quote:Originally posted by Armoth: if honesty led the person to atheism, I would respect them more than if they remained Jewish because it was merely convenient.
Respect them, maybe. Approve, not. I know you didn't mean approve, but you were misunderstood by others.
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Do you religious folks out there believe that you have found The Truth in your religions? Or, like me, do you believe that The Truth is out there and that your faiths are simply much closer to it than other doctrines? Is it even possible for somebody to be wholly satisfied with what their religion preaches in this day and age?
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: ... However, ideally, I agree with Lisa, that if you believe Judaism, or your religion, is the absolute truth, you don't want exposure to anything other than the truth.
The conversation may have moved on quickly, but I'd like to address this point. While atheism is not a religion, I do believe that it is the absolute truth (capital T or otherwise).
However, I also think exposure to other beliefs, far from something to be avoided, is something to be sought out.
In the marketplace analogy, the Truth might be analogous to the best product available. However, even if we all agree that there is one best product, we generally do not think that it would be a good idea to make everyone use that product or limit exposure to competition. Why? Because competition is necessary for improvement and to avoid stagnation and/or abuse.
I'm reminded of this passage in Trudeau's memoirs, it talks about languages but it is just as applicable here:
quote:But when you begin to coerce people and take away free choice, that is using the law in an abusive way. I believe in promoting a language by promoting the excellence of the people who speak it. There is no question that French -here and abroad -is threatened because of the dynamism of English, especially in popular culture on television. But the question is, do you want to defend yourself by closing doors and coercing people, or do you want to defend your language by making it a source of excellence?
quote:Originally posted by August: Armoth, I absolutely agree.
Do you religious folks out there believe that you have found The Truth in your religions? Or, like me, do you believe that The Truth is out there and that your faiths are simply much closer to it than other doctrines? Is it even possible for somebody to be wholly satisfied with what their religion preaches in this day and age?
I believe that I have found the Truth in my religion.
As for whole satisfaction? I'm still struggling with a few things. But they are ancillary and are not questions that are strong enough to uproot the pretty firm logical foundations for the reasons for my belief.
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Mucus - the analogy is flawed. The marketplace is all about products that improve and continue to improve.
Religion is about the truth. The idea of the marketplace is that you have everything open to you, thereby increasing your chances of finding the truth.
I believe I've already found the truth. Someone asks my opinion of the marketplace? I don't need it - I have truth. And since I think it is true, I don't think other people should be afforded the opportunity to expose themselves to other religions which I've already deemed to be untrue. (again this is all in the ideal world, and the context of answering the OP's question - I'm not actually lobbying for this).
And as I've stated before, I don't think doing away with the marketplace undermines intellectual honesty because I think Judaism has to deal with natural questions that arise from its isolated study, and naturally logical atheist doubts.
There is no competition in religion - It's not about marketing a product and attracting the most people. It's about adhering to a truth, to a philosophy. It's not about what people want for themselves, it's about a relationship with God. Competition for betterment and avoiding "stagnation" has no place here.
And as I said above, I don't believe doing away with the marketplace would undermine free choice. No matter what, Judaism and all religion will have to contend with atheism, because atheism arises from natural logic and affirming your religions convictions in the face of atheism is the very process of establishing yourself as a believer.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: The marketplace is all about products that improve and continue to improve.
A marketplace doesn't contain only products though, it also contains companies.
Just as I said before, even if a product is the best it can be (i.e. the truth), it still has to be produced by a company. A company with no competition is a recipe for disaster.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: And no, Rivka, it isn't only cloistered Haredim who see a problem with the corrosive nature -- in many ways -- of American society.
Actually, there we agree.
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In the Marketplace of Truth, nobody ever starts out thinking that 2+2=4, and eventually, because there are so many other possibilities to learn about, decides that maybe they like the idea better that 2+2=9.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: I believe I've already found the truth. Someone asks my opinion of the marketplace? I don't need it - I have truth. And since I think it is true, I don't think other people should be afforded the opportunity to expose themselves to other religions which I've already deemed to be untrue. (again this is all in the ideal world, and the context of answering the OP's question - I'm not actually lobbying for this).
