Jobar

Shome42, I think this belongs in our General Religion forum.

I agree with your point; I would say that religion is social more than geographical, because when a land's society (and religion) changes or is changed by conquest, eventually the people born in that land are born into the new religion and the old fades away. Few born in present-day Greece believe in the ancient Greek gods, for instance.

xian

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


this is true. and the reason is because man is a supernatural being, and the experiences of a human ordinarily point him to the supernatural, thus evidence that God exists.

Yellum Notnef

This needs a thread of it's own so xian can explain how man is a supernatural being.

Or maybe it's best that we just ignore this.

Inconnu

please dont ask him to

lpetrich

Only if they are exclusivist. However, non-exclusivist religions easily coexist, as in eastern Asia and in the classical Greco-Roman world. Worship of one deity would not preclude the worship of another.

Oops, hinduwoman and Marlowe beat me to this point.

Spaz

Don't you think a more plausible explanation is that man points to the supernatural out of a lack of knowledge and a want for understanding?

Asha'man

I disagree. Irresolvable conflict is possible even within a religion, over matters of doctrine. The break between the Catholic Church and Protestants is a perfect example.

However, you and hinduwoman are somewhat correct, in that polytheistic religions seem less likely to develop such irresolvable conflicts. But can you honestly claim that there have been no such violent conflicts within polytheistic religions such as Hinduism?



So how exactly do you think the conflict will be resolved? Each theory will make subtly different predictions about the universe we are in. Someone will look for a place where those different predictions are observable, and the conflict will be resolved. There is often disagreement within science, but the resolution is always by searching for more facts. We may not have those facts yet, but it is really just a matter of time.

lpetrich

However, all sides of that conflict were still exclusivist about which sect was right. Either Catholics were idolators or Protestants were heretics.

lpetrich

Let's consider some examples.

In the 1920's, Erwin Schroedinger and Werner Heisenberg both worked out relatively rigorous formulations of quantum mechanics, formulations that were much advanced over the handwaving of early quantum-mechanics theorizing. And the question of who was right was resolved with the demonstration that these two formulations are mathematically equivalent.

In the 18th cy., there was a big controversy in embryology between the "epigeneticists", who claimed that features appeared out of formless fertilized-egg features, and the "preformationists", who claimed that each fertilized egg cell contains a fully-formed embryo. The preformationists were further divided into "ovists"and "spermists", according to whether the embryo was carried in the (unfertilized) egg cell or the sperm cell.

The epigeneticists were right about the emergence of embryo features, though they knew of no mechanism for causing that emergence. The preformationists did have a mechanism, but it required that organisms have a Russian-doll structure, with gametes containing embryos containing gametes containing embryos containing gametes ...

And although it is still not very well understood how one gets from genes to body shapes, numerous development-control genes have nevertheless been identified. And the ovist-spermist debate is now moot. So here's the score:

Epigeneticists: 1/2
Preformationists: 0

Mageth

this is true. and the reason is because man is a supernatural being, and the experiences of a human ordinarily point him to the supernatural, thus evidence that God exists.

Once more, for the record: establishing the existence of the supernatural, the existence of god(s), and the existence of a particular God are separate tasks. Proving the existence of the supernatural would not be evidence that god(s), and especially any particular God, exists.