Identifying false religions.

And you think the world we currently live is...in bad condition?Just think what would happen if all of the 6 billion people in the world thought the same way you did....we would end up in a more moral and orderly world, right? Right!!How can someone not seethe idiocy of such statements?

Hey Rahvin,I know of no better way to evaluate the merits and demerits of a desire, wish, or claim than to assess its consequences. I can't see how you can disconnect a claim form its consequences while assessing it and why you would do something like that. Hey Killinghurts,I would first study the religion and its scriptures if any, then talk to as many number of claimants of the religion as I wish as ask them if following their religion has changed them in anyway for the better. I would try to assess if what they claim reflects reality (so I would preferable talk to friends). Since religion is about morality, the more the religion changes a person for the better, the better it is in my eyes. I also think religions that people are willing to give their life for carry special merit. Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

So, why are you treating AZ's statements as a statement of fact rather than an expressed philosophy? I can see how the fallacy would apply if I had said said words in response to a...well, fact. If I said "well, this world is a bad place because the sun rises in the east"..then the fact that the sun rises in the east still remains intact and untainted. But we're not dealing with facts here, are we?You've used facts, Rahvin, to make your point clear to me. Facts about the earth, the sun etc. I fail to see how AZ's: is a fact rather than philosophy........or why you would make it out to be that way in order to facilitate a logical fallacy. All I cannot help but see in that philosophy is ego-centrism.... The consequences of 6 billion people following the philosophy in question would be infinitely detrimental to the world's moral state. So, am I not allowed to draw any conclusion about the merits of the philosophy based on its consequence? Or is that a logical fallacy....I don't see what benefit there is to make it out to be. At best, we would disagree with each other...Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

An example of "sometimes you read what you what to read as opposed to what is really written"?I never said that a morally disorderly world implies the absence or presence of God. If I need to write something within the next two minutes, that doesn't mean that a pencil will fall down from heaven to aid me. A pencil could be present irrespective of whether or not I need it. I can't make it exist by wanting it (well, maybe mentally I could, but not in reality--which reality is more important than the fancy thought world). I only intended to say, ego centrism is a poor philosophy to live by. However, you do raise a relevant point. I think a person who believes other religions are wrong just because they are not his/her religion is himself wrong in his thinking and he could do better. I do not think hinduism is wrong because it is not my religion. I have no personal say on whether a religion is true or false.....and no one does. I feel very sad when people use religion as a tool for personal hidden agendas. Well, you garlanded me with the prestigious "creationist makes logical fallacy" honor, so what else could I have said? Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

Bitter reality. Your are right. It is ironic that religion, whose intention is peace and morality, often is the source of spite among otherwise congenial brethren. Just take the ongoing hindu vs. muslim battle in India, for example. Hundreds of innocent lives are being sacrificed on the alter of religion for no sane reason. One-eyed prophet? Religiophobe? Sounds like the judgment of Thamus...yeah, the invention of writing did breed forgetfulness and false wisdom but it also enabled widespread communication amongst other benefits. It is rather drastically pessimistic to say that religion is "the" (wow!) bane and nothing but "the" bane" of human history. Correct. 'My conception of god' could equal anything...and that includes intangible ideas...which cannot be tested against reality to assess their truth. Therefore there is no point in even defending or professing "my conception of god' on the basis of "well, its MY religion'.Evaluating a god concept against reality doesn't always work. For it to work, the god must be tangible...which barring a few hindu gurus, all gods are intangible.

Sorry, Peg...but that was hilarious. Hatred of science? People who hate science have serious problems and need immediate help. THAT is a sickening disease.On topic,If someone claims to have self-confessed hatred towards an object, then either their religion that they accurately follow is false or they inaccurately follow a inherently true religion...which makes THEM false believers in a true religion. No one can be a true Christian and also, hate willingly, willfully, and pleasurably. To put it bluntly, I would just make the assessment that something is wrong with Christians that hate as opposed to something is wrong with Christianity itself. By observing the lives of my friends. This is why I mentioned that I'd make my observations on friends.If a friend of mine who has problems with a notoriously bad temper confessed to have experienced a change in his temper for the better and attributes it to prayer, then I would talk to him about it. Ask him why he prayed. Ask him what exact happened when he prayed. Ask him why he thinks prayer has changed him etc. Because we all define morality differently. What I think are moral you might think are immoral and vice versa. No. Okay, cross off the word merit and make that "deserve special attention"I meant, when people give their lives for the sake of their religion with no earthly benefits to reap then they must seem to live for a higher purpose and I would try to give that purpose special attention in my analysis. That purpose might or might not be valid, but it certainly speaks out loud. If that purpose turns out to be highly invalid and immoral, like Jihad or whatever, then.....its time to wrap this one up and start probing a different religion to find the true one. But its turns out to be valid and beneficial to everyone, then I would delve deeper into that particular religion.Non-personal religions would not even qualify in my list of religions to probe. Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

