All Religions Are False.

If that is so, then yes. The thread title says clearly though: All religions are false. Which is something different. If it is ment to be about something specific (like the supernatural propostions of abrahamic religions) the statement/claim should be proposed more specfic. If the statment is generalized no-one is mixing things up when they reply to that generalized statement.
People would get a far different answer from me if they would properly specify what they regard false exactly

 

I say "I don't believe" meaning from my small perspective of the world, I have not seen any religion deliver all that it promises.

That being said, I HAVE seen religion benefit people in my life in GREAT ways.

Ex. My stepfather was diagnosed with rectal cancer and was never in the least bit religious prior to that. The more he deteriorated, the more I saw an overwhelming faith grow in him. His religion and faith helped him cope and deal with the pain of this world. Never would I have seen the happiness that I did from him in those last days had he not found faith in something to make the unknown less frightening to him. I respect that and I would never ever have taken that away from him.

Really in the end, what I am saying is that it's really had to fulfill promises with systems based on belief and word of mouth. I am human and therefore just as guilty of this.

 

I wouldn't call it a 'guilty' matter but maybe I would be nitpicking here

But yes, we are all human and if we are unpragmatic about other people's faith, even when they're at least as constructive in society and reasonable as the next person, then one seems to be adding to the intolerance and is a part of the problem of why people are still polarized about these matters.
Being pragmatic about other people's beliefs doesn't mean accepting parts of a religion (or actions of people that seem to be based on their religion) that happens to have a negative impact on people, society etc. btw! I say this because it seems to me that most unpragmatic people that are against one or more religion, certain atheists for example, make a problem of religion as a whole or often state it as such.

 

So in general terms over all subjects it is intolerance or polarization that i seek to go beyond because in not going beyond it, the argument cannot be solved or it remains a continuing mystery not resolving the point to anyone's satisfaction. I figure what is the use of the debate beyond personal refinement of your own position if there is no congruence.

 

Is religion still beneficial if it is say attempting to prevent stem cell research which could potentially combat your stepfather's cancer?

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this sentence...

...Anymore than I would be if you replaced religion and faith with Heroin and alcohol.

It may provide a means to escape reality but I don't think it's necessarily beneficial.

 

Well, I am aware I am targetting a specific matter. Yet, It still is about determining what exactly is false. If nobody would have argued specific things I would not be reacting to it/making it about that. I understand Mr. Writer for example beliefs (thinks ) he's constructive about this matter and that he says what he says because he cares about (things happening in) reality. Yet from my pov he is not as constructive as he seems to think he is. In fact, he is sometimes making an issue of things that don't have to be an issue on itself (the theistic belief on itself for example).
As you have pointed out yourself different concepts that may contradict eachother do not have to oppose eachother in reality. They only really oppose eachother when people oppose other people's beliefs/thoughts on a matter (the belief in a higher power for example). People with faith in a higher power do not have to be in conflict with reality, so their faith is not a problem on itself.

I'm sorry dope, but what you are pointing out that I am doing (reacting to other people's statements that do not seem sound to me), is exactly what you are often doing

 

Elaborate on how theistic belief in and of itself is not an issue in regards to the discssuion...

 

I said it was the same on a larger scale. Addressing the same fundamental issue across subjects, in reference to the statement splitting hairs. No apologies necessary. I think the problem of my language is in reading maybe too quickly.or inserting the element of attack. By attack I mean conceiving me as of opposing position.

So our powers of distinction are sharpest in determining what is the same and what is different and what a thing is for. Not splitting hairs but arranging so they fit neatly onto everyone's head. We confuse our communications and our understanding by not distinguishing elements. Say religious ritual. Two different things when taken at face value, religion and ritual.

 

There are religions that do not have the element of belief in a diety

 

I ment issue as in problem/problematic. It does not matter if 2 different concepts seemingly contradict eachother when put next to each other. It matters if the person holding this theistic belief is in conflict with reality or not.
It doesn't (shouldn't) matter if a different person holds a contradicting belief. Not on itself anyway. Maybe it matters when those 2 people are clashing or something but not before.

edit: spelling!

