Probability your religion is true?

cloudyday2 · Nov 20, 2016

Here is another way of asking the question. Suppose I tell you that I will do something mean to you unless you give up some portion of your religious belief. Are their parts of your belief that you care about less than others? Maybe I would say, "give up your holy water ... or else ..." You might say "well I've always had some doubts about holy water anyway, so I can give it up".

yeshuaslavejeff · Nov 20, 2016

cloudyday2 said:
Here is another way of asking the question. Suppose I tell you that I will do something mean to you unless you give up some portion of your religious belief. Are their parts of your belief that you care about less than others? Maybe I would say, "give up your holy water ... or else ..." You might say "well I've always had some doubts about holy water anyway, so I can give it up".

If someone gives up something that is not in the BIBLE,
they aren't going to lose anything ,
but rather will benefit from giving it up.

CodyFaith · Nov 20, 2016

edit. sorry, not mature enough in my walk to respond.

Jack of Spades · Nov 20, 2016

cloudyday2 said:
Here is another way of asking the question. Suppose I tell you that I will do something mean to you unless you give up some portion of your religious belief. Are their parts of your belief that you care about less than others? Maybe I would say, "give up your holy water ... or else ..." You might say "well I've always had some doubts about holy water anyway, so I can give it up".

You might have aswell asked "Give me the most glorious boasting speech you can come up with about your fantasies of having deep convictions for your religion in order to sound holy" and the answers would have been similar

Chesterton · Nov 20, 2016

Jack of Spades said:
Alright. The same evidence suggests to me that at least parts of it are myths.

I'm not nitpicking with your word choice, but since you want to talk about it in terms of historical scholarship, no, they would not be "myths". They'd be something else. Think through the other options and then, in line with this thread, think of the probabilities, or likelihoods.

cloudyday2 said:
Here is another way of asking the question. Suppose I tell you that I will do something mean to you unless you give up some portion of your religious belief. Are their parts of your belief that you care about less than others? Maybe I would say, "give up your holy water ... or else ..." You might say "well I've always had some doubts about holy water anyway, so I can give it up".

Yes, within Orthodoxy you know, there are a few things which we believe which aren't really critical.

CodyFaith said:
edit. sorry, not mature enough in my walk to respond.

That's okay. I've been there.

dlamberth · Nov 20, 2016

yeshuaslavejeff said:
If someone gives up something that is not in the BIBLE,
they aren't going to lose anything ,
but rather will benefit from giving it up.

For myself anyway, I've benefited greatly by not limiting myself to the Bible only. God, I've found, is not and can not be bounded like that.

yeshuaslavejeff · Nov 20, 2016

dlamberth said:
For myself anyway, I've benefited greatly by not limiting myself to the Bible only. God, I've found, is not and can not be bounded like that.

This is 'possible'
only
if you don't actually disobey God.
Men don't know the Bible, normally, so whatever 'limits' you think are there are most certainly not fully accurate.
God knows perfectly what is best, always,
and HIS WORD is best, always.
Men just don't usually agree with God, and actually they reject Him,
so they suffer for it all their lives, and everyone around them too.

dlamberth · Nov 20, 2016

yeshuaslavejeff said:
Men just don't usually agree with God, and actually they reject Him,
so they suffer for it all their lives, and everyone around them too.

I don't reject God. He's my reality in life. I'm very blessed in that way. I also don't know how to limit God or bound Him up as I see Him so very alive and vibrant within so many people in so many spiritual traditions...with in all of Humanity, actually.

MehGuy · Nov 20, 2016

Nice being an agnostic atheist, do not really have to worry about such things.

yeshuaslavejeff · Nov 20, 2016

Good, as much as possible, live at peace with all men.

dlamberth said:
I don't reject God. He's my reality in life. I'm very blessed in that way. I also don't know how to limit God or bound Him up as I see Him so very alive and vibrant within so many people in so many spiritual traditions...with in all of Humanity, actually.

yeshuaslavejeff · Nov 20, 2016

cloudyday2 said:
I'm currently reading... ... ...

it is all lies... what you mentioned...
if you fall for any of it, what then will you expect ?!

MehGuy · Nov 20, 2016

yeshuaslavejeff said:
it is all lies... what you mentioned...
if you fall for any of it, what then will you expect ?!

You're adorable.

cloudyday2 · Nov 21, 2016

Jack of Spades said:
You might have aswell asked "Give me the most glorious boasting speech you can come up with about your fantasies of having deep convictions for your religion in order to sound holy" and the answers would have been similar

LOL it seems that way...

cloudyday2 · Nov 21, 2016

yeshuaslavejeff said:
it is all lies... what you mentioned...
if you fall for any of it, what then will you expect ?!

You are correct that ideas presented by historians are not necessarily truth. If I read two different books from two different scholars, I often get two different pictures. It's not simply that some scholars are clinging to faith and other scholars are free to think objectively; they all have different ideas and they all have arguments for these ideas that sound convincing to a non-expert like me.

In spite of the uncertainty, I think it is helpful to expose myself to a variety of historians with their differing theories. Christianity and God have been very important to me all my life. Reality matters to me. If reality makes me an atheist, then that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

cloudyday2 · Nov 21, 2016

Jack of Spades said:
I'd estimate that I have gotten something between 5 - 30% of this right, and the rest wrong. Which parts exactly, I can't really tell. I don't also think that I'm particularly more out there with my beliefs than humans usually are.

Just for the background info, I'm a theistic mystic influenced by various religions and philosophies. I believe that my 'religion' is unlikely to be the ultimate truth. But I also believe that there is some truth to it.

For me my beliefs are a user interface to experiential spirituality, not so much a consistent religious world view. I might pray to God, because that happens to be the religious language my soul is used to speak, but as for is God, as I understand him, anymore of a god than something else is in the great scheme of things, I'm not so sure about that. Chances are he might not be.

If I am wrong totally, I would expect that I never find it out since I would simply cease to exist after my death. So, if I rejected what I believe now, the next most likely thing would be materialism where there is no afterlife. I'm not particularly scared of having gotten this wrong in a sense that I end up finding out that Islam is the truth for example. Religions don't impress me because they have so visible touch of a man to them. But behind the something that inspired man to invent all the religions, there might be something great.

Thanks for the informative post. That is very similar to my ideas in many ways.

Aryeh Jay · Nov 21, 2016

TheOldWays · Nov 21, 2016

hard to say. i don't care much either way. a better question is, does it work? if it works then it doesn't matter. if it doesn't work then it matters and one needs to examine the truth of their path again.

yeshuaslavejeff · Nov 21, 2016

TheOldWays said:
does it work?

Work? As in resurrection life ?
The answer is usually no. Yet people still go on......

redblue22 · Nov 21, 2016

X>90%

Quid est Veritas? · Nov 21, 2016

Jack of Spades said:
Well, there is evidence that parts of it are made up. For example, the story of Jesus, Pharisees and the sinning woman and the famous line about sinless people throwing the first stones.

This story is not found in the earliest manuscripts of the gospel, which means that it was added there sometime later. Now, when a part of the story can be made up, isn't it at least possible that some other parts could be made up too?

The Pericope Adulterae is not present in early eastern manuscripts that we have extent, however our first reference in western manuscripts dates to the 500s but has textual artifacts and usages which point to it having been present at least since the 2nd century.

Papias in early 100s AD refers to the story as does the 2nd century Diadascalia.
This makes it being a part of the early versions more likely than not, or if added later, at a very early date.

Augustine speculated on why certain codexes ommited the passage:

"Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord's act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin"

Probability your religion is true?

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