It struck me as humorous because Peg pretty assertively made a quite false judgment and Huntard followed it up with another false judgment leaving no room for further perusal of the claim made at the beginning.In order to answer the question, we first need to define "man-made" and also its converse. After this, the people that dogmatically assert that God cannot be detected or understood by human efforts can happily withdraw from the debate. The people that do agree that God-made religion(s) are detectable now need to agree on a set of criteria that identify supernatural origins. And to my knowledge, there is no objective way to detect supernatural "footprints" like you would detect the presence of H2S gas in a chemical reaction. This is where faith comes in. Exactly. To me, this disqualifies man-made or heaven-made as a criterion for identifying the true religion. I could tell someone that the Bible is straight from God's mouth....but again, couldn't a Hindu claim that the Bhagavad Gita is of divine origin or something like that? Faced with a situation where pretty much no religion confesses to be man-made, what do you do? Ultimately, it is what one chooses to believe in with faith, not evidence. True. But again, there's always two sides to a coin. Just like when the stethoscope was invented, medicine started to become more about the disease than the patient, so also as technology-through science-progresses, some people have made their lives become more about technology itself rather than using technology to make something out of their lives. Balance, is missing.What I was thinking of when Kitsure mentioned theists hating science, is when people choose to ridicule science when one or more of its theories disagree with what their specific religion claims. Religion does very little to tell us about scientific laws or principles...science is where we get that type of information from. And we should respect that. The reason I do not agree with the ToE, however, is because it does not accurately depict reality, IMO. I may be considered a fool for thinking this, but this is the stance I'll take for now. Absolutely. There is a reason why every human being, in general, has a sense of right and wrong. Whether a kid has been taught the concept of murder or not, if he does it--then he's going to feel bad about it. Constructive emotions such as love and kindness had a beneficial effect on the human society as a whole. When a religion teaches us otherwise, we are entitled to question--why? If the answer is based on plain dogma (well, because the reliigon says so), then somethings wrong. This said, if the religion in question--like you propose-- calls for squirrel hatred, then we are entitled to question the motive behind this. I wouldn't be impressed by a religion that does this because there is no point to it. (Or, I think there is no point...someone else may love the idea of squirrel-hatred, IDK) No, assuming you're giving me objective evidence, said god would still god, whether I admire his squirrel-hating ideas or not. The question is, should the squirrel-hating imply something about the god? Does it imply that he enjoys causing others pain? Does he ill-treat lower creatures? Etc. If all said and done, he turns to be a hate-loving god, then I really would be VERY hesitant to worship him. I would think about it. To take their word for it, would be pretty naive. And...foolish. In this sense, I 'm with you.This particular idea of "religion bringing about a positive change in a believer's life" really stemmed from personal experience. Growing up, I was a pretty stubborn kid. I was great at academia and often used this as an excuse for being obstinate and not listening to my parents. "I know everything". Right around 10th grade, I started taking my religion seriously. Nothing about my parents' upbringing had changed. They have always been people of discipline. Nothing really in my surroundings changed much. I was still great at school. But I experienced a big change in the way I thought ever since I started practicing my religion with all my heart. To my best knowledge, the change was supernatural. I mention this at the risk of "exasperating" you, Rahvin (as you will remember our conversation from the Forum name change thread ), but I do think this is how religion is supposed to work. It’s supposed to change you and that change should, objectively, be attributable to religion and only religion. This would mean that I would first ask my friend if he took anger management classes, or started doing yoga, etc in order to rule out any alternate possibilities. It would be more methe outsidermaking an assessment as to whether or there exists supernatural work in a given person’s life, rather than just taking their word for it. This is what happens when I read missionary biographies. William Carey’s life, for example, bears distincy marks of supernatural intervention. Jim and Elisabeth Elliot’s does. You get the drift. Contrary to how subjective it may sound, I do think that assessment of supernatural working is not only distinguishable and appropriate, but also necessary in religion. Consider Christianity’s, The fruit of the Spirit, the point behind is was precisely this. Do people change for the better and is this because of their God? If you think otherwise, you will explain to me. And I would like to hear. Non-personal religions are ritualistic and that is a trademark of salvation by works, which IMO, is impossible, salvation by works that is. In Hinduism, for example, you earn your way into nirvana by accumulating good deeds throughout your lives.and who knows, you may or may not make it to moksha. It is strictly man-based. And therein lies a problem. In religion, you shouldn’t have to rely on yourself to achieve spirituality because spirituality thus gained is fallible. How would you verify whether belief in Hanuman, a hindu god is accurate or not?
How would you, Jesus Christ?
How would you, Allah?
How exactly do you test beliefs against reality? What exactly is your conception of God, Rahvin? I ask this because what you just said begs the question, is a religion’s God incapable of making it a prefect religion? Is this because he is imperfect? You would think that the true God would create the true faith..true implying everything in it is true. Incorporating science into religion, aren’t you? Why?
What if we NEVER are able to identify the true religion in spite of there existing one? If science was as successful as you portray it to be in solving theological problems, then why are we here on this forum talking about true and false religions? It has nothing to do with the accuracy of their beliefs. I only said that my attention would be drawn to it and it would interest me because I think there must be something special about that religion that makes them behave so nobly. They might very well be behaving nobly for a ridiculously lousy cause...but still they draw attention. And that simply is my point. Right. So walk me through on how you, as you claim, would dispel the myths and collect objective data? Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