So in the real world, not the ideal, would you say that the marketplace should exist?
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quote:We're crazy. It took a lot of study and the context of our religions communities to understand the laws, precepts and commandments, and to understand that they are actually not so crazy.
Another way to word this is: "it took a lot of indoctrination before I didn't think they were actually so crazy."
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Mucus - You are saying that if there is no alternative to your religion and it is championed as the only truth, it is a recipe for disaster. Agreed. In that example, people are mindless drones, following the only possibility available to them, controlled by a "company" with a monopoly on truth.
However, I don't think that's possible. A religion will always have to contend with atheism, which I allege is natural. It also has to contend with our natural desires, which very often do not align with what God wants from us. Trust me. The reason I studied my own faith is because the things I want to do that don't align with God's will forced me to make EXTRA sure that my religion is true...
Parkour - In the real world, I try to do what will be the most compelling to others. To remove the marketplace of faith and tell everyone that they can only learn Judaism? To say that people would be resentful would probably be an understatement.
The world is the way the world is. We have all been affected by the events of history, by the religions of history, and since we are exposed to them, we are forced to contend with them in a search for truth.
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quote:We're crazy. It took a lot of study and the context of our religions communities to understand the laws, precepts and commandments, and to understand that they are actually not so crazy.
Another way to word this is: "it took a lot of indoctrination before I didn't think they were actually so crazy."
Definitely. Also, cognitive dissonance is a huge factor - the more time you spend studying your own religion, the more effort you pour into it, the more badly you want it to be true.
On the other hand, Modern Orthodox Judaism does not insulate it's members from society. The existence of a secular space gives every Modern Orthodox Jew the unconscious choice to make in the other direction.
And as I said in my last post, there are other factors, desires and such, which tip the scales of dishonesty in the atheist's direction.
In the end, everyone needs to be intellectually honest. Cognitive dissonance also works to say that if you are not studying any religions, you'll convince yourself that atheism is the Truth.
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quote:We're crazy. It took a lot of study and the context of our religions communities to understand the laws, precepts and commandments, and to understand that they are actually not so crazy.
Another way to word this is: "it took a lot of indoctrination before I didn't think they were actually so crazy."
You misunderstand. To someone who hasn't learned quantum physics, the idea that it's impossible, by definition, to determine the exact position and exact velocity of a particle makes no sense. The uncertainty principle sounds like an appeal to ignorance.
When it comes to certain areas of knowledge, you really have to learn more than what's on the surface to understand it. Anyone can do arithmetic. But it takes learning to do differential equations. With the proper education, you can see that e^(i*pi) = -1. Without that education, it sounds absurd. Learning the requisite information is not "indoctrination".
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quote:Learning the requisite information is not "indoctrination".
Would anyone without the training be able to reconstruct the same theories from observation of the world?
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But why should that matter? Something can't be true if it relies on God interaction with some people over others? With one generation and not with later generations? At one point in your life and not later points?
If God revealed Himself to one prophet, and that prophet now has to convince me that He did - I'd be hard pressed to find that compelling. I can imagine plenty of other more compelling scenarios that explain that this person was lying or delusional.
Judaism claims a mass revelation, where God speaks to the entire nation directly, not just to one prophet who hast o spread, and has a Torah full of miracles witnessed by masses. It becomes a lot more compelling to me when that is the case than the other possibilities that someone made it up and spread it.
That is a valid source of determining truth, irrespective of the fact that it relies on your assessing the value of the knowledge you get from other people or from texts.
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quote:Judaism claims a mass revelation, where God speaks to the entire nation directly, not just to one prophet who hast to spread [it], and has a Torah full of miracles witnessed by masses.
