Which religion is right?

[NATI BENGALS]

(04-17-2021, 08:09 AM)treee Wrote: I see religion as a precursor to organized society as we know it. A proto-government that helped groups of people survive. Religions that gave good guidelines on diets, social behavior, ect. allowed it's practicers to prosper and grow. Religions that did not do those things stagnated and fell into obscurity.

Definitely.

Some religions are hopefully currently in the process of stagnating. That wouldn't mean forgetting the knowledge that was gained while they reigned. 

[Arturo Bandini]

Religions have nothing to do with God, it's just a projection of what we do.

[Beaker]

The Mormons are right.

[Dill]

(04-17-2021, 08:09 AM)treee Wrote: I see religion as a precursor to organized society as we know it. A proto-government that helped groups of people survive. Religions that gave good guidelines on diets, social behavior, ect. allowed it's practicers to prosper and grow. Religions that did not do those things stagnated and fell into obscurity.

So far as I can tell, "religions" of pre-history were mostly animistic. 

Sounds like you are proposing a kind of Darwinian evolutionary process for religions. 

What if, rather than improving people's diets, early religious beliefs empowered some some social groups over others, and that incentivized the empowered group to strengthen belief, and with it subservience of dominated groups?  That might be quite enough to make system of religious beliefs to "prosper and grow," even if it tolerated bad diets and (by our standards) bad social behavior--like human sacrifice.

[Dill]

(04-15-2021, 03:49 PM)bengaloo Wrote: To me whatever religion fits an individual person is right if its right for them. The problem comes in when people use their religion to inflict force upon people. That has happened in about all religions through history but usually by people in positions of power or elites and not the regular guys and gals who believe in whatever religion they believe in. Freedom of religion is just what it is. People should respect peoples choices as long as they dont inflict harm on others. No brainer.

What amazes me is that you have people from all over the world, way before communication amongst far off countries were readily available, and almost all countries, tribes, etc have some form of a God. That is powerful and I think it is evidence that most people at least at one time believed in some form of intelligent design, or in other words creation by a God or higher being. 

I respect all religions. I believe in God myself and consider myself a Christian. I majored in the sciences and believe there is more evidence for intelligent design than things like the big bang theory. All I ask in return is people to respect my beliefs and dont judge me by it, but rather judge me by how I treat others and the earth.  

This is a very American view of religious toleration. In this country religious belief is like private property, a private matter and no one else's business--so long as practice does not violate the law (e.g., polygamy, animal/human sacrifice). 

What we call "gods" though may be a kind of late development amongst humans, and monotheism a late development that (Egypt 14th cen. BCE).  Most world religions posit divine creation stories, but the notion of a thoroughly designing god seems to me to result from the marriage of Aristotelean logic and Christianity. There is then a "first mover" from whom all else proceeds in a chain of linked causes and effects. That's how you get a god who not only created a hierarchical universe of many degrees extending from the one God down to the levels of hell, but also a "full" universe with every human, animal, and plant, every mineral and star, efficiently placed for divine divine purpose.

This concept intelligent design has been in retreat over the last 250 years though, with the one-two punch of advancing of social and natural science. The former exposes the history of the idea, rooting its sources in history, not the divine, and the latter reveals for example that millions of species of plants and animals died out before humans even appeared on earth, that they evolve and die out by chance, not according to any external plan.

[treee]

(04-19-2021, 12:12 PM)Dill Wrote: So far as I can tell, "religions" of pre-history were mostly animistic. 

For sure. I could see the main purpose being to fulfill our need to understand "why" before we had developed empricism as a bedrock.

Quote:[quote pid='1016871' dateline='1618845128']
Sounds like you are proposing a kind of Darwinian evolutionary process for religions. 

What if, rather than improving people's diets, early religious beliefs empowered some some social groups over others, and that incentivized the empowered group to strengthen belief, and with it subservience of dominated groups?  That might be quite enough to make system of religious beliefs to "prosper and grow," even if it tolerated bad diets and (by our standards) bad social behavior--like human sacrifice.

[/quote]

I don't think your proposal is necessarily mutually exclusive with the Darwinian model; Rather, it fits in it rather nicely. If a religion gave one group an incentive to dominate another, it would almost certainly follow that it would be giving the former group a comparative advantage in the gathering of resources among other things. I do think that is an interesting variable to add onto the others I listed. 

I think it is important to remember that a social behavior being "bad" or "good" is contextual. For example with human sacrifice, it is obviously bad in the sense of personal liberty. Depriving someone of the right to live randomly or by some archaic (and often sexist) criteria could have negative consequences on the group as a whole. However, if we're in a situation where a community is overcrowded for example, then it's possible that the action could have possibly been a net benefit for the group. 

I agree with you that almost any religion is going to have some sort of positive feedback loop acting as a cohesive element to keep the people within it increasingly bound to each other and the belief system itself.

[CJD]

I think the best case scenario is that all religions have some degree of truth to them in that they do have some connection to a God, but in actuality all religions are referring to the same God in different contexts.