The question then is, does Christianity encourage hating people? The answer is no. So where are these people who profess to hate certain sects getting their motivation from? Obviously, selfish motives. There is not one verse in the Bible where it says you will hate one another if ou disagree with one another. Absolutely. As a skeptic, I would be fair enough to allot equal attention and persual to all religions within reach. Yes, Rahvin and you make the same point: The most basic human instincts are positively oriented to achieve community- wide harmony. However, we wouldn't exactly define these as "morals" A moral is a command. A command often is a prohibition of something. To not murder because it hurts someone is FAR different from to not murder because it is sin. The former is an instinct, the latter is a moral. This is what I would argue. We need religion to even tell us what the higher purpose in question is, yes? How can you separate the higher purpose and religion? You might argue that atheists live for a high purpose: unity and community. But my problem with this is: different atheists have different purposes in reality. What religion does is it streamlines that higher purpose. Hypothetically, we can. In reality, I don't think its going to happen. Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

But is there a common atheistic higher purpose? One that all of them strive to follow or are supposed to follow? Is there one that I haven't yet noticed? Atheism, unlike religious belief systems, doesn't flesh out its dos and don'ts, does it? So atheists are indeed allowed slack when defining their individual higher purposes. Whereas in religion, you are allowed no say or what you want your purpose to be.

Hmm, so I'm not the only one that gets accused of proselytizing. Well, that's why I'm here at EvC. Evolutionist scholar galore. I hope to learn a lot from here even if I'm not able to contribute as much. Like I said somewhere else on this forum, I prefer to stay away from the mainstream Creo-Evo debate itself. This doesn't mean I'm not willing to learn about the ToE. Just, I like to be something of a "lurker" and learn what I can. I don't know what I am going to end up believing. But one thing I do know, I will never be a theistic evolutionist. So for me, it’s either be a Evolutionist/Atheist or Creationist/Christian. Right now I espouse the latter position. And I'm trying to learn more about the former position. So, you see inherent contradictions within the teachings of Jesus and the moral behavior of the OT YHWH. You also see contradictions between Jesus' NT teaching and the practical life of many believers. And this is holding you back from being willing to accept Christianity as a valid religion. Yes? I can't resolve this for you.....that too, on an internet forum. I do agree with you that there are apparent contradictions within the Bible. The OT law is eye-for-eye, as opposed to the NT teaching of turn-the-other-cheek. I could, at best, tell you what I--as a Christian do when faced with such a situation as you (believe me, some of us do think about what we believe) but this hardly would be a generalized solution for your problem. Nevertheless, if it will help you, I will tell you. Yes (Word in brackets is mine, added for my clarity sake)True. My family is Christian, yes. Like I said earlier, ever since I started taking my religion seriously (which would be around 15 yrs of age), my scrutiny of Christianity also began. I can't say that I've questioned it with consistent intensity...only progressively increasing intensity. I still question a LOT of things in my religion today... I struggle with them. I was saved as a young kid, 6 yrs old. Given a chance to re-enact my life, I would still choose to be saved at 6 yrs age through my Mom sharing the Gospel with me at home over a period of time until I was able to understand the basic idea behind salvation---Which is what happened in reality. I would not prefer to walk down the road I myself am currently proposing in this thread simply because, as Rahvin, you and I---and everyone else are discussing, it is ridiculously difficult to "pick the true religion from a myriad of imposters" I can say that through all my struggles with my faith, I have never once decide to forsake it. I have many times felt like forsaking it but the emotion vanished when...my faith kicked me back into composure. All this said and done, people might think I am condoning indoctrination. That is not my position. What I'm trying to convey is: religious matters are better off taken on faith rather than scrutiny. This doesn't exclude religion from scrutiny's power. Like I said, by all means question what you believe. Only don't expect to believe or disbelieve by scrutiny. The "guidelines" I propose in this thread might very well have thousands of holes in them. And I can say that pretty much every other guideline set will most probably have atleast 5 holes in it. What do you then? Abandon your search for religion? All roads down the in religion country lead to...faith. Scrutiny should follow faith not vice versa. Hypothetically speaking, if I was re-enacting my life and happened to be unsaved as a say.19 year old, I would still let faith preceed scrutiny even though I have better analytical skills as a 19 year old compared to a 6 year old. No matter how old and mature a person is, salvation is still by childlike faith. Not astute analysis. This is what I believe.I understand that by now, I have exasperated many of you (who read this), sorry I had to state the truth. After all, this is the faith and belief forum....faith is going to come into the picture at some point or the other. A command, not necessarily a prohibition. "Love one another" is as much of a command as is "Thou shalt not steal." "Who decides" is a ubiquitous question in any religious conversation. So there's not dodging that...Now to answer your "how exactly",...I propose that a instinct differs from a moral in that:Violation of an instinct is not an offense against an authority but a violation of a moral is an offense against an authority. Morals are an extension, a reinforcement, of instincts if you would. Morals exist because right and wrong exist. Wrong exists because people intentionally go against right. This tendency to intentionally go against right, Christians not only call inherently wrong---but also an offense against a higher moral authority (God). Different religions have different interpretations of morality. In Hindusim, to the best of my knowledge, there is no sin concept. It’s good and bad works that matter. In Islam, neeyat mattersyour intentions. In Christianity, doing wrong (se defined by God) is a violation against God. Human beings are generally prone to positive instincts. Unless in a fit of rage, or under compulsion, people will not usually resort to killing other people. —This is instinct. What moral is, is when a person understands that if he murders he is committing sin and will be held morally responsible for it. No. Like I said, religious morality is an extension of an already existing, slightly underdeveloped moral compass. Thou shalt not..because I AM the LORD adds weight to the moral. It makes a violation of law violation against God, the greatest moral authority and this installs fear within a believer. To kill is not only wrong because it hurts people (instinct), but it holds me morally responsible to God for my sin (moral). Instinct's source is developmentally obtained feeling but morality's source is reason. You are are moral person when you choose not to go with your evil instincts. But how do you know what is moral and immoral? Your limited knowledge gives birth to your instincts but laws of morality need to come from....a higher moral figure, if there is one. What about kids born to abusive, alcohol, drug addict parents? Do they not need a moral authority figure? Furthermore, do individual cultures get to define moral absolutes (assuming there are)? Thats absurd. We're all one culture--humanity. There shouldn't need to be variant models of morality, should there? Unless people subject their morality to a higher moral authority, they are most likely to allow themselves slack when defining and practicing morality. There’s a reason why the participants of a soccer game are not allowed to referee the game they themselves are playing. Yes? Whoa, do you like to refute my points...erm, oh.... discuss with me, Rahvin! I’m sorry I can’t get to answering your post today. I enjoyed reading it and hopefully will respond to it tomorrow...if I've ruminated it for long enough. Edited by Dr. Sing, : fixed a db codeEdited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

