perspective is a little closer to 'All religions may contain some very good aspects and some very profound truths, and therefore they are worthwhile insofar as they *don't* contradict with Mormonism. Where they *do* contradict Mormonism, that's where they have gone awry.'
So it's not a conundrum, in that respect.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: However, had I been raised to believe something else in an environment where I had access to Mormonism, and were it presented fairly to me, I think I would choose Mormonism over pretty much everything else out there.
You need to explain, then, why not all the millions of people missionarised (is that a word?) every year by Mormons do, in fact, change their beliefs.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Because it doesn't fit with their moral judgement, would be my guess if I'd known enough about that specific Church to make such a statement. But the fact is, KoM, that had one been raised in a different culture, ones moral judgement would not be the same. And like all those many people that are not persuaded to Mormonism, one would no likelier know for a fact that what one said would happen indeed would. So you make a great point, IMO.
Alternatively, you could look at it as all those people either not giving the missionaries a fair go to try to explain, the missionaries not actually presenting it fairly to the person, or else the person not feeling themself, or being, readily able to convert to Mormonism at the time (like my actual situation at the moment).
(That was my response to KoM's post as if it had been asked of me, because I felt it was important to say and hopeful of a reply, and was in no way speaking on behalf of Dog. And sorry for the overuse of the word "one".)
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Come now. All those bright young missionaries, out on the formative experience of their lives, determined to do their utmost to bring the truth to others - you would theorise that they do not present the information fairly?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Not that they would present it unfairly, but since they are so young, they may not present it in the best way for that person to receive or understand it.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote: Ancient religions aren't always outdated superstitions. I'm sure the ones made as an excuse for slavery or some such are, but the main modern relgions stem all the way from Egypt if you think about it. They've just adapted, a lot. The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine stll do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments, and in the LDS church, if I recall rightly (I'm not a member, halfway there:)) they have the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Commandments.
I hate it when people think an eye for an eye means that you go out and steal someones ipod because they stole yours
No its when someone steals your ipod they pay the price of the ipod or give the ipod back to the owner
Sorry about that but to answer the question Yes that does mean something is wrong with religion but there is nothing better out there to help us comrehend everything in the universe
But that's the idea of faith it is put into you at a young age and you believe what it says so you think what they tell you
So envionment is the key but the people who teach it to you litteraly brainwash you into believing its true
Oh no now someone going to come for me AHHHHHHHHHPosts: 250 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Well, it's sort of a chicken-and-egg conundrum in Geoff's case. Certainly he's been shaped by his faith, and the person he is now is more compatible with Mormonism than with any other faith; if the person he is now were offered Mormonism, of course he'd jump at it.
A hypothetical Geoff who was not raised as a Mormon, or with the values he currently possesses, might not feel the same way. But then he wouldn't be Geoff as we know him. You may as well ask what kind of person I would be today if I'd grown up thin.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
But I think in this case it is reasonable to say that the person is prior to the belief - the chicken came first, if you like. After all, if Puppy had been adopted at three months, there would still exist a human looking like him, but presumably believing something entirely different. But it's not reasonable to say that his beliefs would still exist, if he didn't. (Similar ones held by other people, certainly, but not his particular ones.)
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:You need to explain, then, why not all the millions of people missionarised (is that a word?) every year by Mormons do, in fact, change their beliefs.
I thought the question was about what I believed, and not about why people believe different things from one another.
I also don't believe that my religion, as it is understood today, encompasses all truth. Mormons believe that God established our Church with a certain purpose in a certain time in history, but unlike many other religions, we do not believe that once God made us, He was finished We think there are a lot of things we don't know yet, and won't discover through our faith right this minute, that require us to learn from other sources, or seek further enlightenment in the future.
So for us, it's not an all-or-nothing "We've got the truth and no one else does! Nyah nyah nyah!" with all its improbability. Rather, while we believe we know and possess a lot of important things that other people don't, we think that all people are on the same journey together, and that members of other religions are not to be rejected or despised, but are to be admired and respected for the truths they have discovered.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Certainly he's been shaped by his faith, and the person he is now is more compatible with Mormonism than with any other faith; if the person he is now were offered Mormonism, of course he'd jump at it.