I think the most realistic scenario is that cultures develop religions to explain things that they can't otherwise explain. This also is likely what created messiahs. A person thinks they have a connection to God, spreads their word and people believe and follow them based on a collective set of assumptions made that this person is genuine and not delusional and/or conniving.

For what it's worth, all of the messiahs that I can think of seemed to be good people (based on the recountings of them) but those are not really historical records and are likely wildly exaggerated to further the grandeur of said religion and messiah.

That's not to say I don't believe in God. I would not be surprised at all if there is a supreme being that helped orchestrate this world. I don't feel the need to prove or disprove their existence, but am open to either end of the discussion.

I just seriously doubt that being would have the ability and/or desire to try and tell us things 2000 years ago but then, once verifiable historical record was established, suddenly stopped.

[*michaelsean*]

(04-19-2021, 02:26 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I think the best case scenario is that all religions have some degree of truth to them in that they do have some connection to a God, but in actuality all religions are referring to the same God in different contexts.

I think the most realistic scenario is that cultures develop religions to explain things that they can't otherwise explain. This also is likely what created messiahs. A person thinks they have a connection to God, spreads their word and people believe and follow them based on a collective set of assumptions made that this person is genuine and not delusional and/or conniving.

For what it's worth, all of the messiahs that I can think of seemed to be good people (based on the recountings of them) but those are not really historical records and are likely wildly exaggerated to further the grandeur of said religion and messiah.

That's not to say I don't believe in God. I would not be surprised at all if there is a supreme being that helped orchestrate this world. I don't feel the need to prove or disprove their existence, but am open to either end of the discussion.

I just seriously doubt that being would have the ability and/or desire to try and tell us things 2000 years ago but then, once verifiable historical record was established, suddenly stopped.

There are quite a few books out there that purport to be from God.

[Dill]

(04-19-2021, 02:00 PM)treee Wrote: I don't think your proposal is necessarily mutually exclusive with the Darwinian model; Rather, it fits in it rather nicely. If a religion gave one group an incentive to dominate another, it would almost certainly follow that it would be giving the former group a comparative advantage in the gathering of resources among other things. I do think that is an interesting variable to add onto the others I listed. 


I think it is important to remember that a social behavior being "bad" or "good" is contextual. For example with human sacrifice, it is obviously bad in the sense of personal liberty. Depriving someone of the right to live randomly or by some archaic (and often sexist) criteria could have negative consequences on the group as a whole. However, if we're in a situation where a community is overcrowded for example, then it's possible that the action could have possibly been a net benefit for the group. 

I agree with you that almost any religion is going to have some sort of positive feedback loop acting as a cohesive element to keep the people within it increasingly bound to each other and the belief system itself.

Might be "Darwinian" in a sense of selection for survival, but I wouldn't call it evolutionary, as it doesn't present changes in religious belief as qualitative improvements, even if they enhance the power of one group over another. 

So I'm likely in agreement with your assertion regrading the "contextual" evaluation of social behavior. Individual rights and such are a modern invention. We can always find violations of those rights in past societies.  

From a wholly biological perspective, human sacrifice might, under the right circumstances, enhance chances of group survival, if say culling were needed. However, that's only a hypothetical possibility; I can't think of any actual examples.  Also from the bio-perspective war can be positive, culling overpopulation in the absence of non-human predators, etc.  But that's why I don't like to evaluate human behavior from that perspective.   

Even from the biological perspective, it is hard to judge the "success" of human beliefs/cultural practices because in evolutionary terms, they are so short lived.  Going from natural to social/cultural change, one moves from the scale of hundreds of thousands of years suddenly to a few hundred or few thousand years. The longest continuous administration of a state that I can think of is Rome, from the 5th century BCE to 1453, if you count the Eastern Empire. Almost 2,000 years, but hardly the "same" social organization over all that time. The founding Republican form lasted barely 350 years. The "strength" of the Republican period, the willingness to incorporate conquered people into the state, went by the wayside once they started controlling/exploiting territory outside the peninsula. The remaining history is full of "evolutionary" innovations (Marian reforms, Diocletian Tetrarchy) which initially enhanced power, but then came back to bite them in the ass.

There is a kind of advance or development of civilization for sure, in the sense that we incorporate and build on past achievements, resulting in more complex and larger societies, but I don't think this accurately described as "evolution."  And I don't see anything like "providence" or "design" in this either. In the social world, speaking metaphorically, seeds scattered by one species of plant tend to sprout entirely new and unpredictable species and hybrids. "Punctuated equilibrium" is a constant.

[Lucidus]

(04-19-2021, 02:26 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I think the best case scenario is that all religions have some degree of truth to them in that they do have some connection to a God, but in actuality all religions are referring to the same God in different contexts.

I think the most realistic scenario is that cultures develop religions to explain things that they can't otherwise explain. This also is likely what created messiahs. A person thinks they have a connection to God, spreads their word and people believe and follow them based on a collective set of assumptions made that this person is genuine and not delusional and/or conniving.

