Religion is a cosmic shell game

[Magnanimity]

The facts are these. There are literally thousands of religions in the world.

Since you will never find two people on earth who 100% agree with each other on the wide gambit of their respective beliefs, it would be accurate to say that there are literally trillions of individualized sets of opinions about reality (eg, each rational person forming their own unique set of opinions about what comprises the Real). And yet, there simultaneously seems to be a “human condition” that Plato and Jesus and the Buddha and Shakespeare can all speak to. (To my fellow Christians here, I understand that Jesus is qualitatively distinct from the others in my list). But the point is that there is enough that is unifying about human rationality, conscience and consciousness itself that there really does seem to be a common human experience (or “condition”).

So even though it’s true that there are trillions of individual sets of opinions about what’s real (we each have our own unique one), there is still commonality/universality within the race. If there weren’t, then a religion could never grow and become large in the first place. A religion’s tenets and practices have to appeal to something extant within the would-be adherent when she encounters said religion. Or, how else would you make widespread converts? Religions make appeal to our consciences..

Others are wildly dissimilar, differing on every detail of significance.

This author is overstating the case for the plurality of religions. Those that have enjoyed “staying-power” are probably limited to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. I know there are others, but in terms of widespread influence and/or vast numbers of adherents, this is pretty much the list.

All of them, however, are mutually exclusive. No one is a member of more than one religion

This is to confuse exclusivity of membership with exclusivity of claims between the religions. True, to be a Buddhist is not to be a Muslim. But that says nothing about the commonality between religions. They all of course diverge from one another at crucial junctures, but they also overlap in important places.

And why confine ourselves to current religions? It is entirely possible that the true religion was a now-extinct faith.

Only if one presumes that naturalism is true and religions are simply made up by people out of the ether. But religious people wouldn’t presume that, would they? They’d presume that God is constantly reaching out to all humans everywhere and communing with them in their consciences—their deepest cores.

If it were otherwise, religion would not be religion, but science.

Oh wonderful, it’s the resurrected, beaten dead horse of religion=value and science=facts. As if to suggest that the overwhelming majority of every scientific belief you or I hold isn’t based in testimony? We can tell ourselves all we want that science is the venue of facts, yet our scientific beliefs are epistemically grounded in testimony (not perception). The only exclusions to this norm are the minuscule numbers of scientists, but even they heavily rely on the testimony of their scientific peers, etc. No one escapes the necessity of trusting in others for the beliefs to which they ascribe significance.

Thus, any effort to rationally determine which is the true religion is doomed before it begins. The rules of scientific analysis are stymied

Rings of a category mistake. Are all things open to scientific analysis outside of religion? Why would we think they were? How about philosophy? What about poetry, beauty, the arts, justice, equality, virtue, law, logic, wisdom, duty, wealth, language, human government, human will, etc, etc, etc. Please, science, I beg of you - do yourself and everyone else a favor and stay in your very limited lane!

On the whole, I was underwhelmed by the essay. But hey, maybe it’s just me!

 

[InterestedAtheist]

God is the shells and people are the peas.
The application was just a little off but the imagery was a good one.
God is that big. He can handle all the stories, no problem.

Not quite sure I get what you're saying. God is the shells? What all three of them? All thousand of them? And every shell has a pea/person underneath it? Not sure I understand where you're going with this. Where do all the other religions and denominations fit in?

 

[SkyWriting]

Not quite sure I get what you're saying. God is the shells? What all three of them? All thousand of them? And every shell has a pea/person underneath it? Not sure I understand where you're going with this. Where do all the other religions and denominations fit in?

God is the thousand shells. People are the peas. Perhaps 144,000 peas. Whatever.

Religions are the limited knowledge of God, man possesses.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Hi there cvanwey and Larnievc!

The article looks to address an interesting point. In that every human, whom lives, is forced or required to play the game.

Yes - it is interesting, isn't it? Not a point I see brought up often, and worth considering. Who ever asked us if we wanted to have to choose between heaven and hell in the first place?

Yeah, kind of like the response to Pascal’s Wager. It’s not God or nothing, it nothing or one in several thousands of mutually exclusive types of religion.

Exactly. Pascal's Wager often forgets about this. It's not either Christianity or nothing.

But I reckon in this site you’ll get tied up with responses asserting that religion A is correct and all the others are wrong because......

I shall try my best to keep things on track.
I wonder what religion A might be...?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

God is the Good. All attempts to reach the Good is an attempt to reach God. Not all who think they approach God really are, as the Sheep and the Goats parable says, but this isn't a shell game. Humans know what the Good is, though we are confused on the method to reach it. As Paul said, we look through a glass darkly. God as the Logos shows us exactly how to reach Him, in fact gives the potential to even do so.