Hey Rahvin, I find this analogy inappropriate. Here, you claim to have a unicorn...with certain qualities. You mentioned no evidence of there actually existing such a unicorn. Whereas, Christianity (I'll speak for it, since I am one) has a structured network of evidence, though not all of it is tangible evidence. Certainly, God is not tangible--but this doesn't mean that He isn't real. There a lot of other things that are real but not tangible...emotions, intelligence, ideas etc. We can see manifestations of these intangible entities but not the entities themselves. Your unicorn doesn't seem to have any effects attributable as evidence of its existence. The only "evidence" that I gather from your post, is you yourself. First-hand eye witness testimony....and I really can't go by that small amount of evidence. I need more. In Christianity, you have data and you also need faith because you don't have all the required data. The difference is, some people treat this data as evidence and other people who are more tuned into accuracy and science tend not to treat it as evidence. Let me illustrate. Let's suppose an accident occurred on a interstate and a bunch of people witnessed it. You were not there at the moment but heard about the accident and became curious about how it occurred. You come to me, who happened to be there when the accident occurred, and ask me what exactly happened there...whose fault did I think it was etc. Well, I tell you that a dark demon with black and white feathers, green claws and big feet came from the sky and collided with a particular car on purpose and immediately after the collision, it disappeared.<--That's an eye-witness testimony. Being the rationalist you are, you immediately dismiss my testimony as...a pathetically foolish cooked-up story. You then find someone else and ask them for their testimony---and they say exactly the same thing I did. Under the impression that every eye-witness you met is a fool, you set out to the accident site to find "evidence". You find some black and white feather.......a green claw.....and a giant footprint. Now, this is the xrux of the matter. Do YOU, Rahvin, believe in demons? No. You don't. So what do you do? Dismiss the data as non-evidence or, interpret the data as evidence of something else (some weird animal or something....but not a demon) Supposing another guy--who believes in supernaturalism--hears my testimony, he is likely to believe what I said. And to him--my eye-witness testimony and the data from the accident site, all translate as evidence.When people approach the same data with different worldviews, differences in opinion are bound to arise. The reality of the matter in question is not affected by opinions. However, individual interpretations are. Christians don't have a pre-conceived idea of God. We take what we read in the Bible as the description of God, about whom we otherwise would never have known or discovered. So, the rationalization accusation is not the fault of believer.s The fact that the God of the Bible is intangible is what is causing our dilemma. If God was tangible, I would be the first person to fly down with Him to wherever you live, Rahvin, and show Him to you. (if I found Him before you did, that is) I would have no need to rationalize the intangibilities because there are none. When He claims to be intangible, in His word, then Christians have to accept that and move on. Its not like we cooked up this image, and named it--God--, assigned certain qualifiers to it one of which is intangibility and try to rationalize the irrational. No, we take what we get form the Bible and just present it as it is. The data given in the Bible is your problem, not the believer who presents it to you himself. Exactly. Well, I can't present you with any more tangible evidence than is already present before you. I've explained that, in religion, faith is inevitable. In fact, a lack of faith is the criterion for damnation in Christianity. I say this not to threaten or offend you, only to present you with the truth that I believe. Ultimately, Rahvin, all said and done, faith is unavoidable. Its like Lycra--you either have it or you don't. There's nothing more I can present to you that will instill faith in you....apart from all that you already see, but do not accept as good enough evidence. So there's zero evidence for Jesus' existence, the Bible veracity etc. There's zero evidence for historical evidence presented in it. The evidence for God stand on the same level as the evidence for your unicorn. Let me ask you this, do you even believe that there might exist a supernatural realm in this universe? If you don't, then chapter closed, right? It's like you dismissing me when I tell you that a dark demon caused the accident on the road. You don't even believe in demons. However, if you allow for the possibility of the existence of demons, you might after all be able to interpret the data as evidence. I'm with you. You will find no disagreement from me here. All said and done, it will take some massive explanation to convert me to atheism. I'm a dreamer, you're a rationalist. I love philosophical thinking. Physical evidence is great, but it also needs to agree with my logic and cognition. If the physical "evidence" disagrees with what reason and logic tell me, then I'm not trusting my eyes on that one. Just to illustrate one example, let's take the huge cognitive gap between humans and other animals. How does evolution explain it? I also have a big problem with abiogenesis (though ToE doesn't incorporate it, it sure relies on it).....apart form copious other matters of interest. Evidence as in like a scientific journal paper? No. I'm presenting evidence from experience.My parents work with abused people and abusive people. Often, people who come from poor economical and morally backward backgrounds, will confess sensing a feeling of fear and guilt after doing something wrong....like beating up a spouse, or killing. It is when people do such things over and over and over again that their conscience gets de-sensitized to the feelings of guilt. People who come form morally poor backgrounds do not always turn out to be bad people. In fact, an exposure to more evil would awaken people's sense of morality. I agreed with you, for arguments' sake, that the squirrel-hating god exists. Then I posed a question, is he a moral god? According to what my inner instincts told me, I judged him as slightly immoral. Based on this, I told you that I would not be impressed with him or feel encouraged to worship him. Let's apply this to real life. I do not appreciate Sati. This does nothing to the existence or lack thereof to the hindu god who calls for it. So, yes, I agree with you that my moral compass is only a guide----not an authority. Nevetheless, if I have it, I will make use of it. So you not only find zero evidence to back up Christianity's claims but also strongly disagree with the Bible moral content? May I ask you, which factor plays stronger in your opinion of Christianity? Why should I believe that this happened only because you left Christianity? Couldn't something else in your life have changed? Okay, so I identify the pattern behind your three series and make up my three and PM them to you? Well, my reasoning is based on the idea that heaven is a perfect place. I have not, till date, met a single person who conceives of a imperfect heaven. Tell me then, Rahvin, would we expect to also find imperfect people in heaven? If you attained nirvana, that means either 1. nirvana (hindu heaven) is a imperfect place, or 2. you have achieved ultimate perfection. I think hinduism encourages pursuit of the latter...hence the whole idea of accumulate good works. But I see neither option as a reasonably possibility, philosophically speaking. An imperfect heaven, is paradoxical....at the same time, human perfection is....impossible. Barring scientific testing, do you allow other methods of testing at all? You know, testimony...history etc? I agree that the concept of gods is not subject to science simply because god is often defined as intangible. But how other claims? What are some observations of yours which you interpret to be not in line with religion in general? Okay, So youre not one of those people who thinks scinece is the answer to all our questions. Like what claims? Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

