[Id and Ego seek]

I've always wondered this: there are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. alike that doubt their faith on reasons of scripture, ethics, and relevance, but are there any who strongly believe their religion might be the wrong one? Or is that never a thought that goes through your head? If you do, how do you cope with that?

I've always wondered what theists thought of other religions too. Do you accept their religion but think they have it 'wrong' or have been 'misguided'? Or do you resent it all together?

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Id and Ego seek)
I've always wondered this: there are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. alike that doubt their faith on reasons of scripture, ethics, and relevance, but are there any who strongly believe their religion might be the wrong one? Or is that never a thought that goes through your head? If you do, how do you cope with that?

I've always wondered what theists thought of other religions too. Do you accept their religion but think they have it 'wrong' or have been 'misguided'? Or do you resent it all together?

I doubt many people believe strongly that their religion is wrong or they wouldn't follow it at least in countries and areas where community ties are not so strong.

However, I think most thinking religious people will question the truth of their religion and have doubts. Speaking personally, I have often questioned the truth of Judaism and wondered whether it might be false. If I had never done so that would be worrying. However, bear two things in mind. The first is that I am the end of a very long chain of believers in Judaism and its probably not sensible to be hasty in discarding that tradition. The second is that I have strong reasons for thinking that the Jewish tradition is true so that I must weigh the unanswered questions and unsatisfactory answers against those reasons.

As for other religions I think that most people know very little about any religion other than their own (and many know very little about their own). I attended a Talmudical Seminary for three years and learnt a fraction of the corpus of Jewish writings and commentaries. It is extremely unlikely that anyone who isn't Jewish will have spent anywhere near that amount of time studying the religion. So I wouldn't expect anyone who isn't Jewish to know a huge amount about it. And, therefore, I wouldn't expect that I know anything but a tiny fraction about any other religion. Therefore, my attitude to them is that they are wrong because I believe the Jewish tradition to be true. However, I don't know exactly where they are wrong in full details.

By the way (and risking annoying a lot of people) the same goes for atheists too. I wouldn't expect many of them to know more than a tiny fraction of what there is to know about Judaism and so I expect the same goes for other religions too. I take the view that when someone makes a false statement about the Jewish religion that indicates a lack of knowledge that probably extends to all other religions as well.

[janet9]

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, it has to be said, and that the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by janet9)
Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, it has to be said, and that the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

That logic is astoundingly poor. If we followed it we would have to conclude that every idea ever is wrong because every idea is countered with at least one other mutually exclusive idea.

Thus atheism and agnosticism would both have to be equally as wrong as every religion because religion, atheism and agnosticism cannot all be right.

[trying4life]

Yes I do doubt that myself but I tend to look at it from 2 points of veiws
1. The bible does not start off the bible with a religion but by the end of the Bible u have maybe 3 types of religion I find that odd 2. I believe that people misrepresented what religion was meant to be it in my opinion it was meant to represent a way of life or walk of life I should say
Religion has become a joke because most of the religions don't even really follow the laws in the bible anyway so if true religious/ spiritual people see this they just follow instead of standing up to expose what really the walk of life with because I grew up in because I grew up in a relation that I did not believe him as I got older I'm afraid that God will never forgive me because I've been walking in the wrong satellite but only time will tell and I can't do anything but continue to do things that I was right in my heart I love to love 1 another as the best and I can go alone because alternately that is what the 10 commandments was about they might word it differently but it is all sum it up it all comes down to love

[janet9]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
That logic is astoundingly poor. If we followed it we would have to conclude that every idea ever is wrong because every idea is countered with at least one other mutually exclusive idea.

Thus atheism and agnosticism would both have to be equally as wrong as every religion because religion, atheism and agnosticism cannot all be right.

UniOfLife, you are seeing my statement - well, conclusion actually - as not being justified by logical manipulation. I understand that you're seeing it like this:

(A*B)' = A' + B' =/= A'*B'

I tried putting it in Boolean notation, where A and B represent religion and for the sake of simplicity, I've kept it to two.

AB (A multiplied by B) is true (returns 1) if A and B are both true, false otherwise (returns 0);

A + B is true if A is true or B is true;

A' (A not) is true if A is false.

But I did say reasonable, not logical. There's a difference. You can't take my supressed conclusion out of context and expect it to apply to every situation. My intention is not to give a mathematical formula but instead, use deductive reasoning based on the facts of the subject matter. This certainly does NOT mean I'm saying that it is obviously impossible for all scientific theories to be right, thus the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong. Since we know that many scientific theories are 'right' it would be illogical to conclude that all scientific theories are wrong. 'Right', is the easier and next best thing after overwhelming evidence which makes us infer whether or not acientific theories are sufficiently and substantially accurate in their descriptions of certain natural phenomena as to be practical and applicable.