So do other religions. Christianity is full of claims of miracles witnessed by thousands of people. (Starting with 5000 people fed on two loaves and five fishes.) The pagan Norse had Odin doing magic visible to entire migrating tribes; to include, in the case of Gefjon, the creation of Lake Malaren and the island of Zeeland. Such a coincidence: You disclaim these miracles you have not 'studied', and accept the ones you were told of as a child.
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KoM - "God speaks to the entire nation directly, not just to one prophet..."
Edit: It's also much more compelling that Judaism claims the revelation happened to the ENTIRE generation, and not to a small mass of the people. This way - if Judaism were false, - you'd have to say - oh, remember when your forefather's spoke to God? As opposed to - "There was a great mass of people who witnessed the miracle - your parents weren't there, but mine were"
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: KoM - "God speaks to the entire nation directly, not just to one prophet..."
Edit: It's also much more compelling that Judaism claims the revelation happened to the ENTIRE generation, and not to a small mass of the people. This way - if Judaism were false, - you'd have to say - oh, remember when your forefather's spoke to God? As opposed to - "There was a great mass of people who witnessed the miracle - your parents weren't there, but mine were"
I think I must have expressed myself unclearly. The entire mass of the people (Norse, in this case) is supposed to have witnessed Odin's magic, and Odin is the god, not a prophet. As for creating Lake Malaren, it's not something you can very well hide, it's visible from orbit! If these things happened as described, then it would be exactly the same: "There was a great mass of people who witnessed this".
Then in addition, you are trying to analyse people who live in mythical time by the standards of historical time. When the Torah stories were made up, it wasn't a question of "Your grandfather saw this", but "Your ancestors of long ago saw this". You can claim anything you like about people who are no longer alive, especially when it's understood as a religious matter.
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quote:Judaism claims a mass revelation, where God speaks to the entire nation directly...
Bear in mind that the Jews saw nothing wrong with killing heretics, and weren't very good in the early going at writing stuff down. I submit that this dramatically reduces the checksum value of the population. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:We're crazy. It took a lot of study and the context of our religions communities to understand the laws, precepts and commandments, and to understand that they are actually not so crazy.
Another way to word this is: "it took a lot of indoctrination before I didn't think they were actually so crazy."
You misunderstand. To someone who hasn't learned quantum physics, the idea that it's impossible, by definition, to determine the exact position and exact velocity of a particle makes no sense. The uncertainty principle sounds like an appeal to ignorance.
When it comes to certain areas of knowledge, you really have to learn more than what's on the surface to understand it. Anyone can do arithmetic. But it takes learning to do differential equations. With the proper education, you can see that e^(i*pi) = -1. Without that education, it sounds absurd. Learning the requisite information is not "indoctrination".
This comparison is not a good one. Euler's formula can be found by anyone who works with math. It may take a while (generations, even), but it does not require anecdotes, interpretations, or doctrine.
The same cannot be said for religious doctrine. It is irrevocably mired in context, history, and interpretation. And therefore requires tweaking and "proper" thinking to understand it.
In other words, I can expect someone who has never seen Euler's Formula to find it on their own. I cannot expect someone who has never read the Hebrew Bible to discover the Ten Commandments on their own.
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To continue the analogy, anyone who examines any mathematical concept will come to exactly the same numerical or formulaic truth. The mathematical marketplace of truth leads to inescapable conclusions.
Conversely, the history of religion shows that what begins as a single religion, invariably splits into multiple interpretations of that same religion which conflict with each other.
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quote:You misunderstand. To someone who hasn't learned quantum physics, the idea that it's impossible, by definition, to determine the exact position and exact velocity of a particle makes no sense. The uncertainty principle sounds like an appeal to ignorance.
You are using a poor comparison to science *again*. You can easily get children who know nothing of quantum physics to accept uncertainty principles through authority. You can say it is true, and the book says so. These people will largely go into life and not need to learn any quantum physics to question the physical or mathematical truths.
However should they seek to question these indoctrinations once they grow up, a major difference arises between the scientific concepts and the religious one. The scientific principles can be demonstrated through tests, proofs, empirical data, and verifiable evidence. The religious truths can only be "backed up" in the same way.
