How to deal with "Every religion thinks it's the right one"

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Bahman said:
The knowledge carries responsibility for those with critical minds, as we are, human being.
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I don’t know what you’re saying. If different religions today means that we should drop religion, then on pain of inconsistency, different views on morality, both today and in previous times, means we should drop morality.

Perhaps a better analogy is government type. Does that fact that there have been many different types of government in different socities over the years mean that we should all be anarchists?
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
I don’t know what you’re saying. If different religions today means that we should drop religion, then on pain of inconsistency, different views on morality, both today and in previous times, means we should drop morality.

Perhaps a better analogy is government type. Does that fact that there have been many different types of government in different socities over the years mean that we should all be anarchists?
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First, we are talking about religion which has nothing to do with morality and government.

Second, you of course have to criticize morality as well, then build your moral framework around the point which you think it is correct.

Third, doubt everything since doubt is the first step toward new knowledge.

Forth, the reality has infinite folds and each human has its own responsibility to become a pioneer rather than a simple follower since each of us has the enough potential.
 
Bahman said:
First, we are talking about religion which has nothing to do with morality and government.

Second, you of course have to criticize morality as well, then build your moral framework around the point which you think it is correct.

Third, doubt everything since doubt is the first step toward new knowledge.
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I doubt that doubt is the first step toward new knowledge. Absolute doubt gives absolutely no starting point for any knowledge whatsoever.

Subjecting ideas to “truth” testing involves virtually the opposite of radical doubt. If you take the position of defending an idea beyond cursory or superficial assaults to holding it against every possible countrary notion, you begin to get a much more accurate portrait in terms of truth value. Being “loyal” to the idea against all assailing notions makes you much more intimate with the truth of it.

Radical doubt is compatible with being a vegetable since even carrots and Brussels sprouts believe nothing and are convinced by nothing.
 
Bahman said:
First, we are talking about religion which has nothing to do with morality and government.
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It does for the sake of the analogy. There are a lot of analogies that compare two things which otherwise have nothing to do woth each other, but that doesn’t mean tha the analogies are bad.
Second, you of course have to criticize morality as well, then build your moral framework around the point which you think it is correct.
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And do the same with religion. Exactly. You should try to doscover the truth, not just drop religion altogether.
 
Bahman said:
Forth, the reality has infinite folds and each human has its own responsibility to become a pioneer rather than a simple follower since each of us has the enough potential.
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Sounds like too many chiefs and not enough Indians? 😉
 
Peter_Plato said:
I doubt that doubt is the first step toward new knowledge. Absolute doubt gives absolutely no starting point for any knowledge whatsoever.

Subjecting ideas to “truth” testing involves virtually the opposite of radical doubt. If you take the position of defending an idea beyond cursory or superficial assaults to holding it against every possible countrary notion, you begin to get a much more accurate portrait in terms of truth value. Being “loyal” to the idea against all assailing notions makes you much more intimate with the truth of it.

Radical doubt is compatible with being a vegetable since even carrots and Brussels sprouts believe nothing and are convinced by nothing.
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Radical doubt is in fact very very necessary when it comes when it comes to belief supported by the fact that it is words of God if and only if one contradiction is found in the words. Doubt, of course not the radical one also is necessary when it comes to human knowledge when it cannot fully explain the subject matter.

Now lets pick up the book of Genesis and see what is written there in the first chapter. It start with:
  1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
  2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
  3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
  4. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
  5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
We all know that the earth was no created and instead was formed as the result of dust rotating around the sun! Do you believe that this is the words of God? Aren’t you going to study the rest of book with radical doubts then? Please notice that Heaven and Earth were created in one day as it was mentioned on one verse, so the whole verse is false if a part of it is false, meaning that Heaven was not created as well…
 
Bahman said:
Radical doubt is in fact very very necessary when it comes when it comes to belief supported by the fact that it is words of God if and only if one contradiction is found in the words. Doubt, of course not the radical one also is necessary when it comes to human knowledge when it cannot fully explain the subject matter.

Now lets pick up the book of Genesis and see what is written there in the first chapter. It start with:
  1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
  2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
  3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
  4. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
  5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
We all know that the earth was no created and instead was formed as the result of dust rotating around the sun! Do you believe that this is the words of God? Aren’t you going to study the rest of book with radical doubts then? Please notice that Heaven and Earth were created in one day as it was mentioned on one verse, so the whole verse is false if a part of it is false, meaning that Heaven was not created as well…
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What you are ignoring here is the literary genre of Gen 1: youtube.com/watch?v=KnerB4Wwk_Y
 
Bahman said:
Radical doubt is in fact very very necessary when it comes when it comes to belief supported by the fact that it is words of God if and only if one contradiction is found in the words. Doubt, of course not the radical one also is necessary when it comes to human knowledge when it cannot fully explain the subject matter.

