A world with many religions or a world with zero religions

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Tantum_ergo said:
Interesting, Sarah, but not quite correct.

Nothing that we do merits heaven.

IOW, there is simply no way, now that true religion exists (that is, since the time that God made His covenant with the Jews which was fulfilled by Jesus Christ), for us to simply ‘set aside’ true religion.

The truth (pace X-Files) is out there. It can’t be covered up or buried or set aside.

So any person existing in some world in which there is supposedly ‘no religion’ would have access to the fact that indeed, religion exists.

NOT seeking out the truth makes a person culpable for not seeking.
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In the original post I gave 2 criteria which would allow people to get to heaven despite not being members of the true religion. If you wish to dispute them, do so directly.

Have you seriously considered the possibility that the Norse mythology might be the true religion? I suspect you have not, we know that it existed but no one seriously considers it outside of academic interest. In the same way, we could reduce any current religions to a point where no one would take it seriously. Even if they did, the details of what specific religions believed/practiced would not be complete.

You might think that we cannot achieve this end. Perhaps we could consider things this way: anyone who believes they have knowledge of the true religion should not tell anyone about this knowledge in the interest of getting the most people to heaven.
 
That’s like saying "If we want to maximize the number of smart people, we need to get rid of all science and education. That way everyone is equally smart [ignorant of the Truth].

Also, I’m pretty sure “our goal” is to grow closer to God not “get a maximum number of people into heaven.”
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
I thought the Catholic teaching on what it took to get into heaven without Catholicism was pretty clearly laid out (if my memory of my Baltimore Catechism is at all reliable.)

Indeed, there are plenty of people in other religions that have not rejected Catholicism. However, your argument is bordering on this:
“If a person really understood Catholicism, they would know it was the true religion. No one would knowingly reject the true religion. Therefore, all people who reject Catholicism do so out of ignorance and are not condemned because of it.”

However, it is true that we are not the judge of men’s souls. What exactly constitutes a sinful rejection of Catholicism is ultimately up to God. I will contend, however, that the set of people who sinfully reject Catholicism is not empty. There exist good people who have not gone to heaven because of their rejection of Catholicism.

I’m not sure why justice demands the existence of religion.
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No, you are correct in stating that there have been people who have rejected Catholicism. These people, however, were likely rejecting Catholicism out of their own selfish desires. It was one thing to be truly and completely convinced that Catholicism is another. Its quite another to rationalize and make excuses so an individual might not believe in Catholicism and act as he may. Who can say who that label applies to but God Himself? Lucky he’s the one doing the judging and not us.

As for justice. Well, if God exists and He is the ultimate good and is our creator do you not think he deserves worship. Just like we must justly respect our parents it is just to worship our creator and to praise and glorify him. Organized religion is a framework to praise and glorify God. Now I took your question to mean that the concept of the supernatural is abolished. This would mean that people would no longer give God his due. As a result we would have created a supremely unjust situation. The other situation, where only some people give God his due, is not perfect. It is, however, better than no religion at all.
TheTrueCentrist said:
Natural selection is an interesting topic, but I think I will avoid it for now, since evolution is banned. I will say, however, that religion is not necessarily ubiquitous. Instead of religion, certain parts of China embraced Confucianism which is not really a religion (although it did eventually incorporate some mystical aspects.) Rather, Confucianism seeks to achieve the social cohesion and order you mentioned simply by asserting norms, ethics and values.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism
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Yet before Confucianism there would have been other forms of spirituality. There are no known cultures that have not at one time possessed some form of religious belief. If memory serves there is even some evidence that neanderthals performed crude ceremonies honouring the dead which may (admittedly this is speculation) correspond to religious belief.
 
Armyvet007 said:
That’s like saying "If we want to maximize the number of smart people, we need to get rid of all science and education. That way everyone is equally smart [ignorant of the Truth].