Some people look at the way they have been shaped by their faith, shudder, and reject it. I don't. While there are aspects of being a Mormon that annoy me at times (R-rated movie debates — ugh!), the core philosophy, and the root of my faith, don't.
I don't feel like I (or any Mormon) knows everything yet, so I'm constantly searching and reevaluating my take on things. It's not a matter of settling into a religion I like and turning the brain off. I'm always searching for ways to revise my understanding of the world. I've found solutions through science, through reading stories, through pondering my own faith, and even through studying others' faiths. But I've never found anything that answered a fundamental question better than my understanding of Mormonism does.
Of course, that's just my understanding of Mormonism There are Mormons around me who look at the same doctrines through such a different pair of eyes that it takes me aback, and I'm like, "you believe WHAT? and for WHAT REASON?" That's another reason why I believe that my faith is my own. I have it for my own reasons, and not just because I was raised in a certain place.
Certainly among any group of religious people, there are some who would choose a different faith if given a completely open-ended choice, and some who would stay right where they are. Why must skeptics instantly doubt that I'd be one of the latter group?
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, if a "completely open-ended choice" means one devoid of any personal experience with any religion, then I think I wouldn't have enough information to choose any faith. My faith depends so heavily on subjective personal experience that I can't imagine trying to choose one without it.
posted
While we're on the subject of Mormonism, can someone please explain the Law of Consecration to me? I know it's a matter of giving all your earnings to the church, but is that after you earn them (like at the end of the year) or the church simply gives you the money they think you can use and otherwise put to good use?
Any other information on it, besides the fundamentals, would be greatly appreciated too.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:members of other religions are not to be rejected or despised, but are to be admired and respected for the truths they have discovered.
Out of interest, are there any religions out there that you believe to have discovered truths which the Mormon church has not yet discovered? If so, which truths?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
The Law of Consecration hasn't been practiced in a literal sort of way for over a hundred and fifty years. What it means to Mormons today is basically that we are willing to give up our material possessions, our time, and our service for the higher goal of "building Zion" (ie, creating a perfect Christian society). It is the reason why Mormons are able to function without a paid clergy, why they contribute so much of their income to the Church, etc ... ideally, everyone feels like their highest responsibility is to Zion, and not to their own material advancement.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Out of interest, are there any religions out there that you believe to have discovered truths which the Mormon church has not yet discovered? If so, which truths?
Honestly, it's hard to cherry-pick individual truths out of a religion. But any case in which one religion changes a person's behavior in a positive way and makes them a better person, that is a unique instance where that religion has succeeded at what I consider to be a religion's purpose. I would study any such instance for an insight into what that religion is getting right.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:You need to explain, then, why not all the millions of people missionarised (is that a word?) every year by Mormons do, in fact, change their beliefs.
I thought the question was about what I believed, and not about why people believe different things from one another.
Indeed that is true; but I think the question is still relevant. My reasoning runs thusly : The question was, 'how can anyone believe their religion is truth, knowing that they would almost certainly believe something different had they been born elsewhere'? Real truth is not dependent on accidents of geography!
You then offered the belief that, had you been born elsewhere and later Mormonism had been pointed out to you, you would indeed believe it as true. But you cannot offer any data to support such a conclusion; and we cannot, unfortunately, go sideways in time to see what might have happened. So unless we simply accepting your assertion about what a (perhaps considerably different) person of the same name would do in a similar situation, I think it is entirely relevant to look at what different people actually do in that situation. And the answer is that, oddly enough, they are not converting to LDS en masse. It seems to me, then, that your assertion is rather thinly supported, and indeed contradicted by such evidence as is available.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I would study any such instance for an insight into what that religion is getting right.