This is basically the same as asking what about Odin, or Zeus, or Texcatlipoca? All these point to the truth, the crystallisation of God into history in the Incarnation, as CS Lewis said. So if a shell game, He has shown us which one to find it under. Not that we don't still make mistakes, creating Idols and calling it God, as Aaron put up the Golden Calf saying it is the God that led you from Egypt.

As an analogy, think of Physics. Aristotlean Physics, Newtonian, Relativity theory, Quantum mechanics, etc. They are shells or models we place to describe reality, with each believing they encompass the pea as well. Some we rejected, others we will reject, and some new model is still needed. That doesn't mean Physics is playing some kind of trick, only that human understanding is incomplete and will likely remain so.

With Christianity or revealed religions, we are just saying God has shown us, with Christianity saying you shall see if this is true by the fruits of the Tree, whether it reflects the Good it supposedly springs from. Others make other claims. This is our evidence to see which metaphysical model of reality fits our experience, or what has been revealed to us. God tells each man his own story.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Many religions reward being a good person - no matter what religion you are...

Some religions don't even have an afterlife (Sadducees?). Others have reincarnation where you are reborn as a human or animal. I don't think many religions have eternal torment.

BTW the Bible itself seems to agree with the idea that not many will be saved:

Matthew 7:14-14

Enter God’s kingdom through the narrow gate. The gate is large and the road is wide that leads to ruin. Many people go that way. But the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to life. Only a few people find it.​

Good points, John! I'm responding to these in detail in my answer to @cloudyday2 , and will notify you of it so that you can see my answers to you there.

 

[cloudyday2]

How does reincarnation work? Because reality is even without what the Bible says earth is a floating marble in space and every day the chances of it being taken out by an asteroid grows greater. How can a planet last forever? Especially this planet what mankind has done to it.. one more world War and there would be nothing left. I don't get the theory of reincarnation at all. Its impossible for this wold to be perpetual.

There are lots of different religions that believe in reincarnation, and those religions have different imaginings for how it works. For example, many people don't realize that reincarnation is a common and acceptable belief within Judaism. I assume that Jewish reincarnation imagines that Jews are reborn as Jews. That contrasts with Hindu reincarnation where humans can be reborn as insects or animals too.

These religions were invented before people understood the scope of the universe, but the Hindu form of reincarnation can easily extend to rebirths on extraterrestrial planets. Also, many beliefs about reincarnation do not imagine perpetual rebirths. Rather, they imagine rebirths until each person accomplishes their purpose. Jews imagine rebirth until all the laws of the Torah are successfully encountered and obeyed by the person. Hindus imagine rebirth until enlightenment frees the person from karma. There is no guarantee that everybody will win with reincarnation, but the odds are better with many opportunities to live.

 

[cloudyday2]

Even more pointless is that if reincarnation was real we don't remember anything.. so even more pointless. My opinion anyway but I don't want to get off topic.. done with the topic just saying my opinion.

Religions with afterlife beliefs imagine the person transcends their body somehow and that transcendent part provides the continuity for reincarnation or an afterlife. Interestingly, the original Jewish belief about reincarnation was a bodily resurrection. So, in theory, a religion can believe in bodily resurrection without believing that there is anything about a person that transcends their body - an area of agreement with atheists. In practice, the most common modern Christian belief is decoupled from the promised Second Coming and General Resurrection of human bodies. Most Christians imagine that their loved ones immediately move-on to a blissful existence in heaven (or hell) after death. But a minority of modern Christians believe in "soul sleep" until the Second Coming, and that is probably closer to the original belief of Jewish Christianity IMO. That seems to be what St. Paul believed, for example.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

That was very interesting, cloudyday2, and I think you make some good points. I shall consider them, and then give my responses. I'll also invite @JohnClay to see this, as he posed some questions of the same nature as you.

The problem I see is that there are two contradictory assumptions in the analogy.

You're right, but no analogy is perfect. I don't think the assumptions are contradictory exactly, but you're right to raise the point.

Initially religion is assumed to be a game with one chance and only one way to win and dire consequences to lose. This type of game only matches two religions - Christianity and Islam.

Sort of, yes. I'll explain more below.

However the analogy then imagines thousands of shells with only one pea, and that contradicts the earlier assumption.

Good point.

There should be only two shells in that game - Christianity and Islam. (Or possibly more shells if the various warring sects within Christianity and Islam are considered.)

That's quite a possibility, isn't it? I mean, Christianity alone has hundreds of different denominations, and many of them are quite convinced that the others are going to hell, or at least are likely to go to hell. From that point of view, becoming a Christian is only the start of the game!