So even though you have tried to defend your position with oblique comparisons to science multiple times, they still only weaken it because the comparisons do not serve you and only show how you overestimate the validity of your own "knowledge" based reasoning.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: Mucus - the analogy is flawed. The marketplace is all about products that improve and continue to improve.
Religion is about the truth. The idea of the marketplace is that you have everything open to you, thereby increasing your chances of finding the truth.
I believe I've already found the truth. Someone asks my opinion of the marketplace? I don't need it - I have truth. And since I think it is true, I don't think other people should be afforded the opportunity to expose themselves to other religions which I've already deemed to be untrue. (again this is all in the ideal world, and the context of answering the OP's question - I'm not actually lobbying for this).
And as I've stated before, I don't think doing away with the marketplace undermines intellectual honesty because I think Judaism has to deal with natural questions that arise from its isolated study, and naturally logical atheist doubts.
There is no competition in religion - It's not about marketing a product and attracting the most people. It's about adhering to a truth, to a philosophy. It's not about what people want for themselves, it's about a relationship with God. Competition for betterment and avoiding "stagnation" has no place here.
And as I said above, I don't believe doing away with the marketplace would undermine free choice. No matter what, Judaism and all religion will have to contend with atheism, because atheism arises from natural logic and affirming your religions convictions in the face of atheism is the very process of establishing yourself as a believer.
Assuming the premise that there exist valid logical reasons for the existence of a god and the validity of religious doctrine, I could definitely get behind this and pretty much everything else you've said here. It's one of the main reasons I have so much respect for Orthodox Judaism over other religions. As a closed system it really is damn near perfect, or at least much more internally consistent than the competition.
But alas, the foundation upon which this brilliantly constructed house of cards is supported is, well, not visible to my eyes - or at least (and perhaps more accurately) - appears to defy reality.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: However, I don't think that's possible. A religion will always have to contend with atheism, which I allege is natural ...
Perhaps, but history shows us that that natural opposition isn't quite "enough." We can easily see that when Anglicanism, Catholicism, or even belief in Mao as a god were made state religions, the resulting abuses and scandal only helped to make the alternatives look that much more attractive in generations afterwards.
It seems to me that if you want a religion or a system of beliefs to thrive, the last thing you want to do is actually become a state religion and hamper the marketplace of faith.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: Parkour - In the real world, I try to do what will be the most compelling to others. To remove the marketplace of faith and tell everyone that they can only learn Judaism? To say that people would be resentful would probably be an understatement.
The world is the way the world is. We have all been affected by the events of history, by the religions of history, and since we are exposed to them, we are forced to contend with them in a search for truth.
So then the answer is that yes, the marketplace should exist. At what point in hypothetical 'ideals' should the marketplace not exist? If judaism gets so powerful that it can impose law that asserts that you cannot teach anything but the jewish faith?
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It tickles my funny bone that conspiracy theories so closely match the Truth value of some religious claims. If you don't agree, it's just because you've been brainwashed, or you haven't been exposed to the "Truth" that the small minority is so invested in.
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quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: The marketplace for religion isn't a very open market, due to the indoctrination of the young. And I say that recognizing that indoctrination of the young is not inherently moral or immoral, and that it's probably unavoidable.
Well, that's why I'm in favor of a Marketplace, as it allows those who are indoctrinated into unhealthy systems to get out, as not open as it may be. One of my co-workers describes her old religion as a "cult", and is very grateful for the internet as a source of information for people who have left like she did.
Of course, I have the bias of someone who has also rejected religion, but I think belief in spite of full access to other views is something that is equally important.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: We can easily see that when Anglicanism, Catholicism, or even belief in Mao as a god were made state religions, the resulting abuses and scandal only helped to make the alternatives look that much more attractive in generations afterwards.
It seems to me that if you want a religion or a system of beliefs to thrive, the last thing you want to do is actually become a state religion and hamper the marketplace of faith.