Hi Rahvin,Pretty long post. I'll take it in pieces....so I might not address all points in one post. This is an interesting point. I think a lot of people who are lovers of objectivity, science, and accuracy tend to fleer the generic religious worldview since it often incorporates absolutes and dogmatic affirmatives. This tends to "get the missionary in trouble" with the more educated, and analytical "proselytes" since they perceive the religious message conveyed to them as a threat to their worldview (how can you be so sure that I will go to hell, or even if there's a hell???), or simply irrelevant to their worldview (who cares, I'm going to have fun when I'm alive...we'll cross the bridge when we get there)--the more indifferent people tend to take this stance. As much the rationalists or naturalists, or whatever you like to call them, disdain the moral imperatives/absoultes of religion, note that the religious also view the lack of a religious moral framework (meaning, one that is based on God and His statues) as a pathetic...almost foolish attempt at living morally. So,you've got one group of people who believe we can't be 100% sure of or right about anything....and another group who believes, unless we are right about some things, we are doomed. This is something the Christian worldview incorporates. Absolutes like "God is always good", "The Universe is in God's control both under good and bad circumstances", "God will never leave nor forsake you", "God rewards evil with evil and good with good" are all examples of things we are called to be sure of 100%, in Christianity. For those of us who are of the religious worldview, this take a lot of faith to consistently believe such things (and proclaim them). Not because they are inconceivable, but because we are inconsistent in our cognition and are easily swayed from our principles by momentary negative feeling or emotion. I'm not sure why different worldviews perceive absolutes differently. But this generally seems to be the case. You seem to count "answered/unanswered prayers" and "fulfilled/unfulfilled prophesy" as evidence, be it confirmatory or contradictory to the hypothesis in question. Whether you yourself have this view or whether you think theists have this view is still unclear to me. I understand that the gist of this section of your post is, treating "answered/unanswered prayers" and "fulfilled/unfulfilled prophesy" as evidence for a deity's existence is a flawed thought process because it incorporates affirmation bias. So, I'm leangin more towards---you think this how theists think. However, I disagree with theists that think that way. All the times when I prayed and prayed and prayed in anticipation of my Cell Biology tests (gah!) during College and still got a B or a C+ and all those days when I didn't bother to pray much about my General Chemistry (pretty easy) tests and still got A's, are not evidence (either confirmatory or contradictory) for the existence of my God. Christians who stake their faith on the criterion of "answered/unanswered prayers" are clearly flawed in their thinking.
Furthermore, it cannot be objectively determined whether a answered prayer or a fulfilled prophesy is exclusively attributable to a deity's intervention or not. (Theists base such matters on faith) Yet, we see Christians saying "God healed my daughter of cancer", or "God protected me from a car accident yesterday".....and this is not because they like attributing seemingly fantastic occurrences to God, they simply are agreeing with what the Bible says. IOW, when God says in the Bible that He will never leave you or forsake you (Heb 13:5) or His angels camp around the ones that fear Him (Ps 32:8), Christians believe those words and agree with them. Unfortunately, some of us do it backwards. We think answered prayers point to "God's goodness"....and voila! His existence. That's plain wrong. I can see how the latter thought process is affirmation bias, but not the former Rahvin.
If my bother promised his son ice cream after dinner, then my nephew is being fair when he tells me the next day that Dad was supernice and kept his promise (something he expected anyway). If, OTOH, my nephew comes and tells me, Dad took me out for ice cream, therefore he is a good dad (I doubted it, but he did it)---then, I would be lead to believe that this little guy needs to change his way of thinking. (whats going to happen when dad forbids him certain things?) God's existence is not contingent on whether or not our prayers are answered. God's credibility certainly is contingent on whether or not predicted premises come true and whether or not promises are kept up, but again isn't this thought likely to be floating around in a believer's mind? So, until a person shows faith, he ideally need not be talking in terms of answered or unanswered prayers. I think you did mention it to me, in the Forum name change thread. And I agree, a different thread would be more appropriate for a Christianity-specific