 

This is understandable, but where it comes to another person's belief in a God it is not really about YOUR comfort at first. Maybe if you make it about it, then yes. But on itself there isn't a problem. When the person with a theistic belief is out to evangelize or convict you... yes, then it is a different matter. But when we are all sharing our own views on it in a friendly convo there doesn't have to be any conflict.

edit: not between the people conversating, but most importantly not inside that person with that theistic belief and reality. No conflict.

 

Here is an intersting bit about ray Bradbury. i once heard him say simply....god is love.....
but I think he drew from many things as he says here....
I do not follow any religion....but my heart....for lack of a better word does all of my spiritual talking.....i think.....I believe in energy.....


ok...here is brabury, who died at 91 years old....not too long ago.....

"Bradbury called himself a “delicatessen religionist.”1 By this, I assume he meant that he liked to take bits and pieces of the world’s religions and digest what seemed the most agreeable, leaving out the rest. Some might say this is non-committal, a cop-out, picking-and-choosing, but for Bradbury, it seems to have been a more meta-religious approach. He said:


My religion encompasses all religions. I believe in God, I believe in the universe. I believe you are god, I believe I am god; I believe the earth is god and the universe is god. We’re all god.2

This unity of all things in God could be a sort of pantheist or theist approach, or it could be viewed as a feature of some of the world’s Eastern religions–Buddhism or Hinduism perhaps, or even Universalism in the West. Interestingly, Buddhism seems to be the only specific belief system Bradbury mentioned to the press when asked about his religion:


I don’t think about what I do. I do it. That’s Buddhism. I jump off the cliff and build my wings on the way down.3

Occasionally, religious themes surfaced in Bradbury’s writing. For example, in his book, The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury laments the divide between science and religion that exists in human society. He blames Freud and Darwin and mankind’s pluralistic way of thinking while praising the fictional Martians for their ability to reconcile science and religion.4

Clearly Bradbury was an intensely spiritual person. Biographer and friend of Bradbury, Sam Weller, wrote that Bradbury would often proclaim his gratitude toward God when he realized how fortunate he was to live the life he had and possess the talents he possessed. Weller wrote that Bradbury once said while reading some of his own work:


I sit there and cry because I haven’t done any of this. It’s a God-given thing, and I’m so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, ‘At play in the fields of the Lord.’5"

 

Now, isaac Asimov, who was truly a great mind....


Above all, however, Asimov was an unrelenting humanist:


I’ve never been particularly careful about what label I placed on my beliefs. I believe in the scientific method and the rule of reason as a way of understanding the natural Universe. I don’t believe in the existence of entities that cannot be reached by such a method and such a rule and that are therefore “supernatural.” I certainly don’t believe in the mythologies of our society, in Heaven and Hell, in God and angels, in Satan and demons. I’ve thought of myself as an “atheist,” but that simply described what I didn’t believe in, not what I did.

Gradually, though, I became aware that there was a movement called “humanism,” which used that name because, to put it most simply, Humanists believe that human beings produced the progressive advance of human society and also the ills that plague it. They believe that if the ills are to be alleviated, it is humanity that will have to do the job. They disbelieve in the influence of the supernatural on either the good or the bad of society, on either its ills or the alleviation of those ills.

He revisits the subject of self-classification in a letter to a friend, articulating the same gripe with the label “atheist” that Brian Cox would come to echo decades later, and writes:


Have I told you that I prefer “rationalism” to “atheism”? The word “atheist,” meaning “no God,” is negative and defeatist. It says what you don’t believe and puts you in an eternal position of defense. “Rationalism” on the other hand states what you DO believe; that, that which can be understood in the light of reason. The question of God and other mystical objects-of-faith are outside reason and therefore play no part in rationalism and you don’t have to waste your time in either attacking or defending that which you rule out of your philosophy altogether.

Speaking to the core belief that the unknown is a source of wonder rather than fear, a fundamental driver of science, Asimov allows for the possibility that his own convictions about the nonexistence of “god” might be wrong, with a playful wink at Bertrand Russell:


There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven. And what if I’m mistaken? The question was asked of Bertrand Russell, the famous mathematician, philosopher, and outspoken atheist. “What if you died,” he was asked, “and found yourself face to face with God? What then?”

And the doughty old champion said, “I would say, ‘Lord, you should have given us more evidence.'”