For what it's worth, all of the messiahs that I can think of seemed to be good people (based on the recountings of them) but those are not really historical records and are likely wildly exaggerated to further the grandeur of said religion and messiah.

That's not to say I don't believe in God. I would not be surprised at all if there is a supreme being that helped orchestrate this world. I don't feel the need to prove or disprove their existence, but am open to either end of the discussion.

I just seriously doubt that being would have the ability and/or desire to try and tell us things 2000 years ago but then, once verifiable historical record was established, suddenly stopped.

In order for any religion to contain truth about or some connection to a God, it must first be demonstrated that said God is in fact real. In the absence of that demonstration, there can be no truth or connection to any God.

The concept of God, is at best, an unfalsifiable proposition which requires the suspension of rational justification for it's existence. 

[Arturo Bandini]

(05-19-2021, 03:45 PM)Lucidus Wrote: In order for any religion to contain truth about or some connection to a God, it must first be demonstrated that said God is in fact real. In the absence of that demonstration, there can be no truth or connection to any God.

The concept of God, is at best, an unfalsifiable proposition which requires the suspension of rational justification for it's existence. 

The fact that you can imagine the question already gives you the answer.

There is nothing else but God. 

[Lucidus]

(05-19-2021, 04:16 PM)Arturo Bandini Wrote: The fact that you can imagine the question already gives you the answer.

There is nothing else but God. 

I disagree with that notion. Imagining the question doesn't give you the answer; it can however, motivate you to seek it. How you seek it, and by what means, can lead you to a correct or incorrect answer, or that there may not currently be a knowable answer. 

[Arturo Bandini]

(05-19-2021, 04:26 PM)Lucidus Wrote: I disagree with that notion. Imagining the question doesn't give you the answer; it can however, motivate you to seek it. How you seek it, and by what means, can lead you to a correct or incorrect answer, or that there may not currently be a knowable answer. 

You can at your will.

It doesn't change the answer though. BTW, I never said it was knowable.

The real question I think besides religion is : 

Is all what we see is a will or just randomly happening ?? 

Because something is happening even if "God" doesn't write books.

[Arturo Bandini]

The universe is the tool to demonstrate the impossibility of everything that is possibly impossible.

It's just God resolving that equation : Is there anything but Me ?

So he created nothing and in this nothing, he injected himself but before "cristallizing nothing" every particle of this universe is testing something that 'can't be' in a quantic way. Which means you create your own reality to be somehow something that is possibly impossible and then die to prove it can't be ...

When you get it, it is clear

What God is doing is 'annihilating' the idea of nothing.

Only God is real, the universe is an illusion. It's not real yet.

It's 1+0=1 but there is no more 0.

What is real is unfailing.

[Lucidus]

(05-19-2021, 04:55 PM)Arturo Bandini Wrote: The universe is the tool to demonstrate the impossibility of everything that is possibly impossible.

It's just God resolving that equation : Is there anything but Me ?

So he created nothing and in this nothing, he injected himself but before "cristallizing nothing" every particle of this universe is testing something that 'can't be' in a quantic way. Which means you create your own reality to be somehow something that is possibly impossible and then die to prove it can't be ...

When you get it, it is clear

What God is doing is 'annihilating' the idea of nothing.

Only God is real, the universe is an illusion. It's not real yet.

It's 1+0=1 but there is no more 0.

What is real is unfailing.

I'm unsure whether this is a serious response or complete sarcasm.

[Arturo Bandini]

(05-19-2021, 06:14 PM)Lucidus Wrote: I'm unsure whether this is a serious response or complete sarcasm.

It's the correct answer, you just didn't get it. 

I don't make the rules.

Ask the boss.

[*michaelsean*]

(05-19-2021, 03:45 PM)Lucidus Wrote: In order for any religion to contain truth about or some connection to a God, it must first be demonstrated that said God is in fact real. In the absence of that demonstration, there can be no truth or connection to any God.

The concept of God, is at best, an unfalsifiable proposition which requires the suspension of rational justification for it's existence. 

Truth exists independent of our knowledge or proof.  Your willingness to believe without the proof is another story.

[Arturo Bandini]

Basically, we are still the exact same energy of the Big Bang just contemplating itself differently.

[Dill]

(05-19-2021, 03:45 PM)Lucidus Wrote: In order for any religion to contain truth about or some connection to a God, it must first be demonstrated that said God is in fact real. In the absence of that demonstration, there can be no truth or connection to any God.

Totally agree on this part, Luce. 

(05-19-2021, 03:45 PM)Lucidus Wrote: The concept of God, is at best, an unfalsifiable proposition which requires the suspension of rational justification for it's existence. 

Not sure about the bolded, though.  I do think the concept of "god" or gods may be falsifiable. 

[Wes Mantooth]

I'd like to believe it was Heaven's Gate who got it all right.  The idea of those crazy bastards just floating around on a comet now brings a smile to my face.