AmericanHeretic

I'll call this the Argument of Similarity to Proven Falsehood

1) All religions have a stated nature of God and a formal structure
2) All religions have within that structure a creation story allegedly accomplished by their God
3) There is only one reality, which could be allegedly created by one God, or set of Gods, derived of only one religion.

Conclusion: All religions but one are false

Conclusion: Theoretically, there can only be one possibly true religion.

1) All religions claim God created reality via supernaturalism
2) All supernaturalism is equally unproven and void of any supporting evidence in every case in every religion
3) All false religions use the exact same unproven and unsupported supernaturalism as the single potentially possible true religion
4) All supernaturalism in all religions except the one possibly true religion is disproven (see above)
5) The supernaturalism in the one possibly true religion is indistinguishable from the disproven supernaturalism in all the religions already disproven (see above)
6) All supernaturalism attributed to any creation story by any religion's declared God is disproven by contrary evidence supplied by the Big Bang studies and evidence thereof.

Conclusion: No supernaturalism is true in general
Conclusion: No supernaturalism attributed to special creation is true
Conclusion: No religion is true
Conclusion: No God or Gods exist

AmericanHeretic

The above argument came from thinking about Brother Fred's initial question in this thread and how I never have seen a Christian make a good argument against all the other religions they so ardently deny. I did that for them in this case. It seems perfectly logical to me to use the similarity of religions to prove them all untrue if all but one of them must be untrue simply because they all collide on creationism tales amid a singular reality each claims their God created. In a delicious irony, it is they who all deny the other, and my argument merely agrees with every last one of them.

Please do critique this argument. If it cannot withstand your best logical onslaughts, it is not worthy of being stated.

So, bon apetite!

(grammar error repaired)

Darth Dane

1) Yes true, afaik.

2) For the sake of argument I agree.

3) Partly in agreement. I agree to the fact that there is one "ultimate" Reality. But I don't agree that it could be derived by only one religion. I believe all the religions are partly correct about their system of thought.

So your first conclusion is only partly true. If I say I have a way of looking at the religions and the world at large, so that each of the religions are true in and of themselves but not together, and that there is a underlying message in all of them that warrants a better understanding of Life as we see it, something that unites them, waht is that to be called.

Second conclusion I answer that "Yes", there is only one religion that is ultimately true. If we haven't seen it yet, I know it will someday see the dawn of day. Flying wasn't "possible" for many decades and centuries, but suddenly trhough time it came to be. Same with this religion, it will come, it's just a matter of time.



Note that I count in "science" as a religion. This is important because many people who don't believe in God or something supernatural believes that science have prooved God non-existant. This must for all fairness be included as a religion.

1) Yes, scinece have the Big Bang, where did that come from, what started that, science haven't explained this, itjust kinda happened.

2) There is only the subjective proof, offered by millions of humans. Countless have said that there is something which cannot be proven "objectively" only by the direct knowledge that comes from within. And since science deals with Proof, science have a very strong card to play.

3) I claim that there is no false religion, all of them are from that certain POV, completely true. But facing others there may be paradoxes. This leaves us with a choice I have related elsewhere on these pages. That all is one, and you are it.

4) As I said above, the subjetive proof I have experienced, is for me, amongst others, the proof I needed for my belief. I have no way as I see it (I may be blind) to show my experience to others, except to say that I did receive "proof"

5) sounds about right.

6) What if God IS the Big Bang. God spent 65 million years+ to create humans, and God succeded and here we are. God breated life into us, but it was a long exhale on God's part, an exhale that lasted years. For all we know we are the only ones who now have the word, just like God has...or had He succeded in creating a miniature copy of Godself.
As long as science can't explain what caused the big bang, where did it come from, what was it made of, how big was IT before it blew and so on, then "science" as a religion is equally based on the belief that "God" is not real, just as the religions do when they say thet God is real, both are based on belief.







DD - Love Spliff

Shadowy Man

I take it you are not a scientist.

Darth Dane

Science is a way to describe reality. Religion is a way to describe reality.

Religion = Science

Which do you believe in?

One of the two. Both. Or neither.

Where does your thoughts come from?

Where does conciousness come from?


However you wanna dice it, you believe in some form of reality, and the description thereof.


"your faith shall set you free"




DD - Love Spliff

Salmon of Doubt

Personally, I believe in the way of explaining reality that can be verified by people's senses, or the technology built to observe that reality. I don't believe something just because someone else has told me it is true if there is no way to verify it. Science is based on actual evidence that we can observe and replciate, and religion is not. Therefore science is the tool we should use to interpret reality, and not religion.

Darth Dane

What about those countless beings who have claimed that there is something which the mind cannot comprehend, you have to transcend it. Have all those people, throughout time, been wrong? Or is it possible to mix these two ways of verifying reality?


From my POV it seems silly to discount what so many have claimed. Namely something of a "divine" nature. How they interpreted this experience is a matter unto itself, but many have pointed towards that inner knowledge you can gain.





DD - Love Spliff

Kvalhion

Actually religion and science use opposite methods to "describe reality".

In science, the evidence is examined before a conclusion is made. All the evidence is considered before a theory that explains the evidence is given. In science, the only theories that exist are those that can be falsified through testing of the evidence. Scientists examining theories do not attempt to reach the same conclusion; rather they attempt to disprove the theory. Solid theories are those which, despite the attempts, are not disproven.

In religion, the conclusion is made before the evidence is examined. All "evidence" is seen through the perspective of the conclusion, aka presupposition. In religion, all concepts are not falsifiable or testable. They must be accepted "on faith" that they are real. Theists examining the theories do not loook to disprove the established concepts; rather they continually spin reality in an attempt to continue to support the preconceived conclusion. This leads to blatant contradictions and inconsistencies throughout the theories of religion. What applies in one scenario is often quite the opposite in another; yet both are seen as "proof" of the religious theory.

Throughout all this, our shared reality remains unchanged. No matter what fantastic theories theists come up with, reality remains consistent throughout. The only real difference is that theists continue to view the world through their faith-perspective glasses. Theists enjoy no more or less of an advantage when it comes to the reality we all share. Thus, faith in the supernatural is more or less irrelevant.

Salmon of Doubt

Religion springs from one of the most complex places we know- the human brain. I can't explain why it is exactly that many people have subjective experiences of what they interpret as 'the divine', but I know it has something to do with the brain. When we develop the technology to scientifically examine the constructs that the human brain creates, we will have a better understanding of why the brain seems to have a predilection for creating religious experience.

We can explain religion by suggesting that there actually IS a divine presence, despite all the huge mass of evidence contradicting this, or we can have a look at the brain. This organ has been shown to conjure up things like false memories, altered states of consciousness, and physical pain in limbs that have been amputated. It's not so much of a stretch to hypothesise that such a complicated and poorly understood structure could invent the subjective experience of religon.

Kvalhion

Another argument from ignorance. I am sure at some point in the past, people felt gravity as the hand of god holding them to the earth. Did this mean they were wrong?

Yes, as a matter of fact it does mean that they were wrong. The fact remains that there is no compelling reason to assume that that which we cannot currently explain will not have a naturalistic explanation.

There are countless things in the past that were assumed to have a supernatural explanation that has been shown to be naturalistic. There is not one example where a supernatural explanation has been shown to be true. Not one. Our current lack of understanding is the only technicality those who wish to believe in the supernatural can use.

When you are able to exemplify just one simple task not explainable through nature, perhaps your argument will have merit. As it stands now, it is merely an argument from ignorance ad nauseum.