To illustrate the problem with the shell-game analogy with an example, religions that believe in reincarnation allow for an infinite number of chances until everybody is a winner. There are lots of other types of religions too. Many religions claim to give their rewards in this life.

Good point! Let's see how the analogy holds up to it.

Hope that makes sense. I know it isn't written very clearly.

On the contrary, it was written very clearly, and goes into some matters that deserve to be explored!

Let me respond, then.
First of all, you're right; it isn't the case that every religion both rewards with heaven and punishes with
hell. I think you're probably more or less correct to say that it's only Christianity and Islam (both Abrahamic religions). Having said that, there are a number of different versions of Islam and Christianity, and most of their believers would agree that only one of them can be true and win you the prize.
If we consider this, then the game is now adjusted so that there is still a huge number of cups - one for every religion or sect of a religion - and only one pea for the one true religion, or variant thereof. But now, there is a lower probability of a wrong guess resulting in hellfire - although still horrifyingly high - and a higher probability that a wrong guess will result in a neutral, or possibly positive outcome.

But this is a difference of degree, not kind. It's still a game of chance, your participation is still mandatory, and if you choose the wrong answer there's still a horrifying risk to run.

But consider further. Many religions may not have hell, but there may well still be consequences for not choosing them, if they turn out to be the right ones. You're right, in theory reincarnation offers you infinite chances to "get it right" but I wouldn't be so blase about the thought of being sent to live as a slug or a rat, and have to spend millennia working your way up to a human again. If I did sit down to play this game, that would certainly be a serious thing to consider!

And consider the Greek Gods. Yes, technically they didn't have a hell. But they did have a very nasty sense of humour. Heard of Sisyphus and his eternally-rolling wheel? Tantalus, from whose torment we get the word "tantalise"? Do you really want to bet that the Greek Gods would be willing to overlook you following a foreign god for the whole of your life? You might end up in Tartarus where they have some very poetic and very nasty justice for you. And other gods might also not look kindly on you. Osiris, for example, weighs the hearts of the dead to see if they are sinful. Are you willing to bet your eternal welfare that his definition of "sinful" does not include "Not worshipping Osiris"?

So yes, it may be just two religions (each one containing multiple sects) that has the whole hellfire thing in place, but I wouldn't be too comfortable with the idea of making a mistake and finding some other religion was actually true. Historically, the gods have wanted one thing, and that is to be worshipped; and they tended to take a dim view of those who weren't properly respectful (and, by the way, I imagine this would include any mortal men who may have lived a couple of millennia ago and convinced other people that they themselves were deities!)

And one more thing to say: we've been looking at this (naturally enough) from a selfish point of view; what are the chances of picking a winner (low) and the chances of picking a loser (worryingly high). But consider it from the point of view of an honest seeker after truth; someone who simply wants to know what the true religion is. There, the analogy is spot on. It is indeed a thousand cups, with a single pea underneath them, and no way to know which one is the right one.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

This author is overstating the case for the plurality of religions. Those that have enjoyed “staying-power” are probably limited to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. I know there are others, but in terms of widespread influence and/or vast numbers of adherents, this is pretty much the list.

But what if the true religion is not one of the current ones? Who's to say that the true religion wasn't an Asian sect from five thousand years ago?

This is to confuse exclusivity of membership with exclusivity of claims between the religions. True, to be a Buddhist is not to be a Muslim. But that says nothing about the commonality between religions. They all of course diverge from one another at crucial junctures, but they also overlap in important places.

In practice, we seem to find it pretty easy to differentiate between religions. And indeed, religions take care of this themselves. Ask any priest you like if it's possible to be both a Muslim and a Catholic, and I'm pretty sure he'll tell you that it isn't.

Only if one presumes that naturalism is true and religions are simply made up by people out of the ether. But religious people wouldn’t presume that, would they? They’d presume that God is constantly reaching out to all humans everywhere and communing with them in their consciences—their deepest cores.

Would they? Why? I think that's a rather Abrahamic viewpoint, to be honest. There have been plenty of religions which don't/didn't involve the deity seeking a relationship with the believer.

Oh wonderful, it’s the resurrected, beaten dead horse of religion=value and science=facts. As if to suggest that the overwhelming majority of every scientific belief you or I hold isn’t based in testimony? We can tell ourselves all we want that science is the venue of facts, yet our scientific beliefs are epistemically grounded in testimony (not perception). The only exclusions to this norm are the minuscule numbers of scientists, but even they heavily rely on the testimony of their scientific peers, etc. No one escapes the necessity of trusting in others for the beliefs to which they ascribe significance.

Perhaps if we avoid the rather loaded word "science" we might see that the author is making a serious point, and a good one: religions do all have the trump card of faith; you can never be entirely certain that an argument works against a religion, because maybe the God or god or god/dess/es know something you don't. Therefore, no religion can entirely be ruled out.