Going in for the complete agreement. Welcome to a postmodern info-driven society where any attempt to enforce your monoculture Truth is sure to result in the instability and limitation of your new Republic of Gilead. Unforeseen consequences for the lose, marketplace for the win, gg
quote:Learning the requisite information is not "indoctrination".
Would anyone without the training be able to reconstruct the same theories from observation of the world?
If they had access to all the observed incidents, yes. But they don't. Honestly, Tom, "I ain't never seen any sech varmint" is not a disproof of anything. God spoke to us. He isn't speaking now. You can't say "Well, unless He speaks up right now [stamp your feet like a two year old here], I don't believe he ever did. So there!"
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quote:Judaism claims a mass revelation, where God speaks to the entire nation directly, not just to one prophet who hast to spread [it], and has a Torah full of miracles witnessed by masses.
So do other religions. Christianity is full of claims of miracles witnessed by thousands of people. (Starting with 5000 people fed on two loaves and five fishes.) The pagan Norse had Odin doing magic visible to entire migrating tribes; to include, in the case of Gefjon, the creation of Lake Malaren and the island of Zeeland. Such a coincidence: You disclaim these miracles you have not 'studied', and accept the ones you were told of as a child.
Oh, please. The founding myth of Christianity consists of 12 or 13 people claiming to have seen a resurrection. Islam's founding revelation has one illiterate guy in a cave.
Founding experiences are very different. Once you have thousands of people shouting their believe in Thor, seeing him in a thunder storm isn't that big a deal. But the revelation at Sinai wasn't to people who really knew God all that much before.
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quote:Judaism claims a mass revelation, where God speaks to the entire nation directly...
Bear in mind that the Jews saw nothing wrong with killing heretics, and weren't very good in the early going at writing stuff down. I submit that this dramatically reduces the checksum value of the population.
How were we "not very good in the early going at writing stuff down"?
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quote:Judaism claims a mass revelation, where God speaks to the entire nation directly, not just to one prophet who hast to spread [it], and has a Torah full of miracles witnessed by masses.
So do other religions. Christianity is full of claims of miracles witnessed by thousands of people. (Starting with 5000 people fed on two loaves and five fishes.) The pagan Norse had Odin doing magic visible to entire migrating tribes; to include, in the case of Gefjon, the creation of Lake Malaren and the island of Zeeland. Such a coincidence: You disclaim these miracles you have not 'studied', and accept the ones you were told of as a child.
Oh, please. The founding myth of Christianity consists of 12 or 13 people claiming to have seen a resurrection. Islam's founding revelation has one illiterate guy in a cave.
Founding experiences are very different. Once you have thousands of people shouting their believe in Thor, seeing him in a thunder storm isn't that big a deal. But the revelation at Sinai wasn't to people who really knew God all that much before.
And the miracles worked by Odin were seen by hard-headed warriors who knew the difference between victory and defeat, and had no prior reason to believe him a god; he was born of woman like the rest of us. You dismiss what you know little of. As for Gefyon, she is supposed to have come out of the wilderness with her team of oxen, spoken to a king who had no particular reason to think her a goddess, and then done her bit with the lake in front of all the people of that kingdom. (Which does incline one to think it wasn't a very large kingdom, but then again the idea that Israel had 2 million adult males is also a fantasy.)
quote:How were we "not very good in the early going at writing stuff down"?
Just what it says. The idea that the Torah was written down by the same generation that saw the events at Sinai is another creation of the people who wrote the Torah, who are no more to be trusted on that subject than on the subject of what happened at Sinai.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Um, well, yes? Except that your statement screamed "sarcasm," which implied we were supposed to take it as the opposite of true.
No, actually, I was being quite non-sarcastic. That's understandable that you misread me. You may not have had the...opportunity...to observe me in religious discussions much, prior to now.