But -- and this is a serious question -- have you? Because if your criteria for "getting something right" is "changing someone's behavior for the better," then functional religious commonality winds up having very little to do with religious dogma. And that way ultimately lies agnosticism, barring some kind of personal experience with the hypothetical divine.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:However, had I been raised to believe something else in an environment where I had access to Mormonism, and were it presented fairly to me, I think I would choose Mormonism over pretty much everything else out there.
...that's what I did I was raised Protestant, went agnostic for ten years, then was visited by the missionaries and ended up converting seven months later.
quote:Out of interest, are there any religions out there that you believe to have discovered truths which the Mormon church has not yet discovered?
I know this is directed at Puppy, but can I answer too? For starters, there are churches that have figured out how to worship God through music WAY better than we have. For example, the Eastern Orthodox. (I had my first spiritual experience during an Orthodox service as a twenty-three-year-old exchange student in Russia. Their music is absolutely wonderful.)
I would also like to see greater numbers of LDS studying the original language of the Old Testament and New Testament, as some faiths do, because I think that this better enables a person to receive inspiration while reading it as to what it means.
Posts: 1512 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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quote: The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine stll do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments
One: there is no such animal as "the Law of Moses"; there is the Law of God, as taught to the Jewish people by Moshe (Moses). But it is not his -- he did not invent it or interpret it, merely transmitted it.
Two: "an eye for an eye" was NEVER literal, and has always meant having to repay the monetary value of the eye.
Three: I'm sorry, who are you saying the Ten Commandments originated with?
quote: Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches
This is not actually unique. Many other religions and branches thereof also acknowledge that they are not the only ones with Truth.
quote: The arguement I tried to make would apply to any religion that holds itself as the one great truth. I'm no theologian, but I think that constitutes about all of them.
Actually, while most religions claim to have more truth than any other, few (if any) claim that no other religion(s) possess any truth.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:You then offered the belief that, had you been born elsewhere and later Mormonism had been pointed out to you, you would indeed believe it as true. But you cannot offer any data to support such a conclusion; and we cannot, unfortunately, go sideways in time to see what might have happened. So unless we simply accepting your assertion about what a (perhaps considerably different) person of the same name would do in a similar situation, I think it is entirely relevant to look at what different people actually do in that situation. And the answer is that, oddly enough, they are not converting to LDS en masse. It seems to me, then, that your assertion is rather thinly supported, and indeed contradicted by such evidence as is available.
Actually, compared to other religions, Mormonism has a rather high rate of people joining upon encountering the religion later in life. I believe that a rather sizeable percentage of the current LDS membership were not born into LDS families.
If a member of any religion has good reason to assert, using the standard of verification you propose, that they would join their own religion as an adult had they not been born there, a Mormon does.
Either way, though, the issue of whether or not I would do so is extremely difficult to prove one way or another, considering that there is no such thing as another person who is exactly like me, sans religion. Statistics about how many people are joining which faith are pretty irrelevant when you take into account that every one of those people is very different from me (and from one another), and I could just as easily fall into a narrow, quirky range of "person types" who would join certain unpopular religions as a broad one that would join certain very-popular religions. Which of those people am I "most like", and which religion did they join? How in the world could you ever tell?
So it's not like I'm asserting some crazy unprovable thing, and you're the heart of rationality. We're both talking about nonexistent alternate universes. The only difference is, I understand my own personality and spiritual experience much better than you do.
And if you think about it the way I do — realizing that no one has ALL truth, but that I think I'm in the place where God wants me to be, learning the things God wants me to learn, and that I've found quite a bit of truth and real purpose here — how in the world do you argue with that? By saying "No, I think God wants you somewhere else," or "God's not real, NYAH!" or what?
I'll never understand why some people are so threatened by this sort of thing. I could care less that you're an atheist. Why is it so important to you that I'm a Mormon?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches (except when it comes to what they refer to as "The Apostasy");
That's a pretty big one, don't you think?