When you look at the underlying beliefs of religions, it's impossible for thousands of mutually exclusive man made religions to be correct about the universe. The reasonable assumption (which isn't going to make the world stop, it's just an assumption) is that none of these religions are correct, as opposed to 1 of these thousands of man made religions is correct. Let's take an example - If we assume there are 1000 religions in the world and 999 of them are are just made up fairy tales, then it's reasonable to assume that 999 + 1 religions are just made up fairy tales. The key word, here, is "reasonable".

[Rainingshame]

(Original post by janet9)
Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, it has to be said, and that the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

You also answered the wrong question....

[hr30]

(Original post by Id and Ego seek)
I've always wondered this: there are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. alike that doubt their faith on reasons of scripture, ethics, and relevance, but are there any who strongly believe their religion might be the wrong one? Or is that never a thought that goes through your head? If you do, how do you cope with that?

I've always wondered what theists thought of other religions too. Do you accept their religion but think they have it 'wrong' or have been 'misguided'? Or do you resent it all together?

I believe that a religion is a way of interpretting your beliefs. My religion is entirely different to that of my best friend, yet we both believe in the same God and we both hold the same principles. The way we interpret scriptures is different, but neither of those interprettations is wrong.

[janet9]

(Original post by Rainingshame)
You also answered the wrong question....

Just wanted to express my opinion as an atheist.

[hr30]

(Original post by janet9)
Just wanted to express my opinion as an atheist.

In a thread aimed at theists?

[Rainingshame]

(Original post by janet9)
Just wanted to express my opinion as an atheist.

fair enough

[Id and Ego seek]

(Original post by hr30)
I believe that a religion is a way of interpretting your beliefs.

That's very interesting. Care to elaborate on that a little more.

You don't think people mold their beliefs to fit their culturally assigned religion, i.e. I'm against homosexual marriage because it goes against my belief? So you think someone starts off being against homosexual marriage and finds a religion that fits that belief, i.e. 'I quite like Christianity because its approach to gay marriage fits my beliefs.'?

[hr30]

(Original post by Id and Ego seek)
That's very interesting. Care to elaborate on that a little more.

You don't think people mold their beliefs to fit their culturally assigned religion, i.e. I'm against homosexual marriage because it goes against my belief? So you think someone starts off being against homosexual marriage and finds a religion that fits that belief, i.e. 'I quite like Christianity because its approach to gay marriage fits my beliefs.'?

My parents are not religious and so my choice of religion was entirely my own.
For me, it was a case of 'I believe in a god. Which religion best fits my beliefs in god?'

I realise that this isn't the case for most people, but due to my not having been 'culturally assigned' one (a fact for which I feel very lucky) I have had the freedom of choice. So in my case, yes it was 'I quite like X because its approach to X fits my beliefs'.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by janet9)
UniOfLife, you are seeing my statement - well, conclusion actually - as not being justified by logical manipulation. I understand that you're seeing it like this:

(A*B)' = A' + B' =/= A'*B'

I tried putting it in Boolean notation, where A and B represent religion and for the sake of simplicity, I've kept it to two.

AB (A multiplied by B) is true (returns 1) if A and B are both true, false otherwise (returns 0);

A + B is true if A is true or B is true;

A' (A not) is true if A is false.

But I did say reasonable, not logical. There's a difference. You can't take my supressed conclusion out of context and expect it to apply to every situation. My intention is not to give a mathematical formula but instead, use deductive reasoning based on the facts of the subject matter. This certainly does NOT mean I'm saying that it is obviously impossible for all scientific theories to be right, thus the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong. Since we know that many scientific theories are 'right' it would be illogical to conclude that all scientific theories are wrong. 'Right', is the easier and next best thing after overwhelming evidence which makes us infer whether or not acientific theories are sufficiently and substantially accurate in their descriptions of certain natural phenomena as to be practical and applicable.

When you look at the underlying beliefs of religions, it's impossible for thousands of mutually exclusive man made religions to be correct about the universe. The reasonable assumption (which isn't going to make the world stop, it's just an assumption) is that none of these religions are correct, as opposed to 1 of these thousands of man made religions is correct. Let's take an example - If we assume there are 1000 religions in the world and 999 of them are are just made up fairy tales, then it's reasonable to assume that 999 + 1 religions are just made up fairy tales. The key word, here, is "reasonable".

And yet still this "reasonable" assumption could be applied in many cases where you wouldn't dream of applying it. For every current (man-made ) scientific theory, there have been loads more that have been discarded as incorrect. Why shouldn't we make the "reasonable" assumption that this one too is incorrect?

In my opinion this assumption is only a very useful way of arriving at the conclusion you started with - namely that all religions are false. It saves you having to do any research whatsoever into any religions. Now of course, you're free to not want to believe in any religion and think that it won't make any difference to your life one way or the other. However, be honest, this assumption is not a "reasonable" approach to life except when you've already made the decision in advance.

If you like we can apply the logic to something less testable than science. Consider political voting - which party should you vote for? Which policy is the correct one? Well every party thinks the policies of the others are wrong therefore surely we can make the "reasonable" assumption that all policies are wrong and just not do anything?