Rings of a category mistake. Are all things open to scientific analysis outside of religion? Why would we think they were? How about philosophy? What about poetry, beauty, the arts, justice, equality, virtue, law, logic, wisdom, duty, wealth, language, human government, human will, etc, etc, etc. Please, science, I beg of you - do yourself and everyone else a favor and stay in your very limited lane!

While it's true that there are many things - such as those you list above - that do not come within the purview of science, in this case, we are discussing a definite question with a definite answer: which is the one true religion? We know that there can be, at most, only one of them. If you don't like the author saying that "the rules of scientific analysis are stymied" by the use of faith, then how about we say the rules of logic and reason are stymied"? Because it seem to me that any religion could be true, and no religion can definitively proved to be false.

And that is the problem, as stated in the essay. There are thousands of religions to choose from, and no way to choose between them. It seems to me that God as a carnival barker, whirling a single pea among hundreds and hundreds of cups and ordering you to choose the right one or face the consequences, is a very good analogy for the seeker after truth trying to determine which is the one true religion.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

God is the thousand shells. People are the peas. Perhaps 144,000 peas. Whatever.

Religions are the limited knowledge of God, man possesses.

So...what happens if you choose the wrong religion? I'm still having troubling following you here.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

God is the Good. All attempts to reach the Good is an attempt to reach God. Not all who think they approach God really are, as the Sheep and the Goats parable says, but this isn't a shell game. Humans know what the Good is, though we are confused on the method to reach it. As Paul said, we look through a glass darkly. God as the Logos shows us exactly how to reach Him, in fact gives the potential to even do so.

This is basically the same as asking what about Odin, or Zeus, or Texcatlipoca? All these point to the truth, the crystallisation of God into history in the Incarnation, as CS Lewis said. So if a shell game, He has shown us which one to find it under. Not that we don't still make mistakes, creating Idols and calling it God, as Aaron put up the Golden Calf saying it is the God that led you from Egypt.

As an analogy, think of Physics. Aristotlean Physics, Newtonian, Relativity theory, Quantum mechanics, etc. They are shells or models we place to describe reality, with each believing they encompass the pea as well. Some we rejected, others we will reject, and some new model is still needed. That doesn't mean Physics is playing some kind of trick, only that human understanding is incomplete and will likely remain so.

With Christianity or revealed religions, we are just saying God has shown us, with Christianity saying you shall see if this is true by the fruits of the Tree, whether it reflects the Good it supposedly springs from. Others make other claims. This is our evidence to see which metaphysical model of reality fits our experience, or what has been revealed to us. God tells each man his own story.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me very much as if you are saying something like this:
God is the one true God, and Christianity the one true religion. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many other religions there are, because they are all false. Therefore, the proper analogy would be that there are a thousand cups with only one pea underneath them, but the cup with the pea underneath it is a different colour from all the others, and so it's easy to find the prize.

Would that be your meaning?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I could be wrong, but it seems to me very much as if you are saying something like this:
God is the one true God, and Christianity the one true religion. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many other religions there are, because they are all false. Therefore, the proper analogy would be that there are a thousand cups with only one pea underneath them, but the cup with the pea underneath it is a different colour from all the others, and so it's easy to find the prize.

Would that be your meaning?

Not in the slightest. It is exceedingly difficult to keep using such a bad analogy, but here goes:

Closer to humans keep putting cups over the pea, sometimes cups within cups within cups. God keeps taking them off, or pointing out there is a pea underneath. Then God decided to cup His own hand over the pea, so He can more easily show us where it can be found.

Very difficult to get my meaning across in this Idiom, maybe read my Physics cup analogy again, if it helps.

 

[cloudyday2]

Since this is Valentine's Day, maybe a better analogy is the quote from the movie "Forrest Gump":
"life is like a box of chocolates"

 

[Magnanimity]

I don't see that you addressed my point about the universality of the human experience/condition, so I gather that you've granted it. Any and all religions will make reference to common human experience and struggles. So an emphasis on a plurality of anything (e.g., religions) isn't as powerful a point as one might think if we understand that we're talking about a unicity (or close enough to it) of the human condition.

But what if the true religion is not one of the current ones? Who's to say that the true religion wasn't an Asian sect from five thousand years ago?

I've already addressed this in my first post here. Such questions take naturalism for granted. Religious folks aren't going to grant naturalism at the outset, so these questions are non-starters. They presume that religion-creation is a naturalistic process (e.g., an exercise in make-believe).

In practice, we seem to find it pretty easy to differentiate between religions. And indeed, religions take care of this themselves. Ask any priest you like if it's possible to be both a Muslim and a Catholic, and I'm pretty sure he'll tell you that it isn't.