Also, I’m pretty sure “our goal” is to grow closer to God not “get a maximum number of people into heaven.”
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Your analogy is not a good one. In the case of religion, there are standards for who gets into heaven. So the analogy you want to make would look more like this:
In order to get more kids to pass a standardized test, we should not teach them anything that is on the standardized test.
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However this is still not a good analogy. Eliminating religion does not eliminate our knowledge of “natural law.” Indeed, we could still have institutions with the purpose of investigating this “natural law.” The correct analogy is this:
A standardized test has 2 parts, both must be passed to pass the test. However, children who were not taught the material in part 2 of the test do not have to take part 2 of the test. Since there is no chance of failing part 2, children who take part 1 only will pass at a higher rate. Therefore, we can increase the number of children who pass the test by exclusively teaching them the material in part 1.
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That goal seems a little selfish: “My relationship with God is more important than the eternal lives of other people.”
 
Durus said:
Your evidence is all anecdotal and personal.

If it weren’t, you’d be on the cover of Time magazine as being the first person on earth who actually proved that God exists.
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Now this simply isn’t true. Philosophy arguments (such as the five ways) show that the existence of God is rational and needed. Physics seems to point to the existence of a transcendent force which exists out of space and time. Historical arguments surrounding the person and nature of Jesus (see the Lewis trilemma and Peter Kreeft’s work on that subject) point to the legitimacy of Jesus. Hundreds of miracles suggest there is something that we cannot see or explain working its magic on the very fabric of our universe. Moral law also seems to indicate the existence of a creator. None of these arguments is anecdotal or personal.

With that said why should we discount anecdotal and personal evidence? I believe that somewhere in the wolds of Northern Ontario there is an Albino White Moose. Why do I believe it? Because people have seen and reported it. Far more people claim to have experienced the divine. It may not definitely prove the divine’s existence but it sure suggests that there may be something to the claim.

Most Atheists I have heard (including Dawkins and Hawking) seem to think that we’ll eventually discover enough about the universe to do away with the need for God. Perhaps they will. In the mean time we must soldier on knowing that our current understanding of the universe not only suggests a God but requires one.
 
davidv said:
Nor are you unsupported denials.

Not by thowing around unsupported opinion.

Neither of which support the OP claim.
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davidv said:
I asked you nicely to stop putting words in my mouth.

And thank you for proving my point with great emphasis, without even knowing what the evidence was.

Do you know what a strawman argument is? If not, read your post.
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OK, but I’ve no idea what your going on about.
 
Another thought occurs to me. The real thrust of your argument is that free will allows people to go to hell, some people will choose hell, therefore eliminating freewill is good.

But God has clearly desired humans to have freewill. In the scenario you have presented Catholicism is true. If Catholicism then God is the ultimate good. Consequently He will choose actions which result in the best outcome. Since God has chosen freewill and He is all powerful, all knowing and all good then we that a world with religion must be better than a world without (since God has created the world in that way). The conclusion, therefor, must be that you are wrong even if we do not have the capability of understanding why.
 
MacBP said:
Another thought occurs to me. The real thrust of your argument is that free will allows people to go to hell, some people will choose hell, therefore eliminating freewill is good.

But God has clearly desired humans to have freewill. In the scenario you have presented Catholicism is true. If Catholicism then God is the ultimate good. Consequently He will choose actions which result in the best outcome. Since God has chosen freewill and He is all powerful, all knowing and all good then we that a world with religion must be better than a world without (since God has created the world in that way). The conclusion, therefor, must be that you are wrong even if we do not have the capability of understanding why.
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We are not eliminating free will. Some people will still be bad, and some good.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
No. People are absolutely culpable.
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The Church quite clearly teaches that there are circumstances that reduce or remove a person’s culpability for the commission of an objectively sinful act.
TheTrueCentrist said:
…But if people are ignorant of the true religion they cannot reject it…
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That’s true, but your statements thus far are incoherent. You say that some people who reject the true religion are nonetheless obeying the natural law, the law written in our hearts; that such people may still attain heaven; and that such people are also absolutely culpable for rejecting the true religion and cannot attain heaven (which by definition means that they were not obeying the natural law).
 