Now lets pick up the book of Genesis and see what is written there in the first chapter. It start with:
  1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
  2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
  3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
  4. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
  5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
We all know that the earth was no created and instead was formed as the result of dust rotating around the sun! Do you believe that this is the words of God? Aren’t you going to study the rest of book with radical doubts then? Please notice that Heaven and Earth were created in one day as it was mentioned on one verse, so the whole verse is false if a part of it is false, meaning that Heaven was not created as well…
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Actually, I would strongly doubt that the facile interpretation of Genesis that you have so easily applied to it is the only possible one.

What ever happened to your advice about doubting everything? Shouldn’t you be doubting that your reading and interpretation of Genesis is the same as the meaning intended by the author? Why do you so easily and without any doubt whatsoever accept your presumptions and biases about what Genesis is saying?

It has always bothered me that skeptics are very often only skeptical of the ideas they disagree with and swallow holus bolus their own thinking without even venturing a doubt.

Calling the light “day” and darkness “night” does not define the duration of night and day, but rather the nature of both.

Genesis does not make mention of the length of a day, but merely the first “day” was signaled by the coming into being of light. You are assuming what was meant was a 24 hour day. That is taking “liberty” with the text in order to dismiss it as contrary to your world view. However, the dismissal is cursory and superficial. You should, at least, follow your own advice and expose your superficial reading of Genesis to the same level of doubt.
 
Bahman said:
Lets think of a glorious world that everybody is a chief. 🙂
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It won’t be a glorious world. It will be a mess. Most (including me) are not fit to be chiefs. The ones that most want to be are least of all best suited.
 
Peter_Plato said:
It won’t be a glorious world. It will be a mess. Most (including me) are not fit to be chiefs. The ones that most want to be are least of all best suited.
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Aren’t you chief of your realm? You are apparently good in shouting at people in this forum! Using words like superficial, …
 
Peter_Plato said:
Actually, I would strongly doubt that the facile interpretation of Genesis that you have so easily applied to it is the only possible one.

What ever happened to your advice about doubting everything? Shouldn’t you be doubting that your reading and interpretation of Genesis is the same as the meaning intended by the author? Why do you so easily and without any doubt whatsoever accept your presumptions and biases about what Genesis is saying?

It has always bothered me that skeptics are very often only skeptical of the ideas they disagree with and swallow holus bolus their own thinking without even venturing a doubt.

Calling the light “day” and darkness “night” does not define the duration of night and day, but rather the nature of both.

Genesis does not make mention of the length of a day, but merely the first “day” was signaled by the coming into being of light. You are assuming what was meant was a 24 hour day. That is taking “liberty” with the text in order to dismiss it as contrary to your world view. However, the dismissal is cursory and superficial. You should, at least, follow your own advice and expose your superficial reading of Genesis to the same level of doubt.
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How about the first verse and only the first one. Was earth created or it was formed?
 
NextElement said:
This comes up SO often for me when discussing religion with non-believers. They always eventually go to the “Well every religion thinks it’s right and all the others are wrong!”… For me it’s hard to keep the conversation going after that. It’s like, yeah they do, but why does that stop you from finding your own truth?

Any advice for how to deal with it when this is brought up? How can I kind of elevate Christianity/Catholicism above all of the “other” religions that would swear they are the truth?
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I think you’ve said it all here.
That it’s hard to keep the conversation going, is the usual aim of such remarks.
Your next question would be, “What do you believe?”
Do you have weeks, months, years to spend arguing with a resistant person? If you were to follow their train of thought, you would no doubt be able to pretty much uncover the shortcomings of their particular belief system and arrive at the revealed truth, as taught by the Church in regards to the nature of God and His will for us.
 
Reepicheep said:
A dozen people try to solve a complicated math problem. They arrive at a dozen answers. Each person thinks they have the right answer.
Does that prove that none of the answers can be right?
Or could it be that one of the dozen really did get the right answer?
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If demonstrating the metaphysical assertions of religion were as easy as demonstrating mathematical proofs, there would be no atheists.
 
8FootManchild said:
If demonstrating the metaphysical assertions of religion were as easy as demonstrating mathematical proofs, there would be no atheists.
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We are talking about the ultimate truths about reality here. To expect that the truth is going to be right there and you won’t have to look for it is to be intellectually lazy.
 
8FootManchild said:
If demonstrating the metaphysical assertions of religion were as easy as demonstrating mathematical proofs, there would be no atheists.
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Too many great mathematicians have been baffled by mathematical problems to imply that demonstrating mathematical proofs is easy.

Since God is the source of all mathematics as well as everything else, why should demonstrating the metaphysical assertions of religion be easy? :confused:
 
8FootManchild said:
If demonstrating the metaphysical assertions of religion were as easy as demonstrating mathematical proofs, there would be no atheists.
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CS Lewis quote of the day:

“If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.”
 
Vianneyizer said:
I wonder, fellow Christian, why would you ever discuss religion with non-believers? We all know what St. Fracis of Assisi said…

Be well -

Zachary
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“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”? Oh wait, that was someone else.
 
Aloysium said:
CS Lewis quote of the day:

“If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.”
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Except, of course, for there not being “one huge mistake” in the atheist religion. 😉

wnd.com/2005/08/31895/
 
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