This response makes no reference the the point I made, which was that there is a difference between being a member of a particular religion (membership being something that can't overlap) and the truth-claims and practices of religions (which can/do enjoy substantial overlap).

Would they? Why? I think that's a rather Abrahamic viewpoint, to be honest. There have been plenty of religions which don't/didn't involve the deity seeking a relationship with the believer.

There is no way to take the personal aspect out of religion. I'm not entirely sure I see what you're getting at. It's "Abrahamic" to suggest that "higher realities" interact with our reality here on Earth? Such things seems rather ubiquitous among all religions as far as I can tell.

Perhaps if we avoid the rather loaded word "science" we might see that the author is making a serious point, and a good one: religions do all have the trump card of faith; you can never be entirely certain that an argument works against a religion, because maybe the God or god or god/dess/es know something you don't. Therefore, no religion can entirely be ruled out.

Fine, we can leave aside the dead horse of fact/value dichotomies and address what you find to be a good point by the author.
First, who cares if a religion can be "ruled out?" What would that even mean, in practice? Do you intend something like religion X appears to possess and promote less truth, goodness and beauty than religion Y? Is that how you might rule something out? If not, what would be your criteria?
Second, as I noted in my initial post, the universal human experience entails common rationality, conscience (call it a "social conscience," if you like) and consciousness itself. In other words, in the area of the intellect, there is much more that unites all humans than divides them. So, religion X comes along and makes various claims about the human condition. We, as would-be adherents, listen to the claims. If they seem to correspond to our experiences, we continue listening. Then religion X begins to tell us what might be done to remedy whatever we find lacking in our human experience (say, too much suffering). We listen. If the remedy seems plausible, we keep listening... And on it goes. As I said, any religion's claims must correspond to something extant within us. Or else, the religion will never get off the ground with the populace.

While it's true that there are many things - such as those you list above - that do not come within the purview of science, in this case, we are discussing a definite question with a definite answer: which is the one true religion? We know that there can be, at most, only one of them. If you don't like the author saying that "the rules of scientific analysis are stymied" by the use of faith, then how about we say the rules of logic and reason are stymied"? Because it seem to me that any religion could be true, and no religion can definitively proved to be false.

And that is the problem, as stated in the essay. There are thousands of religions to choose from

There really aren't. There might ten plausible religions with communities to support the adherent who wanted to join them, if you insist on throwing into the list I provided above Sikhism, Jainism, Shinto.. It's bizarre to repeat this odd claim of "thousands of religions." As I noted in my initial post, there are as many worldviews as there are humans who can hold those worldviews (fully rational persons). And sure, no two Catholics are going to 100% agree about their religion or anything else, just as no 2 atheists will completely agree about religion, lack of belief, or anything else. The only person you'll ever fully agree with is the one in the mirror. And even that will be temporary as you'll continue to learn more, grow and evolve.

But, let's stick more with this claim that seems to have captured your attention--that "no religion can definitively proved to be false." What is meant by this? What are the claims and/or practices of any particular religion which are open to truth/falsehood? That is, if you're looking to apply rationality to a religion because you want to determine what might be false about said religion, how would you suggest you'd go about that?

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Not in the slightest. It is exceedingly difficult to keep using such a bad analogy, but here goes:

Closer to humans keep putting cups over the pea, sometimes cups within cups within cups. God keeps taking them off, or pointing out there is a pea underneath. Then God decided to cup His own hand over the pea, so He can more easily show us where it can be found.

Very difficult to get my meaning across in this Idiom, maybe read my Physics cup analogy again, if it helps.

I think I see the problem.

You're assuming that the Christian religion is true. Well, that's fine, because of course you have to. But if you're saying that God is putting his hand on top of the correct cup, or removing the false cups, or saying, "Hey, look, it's the one over here," then you are creating a very large problem for yourself.

Put simply, how can you say that the answer is obvious when, to the vast majority of humans throughout history, it is obviously not obvious?

You say the cup and balls analogy is a very bad one, but to me it looks like you just haven't understood it. As a Christian, you have to assume that there is just one answer, and that it is an obvious one. But you are describing a completely different world to the one we live in, a world in which all people throughout history have heard and understood the one true word of God.

In our world, of course, there are a huge number of religions, and no way at all of telling which one is true; and we know this is so, because all these different religions have existed and still exist. (Of course, if every single person in the world was a devoted Christian, it would still not prove that that Christianity was true; large numbers of people can be mistaken; maybe, if there was only one cup, you'd lift it up and find nothing underneath it).

 

[InterestedAtheist]

I don't see that you addressed my point about the universality of the human experience/condition, so I gather that you've granted it.