Also, to the extent one believes that 1.) objective truth exists and 2.) any tenet X that purports to be an objective truth, then one is making a claim about the falseness of all other tenets that A.) purport to be an objective truth and B.) contradict X.
I believe, from what I've seen here, that at least one tenet of LDS doctrine meets both 1 and 2. And I know that other religions hold tenets that meet both A and B. So Mormonism does make claims about the falseness of other churches' tenets. So if "falseness of other churches" refers to those church's teachings, then Mormonism does make claims of their falseness.
quote: I don't recall the exact quotes, but basically Mormons believe that most religions contain some measure of the truth, and that there is always value in a community coming together to worship God and do good works.
This is what made me think "falseness of other churches" refers to falseness of those church's teachings.
Also, rivka is absolutely right when she says "Actually, while most religions claim to have more truth than any other, few (if any) claim that no other religion(s) possess any truth." This statement is true at least with the religions I know about.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by TL: joey, I think the problem is you don't seem to understand anything about Mormonism. I'm not Mormon anymore, but I was raised in the religion and have a healthy respect for it.
You seem to be making a false assumption, which is that members of the LDS church believe they have the one true religion, and all other religions are false.
Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches
I am also not religious, but attended Catholic school, in my experience, this is a view held by many people of many faiths and is NOT uniquely Mormon. I have heard this kind of view espoused by a member of every religious group I can think of: IMO it is the most prevailent worldview among the non-vocal majority of humans. IMO unless a population or person is actively pressured to disdain and attack the beliefs of others, this kind of general acceptance will emerge. It is probably a function of the same idea that started this thread: That we all are aware that our religious beliefs or ideas or opinions are a large part of who we are, and who and where we are affects what we believe. Humans are inherently good at recognizing cause and effect (mostly) so I think we realize that the same process goes on in the minds of all people everywhere.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Which is why, inexorably, logical thought and reasonable, friendly rationality lead to agnosticism.
Because if you start looking at how similar the effects of all the world's various religions are, compared to how widely varied their dogmas are, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that dogma is far less important to human happiness than culture. (Consider, for example, the fact that Yozhik would take the music from another religion, but none of their actual beliefs.) And that's a slippery slope which, I've observed, is generally only checked by being born into a religion or feeling, for whatever reason, like you've been touched by God (and, ideally, both). If you haven't had the latter experience, you wind up a non-believer. Or a Unitarian Universalist, which is basically the same thing.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm also saying that if you're born into a religion and spend time thinking about the commonality of all religions and never have a religious experience, you'll probably wind up areligious.
The "non-obvious" point is this: the mere fact that practically all religions are beneficial in roughly the same ways and for roughly the same reasons, regardless of the dogmas and beliefs of those religions, suggests that their dogmas and beliefs are irrelevant if you also believe that concrete Earthly benefit can be used to measure a religion's utility.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Thing is, Joey (starter of the thread), if you'd been raised in India or Egypt, in a devout family, you wouldn't be saying the things you said in your post -- right? So doesn't that make your post invalid?
Well, no; and applying the same thing to my beliefs doesn't make me wrong, either. But, truth to tell, if I'd been raised in India I don't think I'd be Hindu. People _do_ convert, after all.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:...if you also believe that concrete Earthly benefit can be used to measure a religion's utility.
Ah, okay. I'm not sure what "concrete Earthly benefit" entails, for you.
You're painting religion--and earthly benefits--with a pretty big brush. Some religions work well as "opiates of the people;" others go against the current regime. Some appeal strongly to the philosophical sense with a detailed theology, while others embrace mysticism, or at least stress a sort of Kierkegaardian arationality.
You dismiss Yozhik's example of music too quickly, I think. Music, architecture, philosophy, literature: all can be directly affected by religion in different--but putatively equally positive--ways. The Hagia Sophia, the Divine Comedy, and the moai are all results of a religion that differs from mine (and each other) and would not be possible except in the specific milieu of their creators' religious experience and beliefs.