In other news, the fascism is thick on the ground in this thread.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Oh, please. The founding myth of Christianity consists of 12 or 13 people claiming to have seen a resurrection. Islam's founding revelation has one illiterate guy in a cave.
Grey UFO theory > Odin > Scientology > Christianity > Islam
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quote:God spoke to us. He isn't speaking now. You can't say "Well, unless He speaks up right now [stamp your feet like a two year old here], I don't believe he ever did. So there!"
Can I say I don't believe the scripture that you use to claim that God spoke to you? Can you extend even the tiniest hand to someone like me, who does not believe in your Truth but is willing to let you believe in your Truth?
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quote:"I ain't never seen any sech varmint" is not a disproof of anything. God spoke to us. He isn't speaking now. You can't say "Well, unless He speaks up right now [stamp your feet like a two year old here], I don't believe he ever did.
That's not what the magical fairy who lives in my freezer says, according to my grandmother. If you wait a little bit, I can produce a book that says my great-great-grandmother was in a crowd of thousands that got to pet the fairy.
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quote:Is their a Marketplace of Faith and is it a good thing.
No, there is no Marketplace of Faith, because a marketplace entails having a choice of what to "buy". You do not have a choice of what to have faith in. You can only have faith in what your knowledge and experience of the world tells you that you should have faith in.
It is more akin to setting a bunch of different colored objects on a table and then asking "Which one looks the most blue to you?" Sure, you could lie and answer whatever object you wanted. If you tried really really hard you might even convince yourself that lie is true. But the honest truth is, there is only one object that looks the most blue to you and you can't simply choose it to be otherwise. It also is possible, depending on how accurate your eyes are, that the object that appears most blue to you really isn't. It is possible that other people might observe something else as the most blue. Nevertheless, whatever your eyes percieve as blue is what is the most blue to you. It isn't a matter of choice; it's a matter of what you percieve to be true.
Faith in a religion is a good bit more complicated than that example, of course.
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quote:"I ain't never seen any sech varmint" is not a disproof of anything. God spoke to us. He isn't speaking now. You can't say "Well, unless He speaks up right now [stamp your feet like a two year old here], I don't believe he ever did.
That's not what the magical fairy who lives in my freezer says, according to my grandmother. If you wait a little bit, I can produce a book that says my great-great-grandmother was in a crowd of thousands that got to pet the fairy.
Running now - but I kinda wanted to respond. It's not as simple as that.
In addition to the fact that there is a story, there is also an unbroken tradition where we know who was who in each link in the chain. Because of that it is difficult to say at any point in the chain that someone introduced the "myth" and it caught on.
The fairy example is absurd - you could not get anyone to believe it.
The fact that people believe in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is very interesting. Islam and Christianity rest their weight on the mass revelation and claim that Jesus and Mohammed were just other prophets who do not need mass revelations, but they could not have gotten off the ground had Judaism not been established.
Now, the issue with the Mass revelation in the Torah is that it is difficult to make an alternate story where Moses made up a religion and sought to spread it. The tradition is solid. We know that after Moses came Joshua, and after Joshua came a list of Judges, and after the Judges came the Prophets. We know the names of the leaders of each generation, and their stories. There is no dark spot. Because of that, it is very difficult to propose that the whole story was made up, because there is no historical period that would allow for it.
It's one thing to approach a people and say that your forefathers were all at Sinai when your story doesn't only exist in the past but is directly connected to your present. You know who your dad was, and who your grandfather was - it's insanely difficult for someone to re-write the complete history of your nation.
Because of that, it's difficult for me to come up with a compelling story for how Judaism began and how it spread if I assume that Judaism isn't true.
Read the Bible with this point in mind - that's what many modern Biblical scholars try and do - they try to figure out how Judaism developed, assuming the Bible is not true, and how a people could possibly have accepted what was written.
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quote:It's one thing to approach a people and say that your forefathers were all at Sinai when your story doesn't only exist in the past but is directly connected to your present. You know who your dad was, and who your grandfather was - it's insanely difficult for someone to re-write the complete history of your nation.