neophyte said:
That’s true, but your statements thus far are incoherent. You say that some people who reject the true religion are nonetheless obeying the natural law, the law written in our hearts; that such people may still attain heaven; and that such people are also absolutely culpable for rejecting the true religion and cannot attain heaven (which by definition means that they were not obeying the natural law).
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I posit that there are many religions which are all compatible with natural law. Therefore, people will chose among them, but not all their choices will be correct.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
Who said that life on earth would be better or worse? I am claiming something very specific:
more people would get into heaven.
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Yes, but you are claiming underneath that “good people” get into heaven. Therefore, if you are proposing that “no religion” would get more people into heaven, it must be because there are more “good people” to get in. Personally, I think a world with more good people would be better.
TheTrueCentrist said:
I propose that if our goal is to get a maximum number of people into heaven, then it is desirable to have a world with no organized religions rather than a world with many.

To do so you must:
a. Be ignorant of the true religion through no fault of your own.
b. Obey “natural law” or the laws “written in our hearts.” Basically you must be a good person.
  1. Therefore, the set of people who go to heaven is larger in the case of zero religions. Specifically, the people who get into heaven are:
    No religions|Many religions
All good people|All good peopleless the set of people who rejected the true religion
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TheTrueCentrist said:
We are not eliminating free will. Some people will still be bad, and some good.
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No, I realize that. But at the root of the problem you want to eliminate choice because because choice leads to less people entering heaven. In the context of this forum post you have limited this destruction of choice to the concept of religion. Expanding this concept it follows that if we desire to get the most people into heaven we will use the principle presented in this topic and expand it to other areas (such as conscience). If we destroy the ability of a person to reason good and evil AND destroy religion than both 1a and 1b must be satisfied. This would be objectively wrong, but IF your sole desire is to get everyone into heaven this is necessary. If everyone must be saved than free will must go.

Consequently, this is really a topic about free will.
 
MacBP said:
No, I realize that. But at the root of the problem you want to eliminate choice because because choice leads to less people entering heaven. In the context of this forum post you have limited this destruction of choice to the concept of religion. Expanding this concept it follows that if we desire to get the most people into heaven we will use the principle presented in this topic and expand it to other areas (such as conscience). If we destroy the ability of a person to reason good and evil AND destroy religion than both 1a and 1b must be satisfied. This would be objectively wrong, but IF your sole desire is to get everyone into heaven this is necessary. If everyone must be saved than free will must go.

Consequently, this is really a topic about free will.
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Recall that in the garden of eden God did not originally give us the knowledge of good and evil. Did he therefore limit our free will?

Obviously if we could force people to be good, then we might consider whether or not forcing people to be good was justified. However, I don’t think we can meaningfully force people to be good. I am not saying that we would eliminate natural law, because by definition natural law is the law that could be independently derived. If you had no religious texts and no knowledge of history, you absolutely could not re-derive Catholicism. You could, however, re-derive basic rules such as “murder is bad” and that is what would be retained after the elimination of religion.
 
lerapt78 said:
Yes, but you are claiming underneath that “good people” get into heaven. Therefore, if you are proposing that “no religion” would get more people into heaven, it must be because there are more “good people” to get in. Personally, I think a world with more good people would be better.
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No, perhaps you are not familiar with my use of “less” to mean “minus.” I will give an example with concrete numbers so you can see my meaning. We will assume that there are the same number of good people in both cases.

category of people|No religion|many religions
1b. good people|100|100
people who rejected the true religion|0|20
people who get into heaven|100-0=100|100-20=80
 
Durus said:
I think you’ve created an excellent post. I know that a lot of devout Catholics will answer that knowing about God and being able to partake in the sacraments is the greatest thing in life!

So, their answer would be, it’s better having religion, so as to give people the chance to experience the sacraments and know the fullness of truth.

I of course will say that it is much better having zero religion and then letting the chips fall where they may.

If you don’t know about the sacraments, then you don’t know what you are missing. So clearly, it is better not to have them, as you won’t risk anyone rejecting them or God.
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Only problem with that thought process is that God gave us the Church and the Sacraments and calls us to Communion with Him. Without them its not a matter of let the chips fall where they may. It’s just that all the chips will fall.
 
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