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Some religions work well as "opiates of the people;" others go against the current regime. Some appeal strongly to the philosophical sense with a detailed theology, while others embrace mysticism, or at least stress a sort of Kierkegaardian arationality.
And what's especially interesting is that many of the religions you're thinking about have developed sects or cults with slightly different foci that enable them to appeal to different demographics -- so that Buddhists who want to feel ruthlessly rational and traditional have a place to go, and Christians who want to be mushy and mystical and pre-millennial have their own options. The mere fact that this happens -- that religions prosper as cultural memes, rather than the other way around -- suggests an absence of actual divine intervention.
quote:The Hagia Sophia, the Divine Comedy, and the moai are all results of a religion that differs from mine (and each other) and would not be possible except in the specific milieu of their creators' religious experience and beliefs.
And yet all three exist. What, for example, does the existence of The Divine Comedy have to say about the validity of Mormonism? Its religion made it possible -- but what does that mean, exactly? The specific cultural effect of that religion included in it some valuable literature -- but what comment does that make on the actual supernatural merit of the faith in question, or the power of that hypothetical God? If Yozhik managed to steal the Eastern Orthodox church's music, would she find herself believing their dogma -- or does their music exist quite comfortably as an artifact of their culture? By the same token, are Mormons who rewrite classical Christmas carols (like "saints and angels") engaging in religious war, or simply trying to assimilate valuable elements of the dominant culture?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:The mere fact that this happens -- that religions prosper as cultural memes, rather than the other way around -- suggests an absence of actual divine intervention.
Perhaps...if you are assuming that people are part of a religion just because it suits their own personal predilictions. I'm not.
quote:but what comment does that make on the actual supernatural merit of the faith in question, or the power of that hypothetical God?
None. I wasn't making any such argument. I was indicating why I disagreed with your assertion that religions have no true individually separate earthly benefits unless you are generalizing to broad abstractions such as, "They make art" or "They promote peace."
quote:By the same token, are Mormons who rewrite classical Christmas carols (like "saints and angels") engaging in religious war, or simply trying to assimilate valuable elements of the dominant culture?
Ask that question again without the false dichotomy and you might get a better answer.
I'm curious about the rhetoric of violence you're using--"steal," "religious war," "assimilate." Are you suggesting that it's not possible to appreciate someone else's beliefs (or "dogmas") and to understand and enjoy some of the products of them without holding those same formative dogmas? That a "Mormon" can't enjoy Orthodox music without either forsaking her own beliefs or adjusting the Orthodox ones?
In any event, most of this is off the very specific topic based on the comment of yours I was addressing.
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Perhaps...if you are assuming that people are part of a religion just because it suits their own personal predilictions.
Nope. I'm assuming, as I said earlier, that you can judge the merit of a religion by its Earthly effects. If you argue that every religion on Earth could be identical but only one gives people chocolate after they die, and therefore that one's dogma actually matters, then I can't address that claim.
quote:Are you suggesting that it's not possible to appreciate someone else's beliefs (or "dogmas") and to understand and enjoy some of the products of them without holding those same formative dogmas?
Nope. I'm suggesting that the fact that it IS possible to appreciate those things means that the underlying dogmas are themselves irrelevant -- that religions are memes, not divine guides.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:If a person's religious beliefs are determined in large part by their environment, and thus sort of random, doesn't this make them suspect?
I think this is a great question. I think TomDavidson has made some interesting points about commonalities. However, there are enough differences between religions that sometimes the commonalities don't seem so common. And they lead adherents into totally different ways of life.
I think the question at the heart of this question is how can you know anything religious is true? Let me suggest it's the same way you know anything is true.
1. Authority. 2. Personal Experience (including what you'd consider revelation). 3. Observation, anecdotal and empirical. 4. Reason. 5. Feeling.
We use all of these all the time. If you look at all of those, they all require some amount of faith. Faith in authority is clear. But there's faith that I'm explaining my personal experience correctly, that my explanations of the observations are correct, that my reason has all the facts beforehand, that my feelings aren't being swayed. So to single out religion as a questionable idea is to miss the point--faith underlies our very existence.