No, it isn't. Do you think Israelite kids were taught patriotic pablum in schools, like modern Americans? These were nomadic sheepherders. They didn't know source-criticism from their left hands.
Or let's put it another way. In the story of the founding of Rome, we 'know exactly who was who'. There was Romulus who founded the city, then Numa Pompilius, then Tullus Hostilius, and so on down to Tarquinius; then the founding of the Republic, and then there's a long list of consuls. Clearly, by the argument you are making, nobody could have invented this list, since it connects directly to the consuls, no dark spots, everybody knew who their grandfathers were, etc. Does it follow that we are obliged to believe the story about Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf? Or, for that matter, that these seven kings (suspiciously magic number, that) ruled for 244 years altogether? Yet these Romans are much better attested than Moses!
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quote:God spoke to us. He isn't speaking now. You can't say "Well, unless He speaks up right now [stamp your feet like a two year old here], I don't believe he ever did. So there!"
Can I say I don't believe the scripture that you use to claim that God spoke to you? Can you extend even the tiniest hand to someone like me, who does not believe in your Truth but is willing to let you believe in your Truth?
That scripture isn't my source.
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Armoth: I believe in TomDavidson's fairy, as does he, as did his Mother before him, an his Grandmother before her. That unbroken chain of History, combined with the thousands of eye witnesses and the Holy Book mean it's the Truth!
Praise The Great Fairy!
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quote:No, there is no Marketplace of Faith, because a marketplace entails having a choice of what to "buy". You do not have a choice of what to have faith in. You can only have faith in what your knowledge and experience of the world tells you that you should have faith in.
It is more akin to setting a bunch of different colored objects on a table and then asking "Which one looks the most blue to you?" Sure, you could lie and answer whatever object you wanted.
I disagree. Most kindergartners can distinguish colors. If they could all distinguish the truth regarding the origin of the cosmos, our place in it, and how we ought to go about treating each other, we wouldn't be having this conversation to begin with. The dis-analogy is severe.
People can indeed choose what they want to believe in. Here's one way: every one of us trains ourselves in how to direct our attention. In other words, we make choices about our priorities. Those choices, necessarily, form a filter that helps determine what information we get. The sources of information we choose influence what we believe in. This isn't choice in the sense of choosing the blue block on the table, true. But I don't think anyone is suggesting it is. I also don't think that kind of immediacy of choice is necessary for a marketplace to function.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: The fairy example is absurd - you could not get anyone to believe it.
That's charitable for you to say on behalf of humanity, but it's not true. If you can get people to believe in scientology, you can get people to believe in fridgefairy.
quote:Because of that, it's difficult for me to come up with a compelling story for how Judaism began and how it spread if I assume that Judaism isn't true.
That it is difficult for you to propose a compelling story for Judaism's history that does not rely upon the truth of the religion does not mean that it is actually difficult to do. The secular historical proposals are actually easier than the accounts that propose the literal truth of the bible's history, especially given details like the great flood and the apparent age of the earth.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: The secular historical proposals are actually easier than the accounts that propose the literal truth of the bible's history, especially given details like the great flood and the apparent age of the earth.
Of course, those are not the only two options.
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The Wise and Benevolent FridgeFairy is OmniSexual. Himer will have relations with any of shis worthy followers.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: The secular historical proposals are actually easier than the accounts that propose the literal truth of the bible's history, especially given details like the great flood and the apparent age of the earth.
Of course, those are not the only two options.
Strictly speaking, there are as many options as there are alternate universes to house those options. Perhaps in one Universe the Jews have it 100% right. In another universe, the FridgeFairy is actually the One True Faith (that's this universe, sadly for all other religions). In some universe the Old Testament is an elaborate joke on mankind played by Loki, the great trickster. There is undoubtedly a universe in which all religious belief is caused by a fungal infection.
When given so many conflicting options, the only sane thing to do is pick the one with the greatest likelihood of being correct in our own universe.
My money's on the mushrooms.
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