shome42

One of the reasons I'm skeptical of theism is the geographic isolation of religion. I find it mighty coincidental that most people believe in their respective Gods because of where they were born. I also find it mighty peculiar that no two geographically isolated places have ever had the same God belief (I'm assuming).

Here's a little experiement that explains how I see religion as having developed on Earth--

We'll take a bunch of new borns, put them on different isolated islands, and ensure they won't be bothered by outsiders. (We'll assume, for the sake of argument, that the newborns will survive until adulthood.)

Here are what I think would be the results of the experiment:

1) Eventually, each island's people will have come up with their own version of God.

2) Within each island, different groups will come up with different versions of God and have civil religious wars.

3) Soon after these islanders develop boats, they will find the other islanders, attempt to convert them and have religious wars on foreign soil.

The fact that most people believe in the God because of where they were born supports this theory. Also, that no two geographically isolated places have come up with the same God also supports my theory. Therefore, I'm going to assume my theory is correct and that each group of people simply made up their own God. This could take the form of someone just making it up or each society having its own David Koresh. At any rate, they made it up.

Am I wrong? Have two geographically isolated places come up with the same God? Or is my argument just flawed to the core?

I would imagine it's a difficult argument to aruge. Today, with technology and transportation, it's pretty hard to separate where religion sprouted up and where it was imported.

On a similar note, if God left it up to the people in Israel to spread the word of Jesus, then does that mean God condemned the Native Americans to Hell until Columbus discovered them? That's pretty cruel considering God could have just sent someone directly to the Americas to "save" the Natives.

Why is it that God likes to play the telephone game to spread his word instead using of more efficent methods? You'd think he would given the Hellish consequences of someone not getting the word in time or in correct form.

Edit: Wow, I just realized that Mormonism is the only religion I know of to include the Native Americans...interesting...at least they remembered this little detail.

Selsaral

I'm onboard with your idea, but I wanted to say something about 'god'. Not all religions include a god. Many involve ancestor worship, a spirit world, witchcraft etc. In fact many religions (and cultures) around the world, particularly the isolated ones, are extremely bizaare by our standards. I also have trouble thinking that conflicting religions will necessarily lead to war. I think a bunch of non-religious humans will find a reason to fight each other just as much as a bunch of fundies. Furthermore only some religions stress the converstion of others....

I agree that pretty much any human society anywhere will develop a religion over time. I believe human beings are innately superstitious, particularly in less advanced civilizations. I also believe that the particular religion that results from superstitious thought will be shaped by the culture it arose in.

Asha'man

Good points, both of you.

Actually, I think war is inevitable between religions.

Religion is always based on the supernatural, the unobservable, the unknown. It always relies heavily on faith, on believing something that cannot be supported by evidence. How then can you resolve a conflict between two opposing religious ideas?

In the world of science, the facts always win. A theory is judged based on how well it fits the facts and how well it makes predictions. If there is a dispute between two theories, it can be resolved simply by examining the facts (or searching for more facts, if they are needed). There is an automatic appeal to reason inherent in the scientific way of thinking.

Religious thinking, on the other hand, cannot resort to the facts, arguments of reason almost always fail. (I submit the entire II as evidence of this. ) When there is a conflict between religious ideas, and appeals to reason cannot succeed, what then? War seems inevitable.

Ojuice5001

Maybe the gods exist but are local gods. I think that in ancient times, each pantheon ruled over a limited area of the world. The Roman (Hellenic) gods ruled Italy and Greece, the Australian-aborigine gods ruled over Australia, etc. This could also be the explanation of why different cultures have worshipped different gods.

emotional

Brother Daniel

Asha'man, your argument suggests that religious disagreement is irresolvable, and I won't argue with that. But how is it that irresolvable disagreement necessarily means inevitable conflict, let alone inevitable violent conflict?

Asha'man

Good point. Conflict does not always mean violence. I suppose people will "agree to disagree" some of the time. But all of the time?

If it was only a disagreement on minor things, like the location of a political boundary, or the price of eggs, I could see people being unwilling to ever commit violence over the issue. But religion never seems to be a minor issue. People put all of their heart and soul into their beliefs, sometimes making them the most important aspect of their entire existence. They often find that they have a divine duty to promote and defend their beliefs, violently if needed.

I guess I look at the history of civilization, and the number of people dead from religious conflict, and I'm convinced that violence is inevitable.

hinduwoman

This is valid only in the case of monotheistic religions which do not allow exsitence of other gods. Polytheistic gods rarely go to war over which god is true; any scuffles quickly evaporates as the new god is accomodated.

LOcation of a political boundary is important and wars are committed over that even without religions.

Marlowe

That depends. Mostly on whether an indigenous religion is syncretic or exclusive. When Caesar conquered the Gauls he heard their mythology and said - "Who you call Cernunnos, we call Pluto." He immediately saw the similarity in the gods of the underworld even though they had different names. If you think this is a little too geographically close to count as "isolation", Alexander did the same when he invaded India, "Who you call Vishnu, we call Zeus." So, while they aren't 'coming up' with the same god, they are coming up with the same forces and personifying them in different ways. Both Caesar and Aleaxander, BTW, conquered for political and personal reasons, not religious ones.

According to Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, this is a common conceit of "more advanced' (by their own definition) civilizations, but actual studies show it not to be true. Industrialized people believe in just as many unprovable things as other people.

[quote]Actually, I think war is inevitable between religions. [/quoe]

Actually I think war is inevitable between humans. Religion is just one of many excuses. There are many others including resources, power, political ideology and so on.

Yes, and this automatically leads to complete agreement between all scientists. Oh wait - no it doesn't. There are currently at least four competing interpretations of quantum theory, and at least three of cosmology. Which one you go for tends to have to do with a lot more than reason.

Furthermore, this idea that reason is the perfect system by which to make judgments is untrue. Pure reason can lead to monstrous results. It is reasonable since the world is overpopulated to kill or sterilize a bunch of people.

Selsaral

True. But I would guess there were an even smaller number of true atheists among the hunter-gatherer societies of 10k BC than there are in modern America.