I think your issue should make all of us more tentative in our statements in any field. But it shouldn't lead us to say we can't or don't know anything. Of course, there are things of little import to use, little practical use. For those things, who cares? But in the big things perhaps it's better to say there are many things we believe and have varying degrees of confidence in them. And that we're open to getting more knowledge and having to revise our understanding. In all walks of life.
I don't think we need to assume metaphysical knowledge must come in a complete package. I don't know of any religion that says it must. Nor do I think we should assume that a religion must be universal if it's true or that any truth should be known by all.
So why can't I say "I believe this to be true." Or "this works." Or "this is true, it works." Why can't I say I have supreme confidence in a man who says he's seen angels and received messages from them? And if my actions, based on my faith in his claims, bring the desired results, why can't I believe that as much as I believe a doctor saying that medicine x will make me well?
My understanding might change, but my understanding might change about a great many non-religious things that I say are true.
Of course, we're not always humble and recognize how big a role faith plays. We say it's true and forget the fact that it's based on faith. And when we do, I think we're in the wrong. So I agree that we often overstate what we do and don't know. But that's no reason to say we CAN'T know anything. Otherwise, there would be no science, history, etc. We just have to recognize the limits of our knowledge.
Of course, if we actually do see God or have some revelation and have no reason to believe it was something chemically or non-divenly produced, then that's something we'd be exteremely confident in. Even to the point that we might jump from faith to knowledge as in, there's nothing else that would allow me any more confidence than I now have--I know this. And I'd have no problem with that either.
Posts: 53 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:I'm suggesting that the fact that it IS possible to appreciate those things means that the underlying dogmas are themselves irrelevant -- that religions are memes, not divine guides.
So the only "proof" you would accept that religions are divine guides is if people exhibited, for example, an inability to appreciate those things? That religions can only be true if they cause their followers to be morally, socially, philosophically mutually incomprehensible to each other?
Can you give me an example of what sort of evidence you would need to reverse your position?
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:If you argue that every religion on Earth could be identical but only one gives people chocolate after they die, and therefore that one's dogma actually matters, then I can't address that claim.
Gah! Bad phantom editor, Tom!
Fair enough. I'll leave further argumentation to the rest of you and enjoy my chocolate in silence.
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Thing is, Joey (starter of the thread), if you'd been raised in India or Egypt, in a devout family, you wouldn't be saying the things you said in your post -- right? So doesn't that make your post invalid?
I don't see why an Indian or Egyptian shouldn't make that post, actually - it's a perfectly reasonable question, right? Reasoning is much the same, all the world over. But religion is not.
quote:So it's not like I'm asserting some crazy unprovable thing, and you're the heart of rationality. We're both talking about nonexistent alternate universes. The only difference is, I understand my own personality and spiritual experience much better than you do.
I do not think this is completely obvious, actually. An outside perspective is often valuable. A stereo view, even more so. But I would in any case suggest that, while you know yourself better than I know you, you do not know the hypothetical you who was kidnapped at three months.
quote:And if you think about it the way I do — realizing that no one has ALL truth, but that I think I'm in the place where God wants me to be, learning the things God wants me to learn, and that I've found quite a bit of truth and real purpose here — how in the world do you argue with that? By saying "No, I think God wants you somewhere else," or "God's not real, NYAH!" or what?
Well, clearly, if I convinced you that your god is indeed false, then you would have to give up that belief, yes? But you do raise an interesting question : Suppose you did not believe anymore. How would your life change, apart from not going to church anymore?
quote:I'll never understand why some people are so threatened by this sort of thing. I could care less that you're an atheist. Why is it so important to you that I'm a Mormon?
Because for some obscure reason, you and not I are the one with the vote in the world's most powerful nation. I find this slightly more reassuring than a fanatical believer in the Easter Bunny being armed with an RPG. Slightly.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches.