conversation, something I would be interested in. I will try to make my responses as general as possible. I might illustrate my general points using Christian examples though, just to make my case. Topic for a different thread but......and yet, the 4 Gospels are treated as fairy-tales by some skeptics. They don't even consider them as viable evidence, let alone whether they support the hypothesis or not. Okay, I'm with you so far. You showed me the beauty of rationalism, Rahvin. Now let me show you the beauty of imagination (well, you might not like it, but....I listened to you so, )Assume with me that both the testimonial and material data found from your analysis fits no known creature. Assume also that it was proven that no toys with white/black feathers and green claws were found within the vicinity of the accident site. You are unable to reconcile you data with your hypothesis (large bird or toy) and also my hypothesis (demon). What do you do? As you admitted in you previous post, we might NEVER be able to "find the true religion." (OR, I propose, we might be able to find it if we work with available data.) But here's my question, in such a situation, why are you not comfortable enough to wager you faith? What holds you back? After all, faith in God is not a question of being less or more wrong...it is matter of "you know it or don't know it"...Why would you not place you faith on something based on available evidence (though not comprehensive) if its a all or none situation? When I said pre-conceived ideas, I meant ones that people make up. "God should be like this...or that" But the Bible is hardly a pre-conceived notion? It is a historical document. Sure, it contains abstract people like...the Holy Spirit, but it also contains history....like Jesus Christ. I don't know about other religions, but I propose that Christianity doesn't think that way. I won't go into illustrating my point by comparing religions because that would stray from the general tone of this thread. There's a reason. You might not think its valid, but there is one. And I'm pretty confident that it is generally common to most major religions. And the reason is, people believe God cannot be detected by naturalistic observations and analysis. In Hinduism, you meditate...and "know" or "feel" god, In Buddhism also, you give up earthly possession-become an ascetic and meditate UNTIL you "know" or "feel" god, In Islam, Allah is God because the Quran says so period. In Christianity, we know who God is only through the Bible. Don't you think that such a idea might infact be true? You know, that fact that God cannot be detected through scientific analysis.....establishing, that true religion is something that we might never discover through scientific and naturalistic analysis? Do you see the common thread that holds the beads together? Or it is the most beautiful manifestation of human imagination. Faith. I have faith that you will read this message, Rahvin. You might or might not, in reality. I live in SC, I don't know where you live. There's no physical way I could predict if you will read this message with 100% accuracy. BUT, I have 100% faith you will. And when you have read this post and responded to it, my faith will have been proven to be valid. I imagine that you interested in furthering this conversation based on the level of interest and time you put into your previous couple posts. I imagine that you will respond pretty soon, since you have been doing so. I imagine that you will indeed further our conversation. I do not assertively say you will, only that I believe you will. That's faith, the evidence of things unseen...being sure of things hoped for. The Doctrine of Inerrancy rests on the single premise that God's Word is inerrant and the Bible is God's word, therefore the Bible is inerrant. Facts that stand on the same level do not lend each other credence, i'm with you on that part. But, that's hardly how inerrancy works. I have never come accorss the particular view you hold of Jesus. It is quite intriguing. How about his claims? Are they also from a mix-up of different people's claims? Most of Genesis, we can't say prove or disprove. Creation? It is a historical event. Flood? The data is controversial. Noah;s Ark? It is most likely that we will not find it (atleast not in recognizable shape or form) because it provided Noah's family with ready resources in a land of zero natural resources and would have been dismantled. We can't go around dealing with each every piece of data...that would take forever. Furthermore, isn't it curious that the Bible never addresses matters of history when it calls for faith? This is why theistic evolutionists exist. The rest of the Bible is great, but creation is a fairy-tale. Well, doesn't that also explode the ballon that hold God's credibility? Since God says He created the world.....The rest of the post, tomorrow...
I apologize for any typos.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