You'd be mistaken. I don't think you should assume people grant your points in an argument just because they don't mention them.

Any and all religions will make reference to common human experience and struggles.

Very probably. But so what? Religious stories are often about human experiences and struggles.

So an emphasis on a plurality of anything (e.g., religions) isn't as powerful a point as one might think if we understand that we're talking about a unicity (or close enough to it) of the human condition.

But we're not talking about that. We're talking about which religion is true, and how we can know.

I've already addressed this in my first post here. Such questions take naturalism for granted. Religious folks aren't going to grant naturalism at the outset, so these questions are non-starters. They presume that religion-creation is a naturalistic process (e.g., an exercise in make-believe).

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. It's a simple enough issue.
Point 1: There are many religions.
Point 2: All of the religions claim to be the one true religion. None of them say that any other religion is also true.
Point 3: At a maximum, only one of them can be right. There is also, of course, the option that all of them are wrong.
Point 4: If one of them is right, we would like to find out which one it is. Wouldn't you?

This response makes no reference the the point I made, which was that there is a difference between being a member of a particular religion (membership being something that can't overlap) and the truth-claims and practices of religions (which can/do enjoy substantial overlap).

Well, yes. But so what? Just because religions have things in common, that does not mean that they are both true. Ask them, and they'll certainly tell you this.

There is no way to take the personal aspect out of religion. I'm not entirely sure I see what you're getting at. It's "Abrahamic" to suggest that "higher realities" interact with our reality here on Earth? Such things seems rather ubiquitous among all religions as far as I can tell.

I seem to recall you saying something to the effect that any true religion would be one in which the God draws people to Him, or communicates with them. I was pointing out that this sounds only like the Abrahamic God - ie, of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions.

Fine, we can leave aside the dead horse of fact/value dichotomies and address what you find to be a good point by the author.

I don't think we should leave it aside at all, nor do I consider it a dead horse issue. On the contrary, the fact that no one religion is obviously true is an important point, and a serious problem for anyone who wishes to find the truth.
I'll say it again: "Perhaps if we avoid the rather loaded word "science" we might see that the author is making a serious point, and a good one: religions do all have the trump card of faith; you can never be entirely certain that an argument works against a religion, because maybe the God or god or god/dess/es know something you don't. Therefore, no religion can entirely be ruled out."

First, who cares if a religion can be "ruled out?"

Anybody who wishes to know which of the many competing religions (all claiming to the the sole true religion) is correct. These are the people who would care if a religion could be ruled out.

What would that even mean, in practice?

It would mean some reason we could give for why a religion could not possibly be true.

Do you intend something like religion X appears to possess and promote less truth, goodness and beauty than religion Y? Is that how you might rule something out?

No, not really. I do not see that a religion not possessing and promoting truth, goodness and beauty would automatically disqualify it. Why would it?

If not, what would be your criteria?

No idea. Do you have any criteria that would disqualify a religion from being true?

Second, as I noted in my initial post, the universal human experience entails common rationality, conscience (call it a "social conscience," if you like) and consciousness itself. In other words, in the area of the intellect, there is much more that unites all humans than divides them.

I'm not sure this is relevant. Believers of all different religions are surely aware of this, but it doesn't prevent them from saying that their religion is true and others are false.

So, religion X comes along and makes various claims about the human condition. We, as would-be adherents, listen to the claims. If they seem to correspond to our experiences, we continue listening. Then religion X begins to tell us what might be done to remedy whatever we find lacking in our human experience (say, too much suffering). We listen. If the remedy seems plausible, we keep listening... And on it goes.

You mean that your criteria for a religion being true is that it's claims correspond to our experience and its remedies seem plausible?
That sounds like it could describe just about all religions.

As I said, any religion's claims must correspond to something extant within us. Or else, the religion will never get off the ground with the populace.

Sure. But so what? You're describing any religion that did "get off the ground."

There really aren't.

There really are.
There are thousands of religions in human history. I have not yet seen any reason why a religion should be disqualified from being true simply because nobody believes in it any more. Why would that mean anything?

There might ten plausible religions with communities to support the adherent who wanted to join them, if you insist on throwing into the list I provided above Sikhism, Jainism, Shinto..

Yes. But I'm not talking about which religion it would be best to join. I'm asking which, of all the religions in human history that claim to be true, was right? If any, of course.

It's bizarre to repeat this odd claim of "thousands of religions."

Is it? I thought it was a fairly obvious claim, and one easily shown to be true.

As I noted in my initial post, there are as many worldviews as there are humans who can hold those worldviews (fully rational persons). And sure, no two Catholics are going to 100% agree about their religion or anything else, just as no 2 atheists will completely agree about religion, lack of belief, or anything else. The only person you'll ever fully agree with is the one in the mirror. And even that will be temporary as you'll continue to learn more, grow and evolve.