I didn't say they were *completely* unique; I said they were *fairly* unique.
My experience with religion, in general, has been bad. Certainly I know that there are several other churches that acknowledge the worthiness and truth (really, whatever that means) in other faiths.... But at the same time, there are many other faiths which would have a hard time acknowledging anything worthwhile or any 'truth' within (for example) the Mormon church.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Because for some obscure reason, you and not I are the one with the vote in the world's most powerful nation. I find this slightly more reassuring than a fanatical believer in the Easter Bunny being armed with an RPG. Slightly.
What exactly has my religion caused me to vote for that is any more frightening than what any atheist's political opinions might induce him to vote for?
quote:Suppose you did not believe anymore. How would your life change, apart from not going to church anymore?
I would no longer contribute my time and energy to my ward community, which is the center of social life for most Mormons. I would stop raising my children to share my beliefs, and would have comparatively little support in teaching them different values from those of the mainstream culture. I would no longer have any part in the grander purposes of my religion, but instead, would only be following whatever purposes I invented for myself.
If many Mormons did the same thing, then entire communities would dissolve, along with their means of transmitting their values socially and communally to their children. The relatively stable, moral environments that wards are established to create would vanish, leaving people to find new communities that may not may not fill the same role. Individuals without a common purpose would be left to accomplish far less on their own.
And I'm only really listing the things that you might be able to recognize as valuable. As far as personal spiritual experience goes, that's a little harder to describe in a forum like this, to an audience like you, without feeling like I'm showing too much disrespect.
Suffice it to say that there is very much good that goes on in my life and in the lives of others because I belong to this church. You may not like it, but you can't simply decide what should work for other people, and what shouldn't.
If you did manage to eliminate religion from other people's lives, what would you replace it with? Do you have something in mind? Some kind of plan? Can you provide me and my people with what our church does? Or is the elimination phase all that interests you?
I don't know whether to call it xenophobia or cultural imperialism or what, but the sheer hubris of a person who thinks he can swoop in, tell someone they need to stop having their silly beliefs and their silly culture because his is so much better, then fluttering off and wondering why no one is thanking him ... it's just mind-blowing.
I mean seriously, if you represent the sort of person that I would become if I abandoned my faith, then I think I've found one more reason to stay At least after seeing the contempt with which you treat people who disagree with you. You're like the worst Christian imperialists from the colonial era, thinking that your beliefs are the grand solution to everyone's problems. They're not, and were you to succeed, you would only make the world an emptier, less pleasant place.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Tell me KoM, what community do you belong to and how do you get along with, not just your friends, but your community as a whole?
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote: I don't know whether to call it xenophobia or cultural imperialism or what, but the sheer hubris of a person who thinks he can swoop in, tell someone they need to stop having their silly beliefs and their silly culture because his is so much better, then fluttering off and wondering why no one is thanking him ...
I think the word for this is "missionary."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
"What exactly has my religion caused me to vote for that is any more frightening than what any atheist's political opinions might induce him to vote for?"
I think the frightening thing about religion in politics for me, as a befuddled agnostic, stems from the notion of the sanctity of life.
I'll quote Supreme Court Justice Scalia: "Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the churchgoing United States. I attribute that to the fact that for the believing Christian, death is no big deal."
I don't believe in life after death, and thus death strikes me as a very big deal, about as big as deals get.
Capital punishment does not bother me in the least. Honestly, I think we're too parsimonious in doling out the big deal to killers, and I wish the law made it mandatory for convicted child molesters.
But the notion of leader to whom death "is no big deal" frightens me. These are the people who make the case for, and lead nations into, war. At least over here in the West, when a political leader says death is "no big deal" it's understood he is speaking of someone else's death.
The really scary notion is in the part of the world where people are testifying, through deeds not words, that death is "no big deal," even for themselves.
The way the President of Iran has been talking (about Isreal, glowing auras at the UN, the 12th Imam) and pressing ahead with nuclear research, is terrifying.
Posts: 24 | Registered: Oct 2005
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