Re: REVIEW: _Religious_

Justin C <justin.0809@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:slrngcn538.ae.justin.0809@xxxxxxxxxxxx:


But still, Bart, there are faithful around the world who have also
done as you have, and found their faith to be the one true faith. You
can't all be right. How can you be so certain that *you* are?

You can answer that for yourself. Take the big list of religions
from your other post, add "atheism", do your pseudo-math, and now
tell us: Given that you have less than 1% chance of being right,
how can you be so smugly complacent in your views?

The religion, it's books, and it's preachers can tell us nothing about
the validity of that religion because it assumes it is right from the
outset.

So does science. So does logic. It's a misconception that
any human thought begins with zero and works it way toward
definitions, axioms and theorems. _Everything_ jumps in at
the middle and works both ways: Towards foundations and towards
new theorems. Many things run into contradictions, and that's
when we either abandon them (phlogisten, e.g.) or look for
the deeper truth (Newtonian to Einsteinian physics, e.g.)

So you're greatly wrong in your picture that religion is even
trying to have an "outset".

I find it no more likely that I'll find Jehovah when I die than that
I'll find I am reincarnated.

And your opinion here carries weight why?

All it is possible for you to have is faith. There can be no logic in
your choice, because there is no evidence on which to base a logical
decision.

That's patently nonsense. There's plenty of logic and plenty of
evidence. Eyewitness accounts of Jesus life, miracles and resurrection
are most certainly "evidence". And who knows what you mean by
"no logic in your choice."


Putting faith to one side, logically you have to accept that, if
there is a god, you have picked the wrong religion.

That doesn't sound logical to me. Even in your analysis, I have
at least a chance of being right.

You're making an assumption that God exists.

No, the evidence points toward His existence. That makes my
model superior to yours, which explains away the evidence.


All the other baggage that comes with it,
bible, koran, torah, whatever, has no effect on the rightness or
wrongness.

That's the dumbest thing you've said so far. We discover now
that while you think your some sort of authority on religion,
you don't know the first thing. In my religion the Bible is
the MAIN THING. If it's just baggage, as you say, then
we're flatly wrong, and that is certainly a huge effect on
the "rightness or wrongness".



A second error in your
analysis is that I didn't pick my religion out of a hat, so
_no_ sort of analysis which includes randomization (such as
yours) can apply here.

No, of course you didn't pick it out of a hat. What you did was look
at each of them and make a choice based on no more than the the
religion's own assumption that it is the one true faith.

Wrong again. I no time in my life did I go shopping for religion.


You're not better off switching if you chose the right door to
begin with.

How can you *possibly* know you've chosen the right one?

If you want to ignore everything I say, then you'll never know.
I gave you the binary search thing. In very concrete ways, it's
not hard to see that, e.g., Islam is just the greatest heresy of
Christianity and Hinduism is the greatest heresy of Buddhism.
So Islam and Hinduism _can't_ be the right.

Is Buddhism "right"? No. It suffers most from what you think
all religion suffers: it's a bottom-up religion, where God says
nothing to man, does nothing for man, but man has to work out
what/who God is and what any afterlife might be on the strength
of his own reason. Here your objection is valid: How can that
possibly be right? How can a series of _admittedly_ blind guesses
arrive at the truth? So Buddhism is out. Etc. The point here
is that there is _plenty_ of logic.


So your statement "you're always better off
switching" is false. These two questions have vastly different
answers: 1. What's the probability Bart wins the lottery?
and 2. What's the probability someone wins the lottery?

You're using the lottery analogy based on an assumption that God
exists, and someone must 'have the winning ticket'. I say that people
are buying tickets, but there will never be a draw.

No, I'm using the lottery analogy to show that your thinking
about probabilities is bizarre.


There cannot be a logical reason for your choice unless you start with
the assumption that God exists. And even then, discounting religions
based on their doctrines, beliefs, whatever is not logical, they all
disagree, and all assume they are right when it is not possible that
they are. There is nothing in any of them that can tell you that "this
is the right one", because that's what they all say.

I don't know how many times I can say the same thing. The picture
you paint here is wildly inaccurate. If God appears in a burning
bush, then Moses isn't "assuming God exists", but acknowledging it.
If he reports the event, then his eyewitness account is "evidence"
of God's existence and those who believe his account aren't "assuming
God exists", but acknowleding it. No one, and I mean no one, not a
single person on the planet has ever said to himself "I think I'll
assume that a God exists and see what I can make out of that."

The second bit, where you're worried that all religions think they
are right, is silly for at least two reasons. First, apply it to
political parties. Second, they don't all follow logical principle.
Third, you keep repeating "it's not possible that they are", when
in fact, in your own model, one could be right.

Finally, and I mean that, turn your own arguments on yourself.
Through the history of mankind, almost all men at all times have
believed in a spiritual world. What is the evolutionary point
of developing a tendency like that? Especially if it's as
harmful to the species as you assert? Besides the evidence we
find "inside" the creation, we also have tons of events, miracles,
and the guidence of the wisest men that point to God's existence.
Now, swamped with this evidence that at least hints there is
something besides the material world, you make the assumption,
based on NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER, that there is no God. See how
weak your arguments are?

B.

--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
.

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