Sure. But so what?

But, let's stick more with this claim that seems to have captured your attention--that "no religion can definitively proved to be false." What is meant by this? What are the claims and/or practices of any particular religion which are open to truth/falsehood?

Most of their claims. Why, are you telling me that you do have a means by which any particular religion can be proved to be true or false? If so, this is fascinating!

That is, if you're looking to apply rationality to a religion because you want to determine what might be false about said religion, how would you suggest you'd go about that?

As I've already said, I don't think it can be done. I think that most religions are rationality-proofed by the existence of faith.

You seem to be saying that you have a means by which you can tell if a religion is true or false. I'd love to hear what it is.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I think I see the problem.

You're assuming that the Christian religion is true. Well, that's fine, because of course you have to. But if you're saying that God is putting his hand on top of the correct cup, or removing the false cups, or saying, "Hey, look, it's the one over here," then you are creating a very large problem for yourself.

Put simply, how can you say that the answer is obvious when, to the vast majority of humans throughout history, it is obviously not obvious?

You say the cup and balls analogy is a very bad one, but to me it looks like you just haven't understood it. As a Christian, you have to assume that there is just one answer, and that it is an obvious one. But you are describing a completely different world to the one we live in, a world in which all people throughout history have heard and understood the one true word of God.

In our world, of course, there are a huge number of religions, and no way at all of telling which one is true; and we know this is so, because all these different religions have existed and still exist. (Of course, if every single person in the world was a devoted Christian, it would still not prove that that Christianity was true; large numbers of people can be mistaken; maybe, if there was only one cup, you'd lift it up and find nothing underneath it).

No, it is a bad analogy. Simply put, religions are human attempts to reach God; not some deceit by God as a shyster. That is why I referred to Physics, as similar human attempts to imperfectly encompass reality. Religion is after all a near-universal human activity. Anyway, I said God cupped His own hand, which was referring to the Incarnation which completes human religion. I did a thread on comparative mythology around this before:

The Missing Page

Besides, most religions are instituted by a culture hero, like Numa Pompilius or Huitzilopochtli or so. Even Moses in the Bible fills this role.

The analogy fails as it is predicated on seeing God as deceitful. It is in short, a Petitio Principii.

I do not think I'll waste more time on this thread. I cannot keep flogging a dead horse. Thank you for your time.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

No, it is a bad analogy.

After reading your answer, I cannot agree with you. I think the analogy describes the state of affairs rather accurately, and that you have failed to prove otherwise.

Simply put, religions are human attempts to reach God; not some deceit by God as a shyster.

But these two things aren't mutually exclusive, are they? Indeed, most shysters are in business with people earnestly seeking the truth.
If God was, in fact, honest and really wanted a relationship with us, then why haven't the billions of people who have honestly sought to know Him, found Him? This includes, by the way, a great many people who thought they had found God but, according to you, had not.

Religion is after all a near-universal human activity.

It is. But I don't see the problem for the analogy here.

Anyway, I said God cupped His own hand, which was referring to the Incarnation which completes human religion.

If this was an attempt to guide people towards the One True Religion, then it is an obvious failure. The vast majority of humanity did not find it (including most Christians, who are arguing amongst themselves as to what the true version of Christianity is.
If the barker wished to actually show the audience where the pea was, all he would have to do is point to the cup.
If God wished us to have proof that Christianity was the one true faith, it would be the simplest thing in the world for him to manage. Instead, we find ourselves as the analogy says - in a world with thousands of religions and no way to see which one is true.

Besides, most religions are instituted by a culture hero, like Numa Pompilius or Huitzilopochtli or so. Even Moses in the Bible fills this role.

Again, this is not a problem for the analogy.

The analogy fails as it is predicated on seeing God as deceitful. It is in short, a Petitio Principii.

The analogy is a fairly accurate representation of the problems facing a person who wishes to find the one true religion.
Are there a huge range of possible religions to choose from? There are.
Is it possible to eliminate all the incorrect ones, leaving only the true religion? It is not, as explained earlier; each religion has the "trump card" of faith. Indeed, that makes it impossible to eliminate any of them, or nearly so.
Are there huge rewards for choosing the correct religion, and huge penalties for failing to? Close enough, as discussed earlier.

I do not think I'll waste more time on this thread. I cannot keep flogging a dead horse. Thank you for your time.

It's up to you, of course. But while you've claimed that the analogy is a bad one, you have yet to provide a convincing defence of your claim.