No, I am not talking only about adults. Take a look at a recent study conducted by Yale University on Morality in babies. The research was well formulated and the results prove to be decisive. Children are indeed born with a innate sense of right and wrong. Whether we term this as morality, in the more adult connotation of the word, is a secondary question. The objective of this research. was to explore the presence/absence of a innate sense of right and wrong in babies.You can read about the experimental setup for yourself, but I'll highlight the main conclusions of the study and a few afterthoughts.1. "A growing body of evidence, though, suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first year of life. Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone. Which is not to say that parents are wrong to concern themselves with moral development or that their interactions with their children are a waste of time. Socialization is critically important. But this is not because babies and young children lack a sense of right and wrong; it’s because the sense of right and wrong that they naturally possess diverges in important ways from what we adults would want it to be."--Page 12. Many developmental psychologists will tell you that the ignorance of human babies extends well into childhood. For many years the conventional view was that young humans take a surprisingly long time to learn basic facts about the physical world (like that objects continue to exist once they are out of sight) and basic facts about people (like that they have beliefs and desires and goals) let alone how long it takes them to learn about morality.I am admittedly biased, but I think one of the great discoveries in modern psychology is that this view of babies is mistaken.--Page 13. All of this research, taken together, supports a general picture of baby morality. It’s even possible, as a thought experiment, to ask what it would be like to see the world in the moral terms that a baby does. Babies probably have no conscious access to moral notions, no idea why certain acts are good or bad. They respond on a gut level. Indeed, if you watch the older babies during the experiments, they don’t act like impassive judges they tend to smile and clap during good events and frown, shake their heads and look sad during the naughty events (remember the toddler who smacked the bad puppet). The babies’ experiences might be cognitively empty but emotionally intense, replete with strong feelings and strong desires. But this shouldn’t strike you as an altogether alien experience: while we adults possess the additional critical capacity of being able to consciously reason about morality, we’re not otherwise that different from babies our moral feelings are often instinctive. In fact, one discovery of contemporary research in social psychology and social neuroscience is the powerful emotional underpinning of what we once thought of as cool, untroubled, mature moral deliberation.--Page 64. Morality, then, is a synthesis of the biological and the cultural, of the unlearned, the discovered and the invented. Babies possess certain moral foundations the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, gut responses to altruism and nastiness. Regardless of how smart we are, if we didn’t start with this basic apparatus, we would be nothing more than amoral agents, ruthlessly driven to pursue our self-interest. But our capacities as babies are sharply limited. It is the insights of rational individuals that make a truly universal and unselfish morality something that our species can aspire to.--Page 7This stuck me as interesting... No, I said I will use it as a guide in trying to find the true religion. For there to exist a true religion, there must also necessarily exist a few or more false religions. My moral compass doesn't tell me "false religions don't exist", it only tells me "this might be the true religion." This is what I meant when I said, my disliking Sati does nothing to the existence or lack thereof of the hindu god, but tells me that the hindu religion is more prone to be a false one. Now, there is personal preference in evaluations that involve a innate moral compass. No doubt. But you can't discard the compass altogether since it does help to evaluate the moral integrity of various religions. It doesn't help to resolve the existence/non-existence issue, but that's hardly a reason to throw it away from the general search.I think I have switched my thinking more along the lines of "will the true religion ever condone x activity according to what my innate moral compass says" and you are tuned into "why does it matter what my compass says to the existence or non-existence of a religion". So we might both be addressing different questions. Remember, the true religion is not identifiable by objective, scientific analysis. You often refer to it as "a 100% accurate depiction of reality." We can only hope to find such a description, we never will. Now, can we have faith that we have found it? Some do. Meaning, you completely exclude the claims God makes in the Bible when evaluating Christianity's accuracy? That's absurd, Rahvin. Why would you do that? You yourself have admitted defining the true religion as "100% accurate depiction of reality" that we might never get around to finding it. In such a situation, don't you have to resort to other means? Means such as .....faith? This is too vague to answer. By christian God, do you mean the OT God, or Jesus? Or both? See, even you are using your innate moral compass and acquired view of morality to evaluate Christianity's moral integrity (or lack thereof). This certainly does nothing to prove its existence or non-existence, but again can we ever PROVE anything? We can hope to be fully assured about something, and that's exactly what faith is. You disdain Biblical moral content, so you tend not to think of Christianity as a canditate for the true religion. (Now, I do think your view of the Bible is based on misconceptions. You might have excellent book knowledge. You might be able to spit out the numbers, people, places, and facts much better than I could. But what does it matter if your knowledge is based on misconceptions?) What mechanism? I don't use any mechanism to say that I've changed for the better since being a true Christian. Neither does anyone else. It is simply a confession. ...not giving up Christianity. ...simply a change in viewpoint Should I take the latter result as a ramification of the former cause, and the former result as a ramification of the latter cause ("driving force behind my deconversion")? This is a strange mix-up. I don't see any supernatural intervention. You simply claim to have left Christianity because rationalism appealed more to you. You claim to have lived a better life as a non-Christian than a Christian, but yourself do not attribute any supernatural cause to it. You are the driving force behind these changes. No, there are effects attributable to religion only. The thousands of missionary lives lived in jungles serving the barbaric are evidence of this. The strong supernatural invention in the preservation of their lives is evidence of this. When observers are able to distinguish a remarkable positive change in a believer discarding all other alternatives in a valid way, that is evidence. The negative effects that come from leaving a religion though are simply a ramification of human freewill. God does not force people. Some of your atheist counterparts might disagree with you. Some of the more non-stringent people tend to lean towards lending credence to religions like hinduism and buddhism. Thats why Pascal came up with a wager.I don't understnad why some people are willing to wager and some other people are not at all. Hypothesis and observations are great for evaluating and understand tangible and natural things. Whereas claims like the ones you mentioned, rely on faith or doubt. Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : editing