But Asimov’s philosophy shines with its fullest heart in these beautiful words penned at the end of his life, at once validating and invalidating the mortality paradox:


The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday’s love is part of today’s and the confidence in tomorrow’s love is also part of today’s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die — I almost believe, rationalist though I am — that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed.

 

How beautifully put.....Dr. Asimov....to repeat

"The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday’s love is part of today’s and the confidence in tomorrow’s love is also part of today’s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die — I almost believe, rationalist though I am — that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed. "


and what I also feel....

 

So those are two great minds....one had more of a theistic approach and the other more of a scientific one.....but both seemed to come to same conclusion.....

 

I think of all of this that we live in or just another way of saying what Asimov said there is that....space, time, etc....is a fabric......each of us...or our lives makes the tiniest indentation in that fabric of space and time.....which is there forever......

our lives do matter.

 

Well so far as Bunnielight has suggested, theistic belief is in conflict with reality. She suggested the stories in the bible are meant to be viewed as fables, even by theological scholars.

So is there anything in say Christian theistic belief that waivers from these biblical concepts which would not contradict with reality?


I agree about it not being about MY comfort whether someone wants to believe in supernatural beings and what not, it's not about MY comfort if someone uses heroin either. That doesn't make these things beneficial necessarily.

 

Cognitive Dissonance.

Also, beliefs generate behaviors, and we all care about the behaviors of others, especially when they impact us directly. The set of "religious people" is not some set of quiet people who keep to themselves and never bother anyone or anything; reality is much different than this, and speaking only for myself, I am speaking out against that reality. If there a mystic in a cave somewhere thinking thoughts in his head about god, I couldn't care less. This is a strawman; I'm against fundamentalism, ignorance, and the religious moderates who toe the line and allow the truly awful stuff to happen.

 

that does a pretty good job of summing up the problem with the title of this thread.
yes there are these things called religions. and a very mixed bag of both good and evil it is, that they exist.

they all claim things which are logical and/or physical fallacies.

this can almost be dismissed as a triviality. physical things and logic about them, simply isn't their field.
whey they alllude to them, they do so in an attempt to point out something else.

what is of somewhat germaine concern, is that to verying degrees, they also harbour a number of moral fallacies.

most especially that of morality being hierarchically dependent.

there is only one morality, and lets not get into spliting hairs and heads over what constitutes harm and or suffereing,
but in a nut shell, morality is the self dicipline to avoid, or at least seek to avoid, causing them.

the belief that we cannot learn how to do so, without a hierarchy to guide us, or that we cannot actually impliment such self restraint without one,
is where institutions of religions, like those of other things, are being somewhat less then rigorously honest with us and with themselves.

people are perfectly capable of diciplining themselves without the slightest hind of a religious belief.

the biggest obstical to putting moral self restraint into practice, is the over riding authority of heirerarchies.

i would like to point out however, that it is also quite possible, quite simple and natural even, to have religious, or spiritual beliefs, without hierarchies as well.

as my own in no way depend upon them. and i'm sure many many people have their own little friendly or otherwise, relationships with the inexplicable.

i don't mean that in a hard literal sense either.

well you can take what you don't see as being as friendly or unfriendly as you see fit.

you can take it as not existing too, of course, as many people do.

people don't have to be told what morality is, to practice it.

again i'm talking about the real morality of the will to avoid causing suffering and harm.

they don't even have to have a word for it to do so.

nor of course to do the exact opposite,

nor to know they can choose to do either.

and while nothing comes out exactaly how we choose, statistically, what we choose, is generally reflectable in our choice of actions.

its not even religions themselves that are the falseness, so much as people using them as substitutes for the real deal.

which as least some religions, 'western' ones, like christianity and islam especially, though even buddhism isn't entirely innocent of this,
actually and unfortunately, tell them to do so.

 

any reasonably rational description of "God" seems a bit superfluous in my eyes. idk, a person can no more choose to believe in God than I can choose to believe that unicorns are real. I can study and memorize all of the features unicorns should possess, say that I believe they are real, and try to convince myself to believe it but my in my mind I know it's silly to believe such a thing and the rational part of my brain won't accept it, no matter how much I'd like to believe in unicorns.

if you can show me just one unicorn, then I'll be an instant believer and admit I was misinformed, but the thing is I've never seen one, nor heard any account from any credible source of a real life unicorn sighting and I've only seen them in artwork and read about them in fairytale books.