 

[Magnanimity]

But we're not talking about that. We're talking about which religion is true, and how we can know.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. It's a simple enough issue.
Point 1: There are many religions.
Point 2: All of the religions claim to be the one true religion. None of them say that any other religion is also true.
Point 3: At a maximum, only one of them can be right. There is also, of course, the option that all of them are wrong.
Point 4: If one of them is right, we would like to find out which one it is. Wouldn't you?

Believers of all different religions are surely aware of this, but it doesn't prevent them from saying that their religion is true and others are false.

I'm asking which, of all the religions in human history that claim to be true, was right?

OK, the above quotes form a consistent response to my several points, so I believe I see what you're getting at. You are basically promoting exclusivity with regard to religion. As in, which one of these is the one-and-only true religion? I'm curious why you take this for granted. Most religious folks wouldn't. Most scholars of religion wouldn't. I don't even think most atheists would. What makes you think such an approach to the question of religion is warranted? Those scholars who engage in inter-religious dialogue often point out the rather substantial overlap that exists between the Big 5 religions, say. If that is the case (and it is) then exclusivity would itself be excluded as an option. That is, if religions V, W, X, Y, Z all make the same claim about the world or about human nature, then this would be inclusive, right? So, your points 2 and 3 above are false. And they aren't false on a theoretical level. They are, in fact, false. Buddhism has a long history of interacting with Hinduism and Christianity and acknowledging the substantial overlap between itself and these other religions. Islam has a long history of acknowledging the substantial overlap between itself and those "of the book" (Jews and Christians). When speaking about God, Ibn Sina, Moses Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas and Radhakrishnan all sound awfully similar to each other. It would be correct to say that these are all much closer to each other than they are far apart, in their theology proper.

Perhaps ethics can be a helpful analogy here? Which ethical view is the one-and-only correct one? Is it Aristotle's virtue ethics? Kant's deontology with his CI? Mill's utilitarianism? Something more contemporary perhaps? Some religious ethics is the best? Or maybe, looking for the one-and-only exclusively correct ethical view is itself a mistaken approach. Maybe each ethical view has something substantial to contribute to the discussion, even if you think one of them is superior to the others?

What would we mean by "superior" in these contexts? Your reply to me suggests that you have no criteria for adjudicating between various religions.

No, not really. I do not see that a religion not possessing and promoting truth, goodness and beauty would automatically disqualify it. Why would it?

No idea. Do you have any criteria that would disqualify a religion from being true?

Most of their claims. Why, are you telling me that you do have a means by which any particular religion can be proved to be true or false? If so, this is fascinating!

Since you've offered no reasons for believing that human nature is anything but common and universal, I'll take this as a starting point. Common to all of us is a conscience. Also common to all of us is reason/rationality. At a minimum, we would use these two facets of our interior selves to adjudicate the various claims/practices that we see in religions, wouldn't we? This seems natural enough and is surely what we all do.

If religion X makes claim Y and this claim violates my conscience (or violates the broader, social conscience of my particular time and place) then claim Y is rejected. It doesn't follow that religion X would be rejected because I haven't yet argued for the position that a given religion must not ever make any false claims. Maybe religions can make false claims or they can allow for certain practices that are later rejected by humanity itself (say, slavery). One would have to make that argument. It's not a given.

Or, say religion U makes claim V and this claim seems to go against reason (as in, it's a violation of rationality itself). This is trickier because religions often say of their own claims that they don't violate reason but they do transcend the purely logical. I don't know of a religion that doesn't do this.

And my claim about truth, goodness and beauty above didn't seem to resonate with you. So, let me put it this way. Do you think a given religion ought to advocate various propositions that correspond to reality? Do you think that religions ought to increase the overall goodness that we see in the world by advocating for justice for the poor, oppressed and marginalized? Do you believe that a religion should contribute beauty to the world, at least by exemplifying beauty in, say, its literature, architecture, music and art? Or, would you really hold a position that none of this is important: not truth, not goodness, not beauty?

There really are.
There are thousands of religions in human history. I have not yet seen any reason why a religion should be disqualified from being true simply because nobody believes in it any more. Why would that mean anything?

You are welcome to provide us with the list of these "thousands of religions" at any time. Until that happens, I'll take he claim to be unfounded. As to the question of supposing that the one-and-only true religion has ceased to exist, I think you'd need to inform us of what are the criteria for determining what even might be the one-and-only true religion. But, I think I've given many reasons above for rejecting an exclusivist attitude in both religion and ethics (could have made a similar argument for politics and many other areas). And, again, this possibility of the one religion having passed away presupposes naturalism. If naturalism is false and higher realities are watching over us and steering the boat of humanity ever toward more exemplification of justice and love, then presumably the religions that have enjoyed staying-power over the centuries assist humanity toward those ends. It could be that one religion does a better job of this than others (Christianity), but it doesn't follow at all that other religions aren't successfully engaged in the same project.