I do not believe in theistic evolution because I believe that Bible falls or stands as one piece. There are a lot of things I don't understand or can't explain in the Bible. And yes, most of that is OT material. For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around an eternal hell. The list goes on. Kitsune, no one has perfect faith. We all try. Those who spend their best years "ignoring" and "rationalizing" are pretending to possess perfect faith. I was hardly trying to impress Christianity upon you. I was only giving you an honest answer: I don't know the answer, but here's what I do. But you're right, this deserves a whole new thread. I have already proposed that only faith applies. Even, Rahvin would agree with this, I think. Belief in God is based on blind faith rather than analysis. The people who claim to believe in a particular religion will often confess to not understanding certain parts of it. This hardly means that they "do not have faith" in those parts, it means that they choose to have faith over sitting and analyzing those parts. One example is, the Doctrine of Trinity. No, religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Faith, and spirituality are the same thing. The viewpoint you likely hold is better labeled humanistic. You detach morality from deity, don't you? Then how come you still deal in terms of spiritual and non-spiritual when those terms traditionally belong to the religious realm? And I happen to be with you. No, I am not surprised actually. Non-Christians often espouse more moderate, congenial views. (Although I think if you strtch that too far, we might end up not even having a US legal system.....everything will "be right". Prostitution, abortion...everything.) Often Christians, in their "righteous anger" (Well, is it really necessary?) espouse more stringent views. Either way, true justice is to be sought, whether that means becoming more moderate- or becoming more stringent, according to what the situation demands. No one is always right or always wrong. Which Bible do you read from? Obviously, we're reading from different books. We all start out with basic instincts and develop them as we go along. I don't disagree with this. But morality is not just learning how to get along with each other as a species. Getting along involves and makes use of morality but morality itself is not about getting along. We definately should help such people. I'm with you on that. In what way is it absurd? Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.

Uh, yeah......you sure did, Rahvin I can't promise a reply before Friday. Over the weekend, most probably. But that should be okay....since you've proposed a lot for me to think about and the fact that I'm in the middle of a hectic week.Have a good week! Edited by Pauline, : No reason given.