Religion is a cosmic shell game

[InterestedAtheist]

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?

Well, "promoting" is perhaps not the right word. It implies that religious exclusivity is a rare thing in need of protection, as opposed to the default attitude of the vast majority of religions. I must say - and I mean no offence - but you have a very strange idea about different religions if you think that they are all equivalent and that they all think they are equivalent.
Also, I should point out: I am not interested in which is the one true one. As far as I am concerned, none of them are.

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?

This just isn't accurate in the slightest. I'm amazed you could think it is.
Ask just about any religious believer in the world if there is one true religion, and you know what they'll say?
"Yes, and it's mine."
And yes, of course most scholars of religion would tell you that the religion they are studying claims to be the one true religion, because they all do.
There are a few people - New Agers, and so on - who would say that all religions are the same. Perhaps you are one of them? But they are, quite simply, contradicted by the official stance of just about every religion that has ever lived.

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.

Not at all.
Yes, many religions have a lot in common. Some of them (Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for instance) even share holy stories and prophets. But you know what else they share? A firm opinion that their religion is correct and all others mistaken.

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?

I'm afraid not.
Are you in any way familiar with history over the past couple of thousand years? Seriously, your views would seem to be contradicted by virtually everything that any religion has ever said about any other religion. Generally, their attitude has been "we are right and they are wrong," frequently followed up by a holy war.

So, your points 2 and 3 above are false. And they aren't false on a theoretical level. They are, in fact, false.

Not in the slightest. Point 2 is exactly correct, and Point 3 follows on from it.
I'm curious. Where did you get this strange idea that all religions see each other as equals? I say strange because the whole of religious history would seem to be against it, and any member of any religion would disagree with it. The quickest search immediately confirms this.
Is Christianity the One True Religion? Is Christianity true? | carm.org
"Yes, Christianity is the one true religion. That may sound awfully dogmatic and narrow-minded, but the simple truth is that Christianity is the only true religion."
Is there one true religion? | NeverThirsty
"Each of the major religions claim to have the correct path. Each one has a different view of God, if they believe in a god. Each one has a different view of salvation and man’s spiritual problem...Each religion is exclusive ultimately. The sacred texts of the religions disagree with each other...To claim that they all lead to the same god ignores the facts.
All religions are not the same. All religions do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not and accordingly, of defining life’s purpose. (Zacharias, Ravi. Jesus Among Other Gods. Word Publishing. 2000. p. 7)"
Islam: The Only True Religion for Mankind - Quran For kids
"The one true religion of Islam does not merely consist of religious rituals, nor did Allah reveal it for a specific community. On the contrary, it contains teachings that apply to all aspects of life, giving us comprehensive guidance. Moreover, Islam is the only true religion for the whole of humankind, so one’s location is irrelevant. This is because every human being must adhere to Islam. It is the only religion Allah has revealed for mankind without any exception."
It's not often I find myself agreeing with Christian and Muslim apologists. But when they each say that their religions says that it is the one true religion...well, they're right. They do.

Buddhism has a long history of interacting with Hinduism and Christianity and acknowledging the substantial overlap between itself and these other religions.

Yes, I'm sure they have a lot in common and their believers may have many interesting discussions together. But that doesn't change the fact that Buddhism and Christianity have completely different ideas about what God is, and each believes that the other is wrong.
For example, this article: "The truth is, although one can find many truths in Buddhist teachings,Buddhism is in many points incompatible with Christianity. Upon examination of fundamental Buddhist and Christian beliefs, it quickly becomes obvious that there is a clear contrast between the teachings of Buddhism and those of Christianity. Although you may hear some Buddhists claim that “we believe the same things; there are many paths to God”, many fundamental Buddhist teachings are in fact diametrically opposed to those of the Biblical Christianity."
Ask any Christian or any Buddhist, and they will both assure you that the two religions are not the same, are not equal, and each will say that theirs is the correct one.

Islam has a long history of acknowledging the substantial overlap between itself and those "of the book" (Jews and Christians).

and

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.

Yes, Islam, Christianity and Judaism do share an awful lot of history, culture and values. But, as their believers would all tell you, they are completely different religions, and each considers the other two to be wrong.

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?

The thing is, ethics is a matter of opinion. Or at least, a highly subjective matter. What is right and what is wrong? It is quite possible for two people to disagree, and both be right, or at least partially right, in the field of ethics.
Religion, on the other hand, is a matter of definite claims, with a yes or no answer. Each religion clearly states that it is right, and the others are wrong.
There are, therefore, only two possible answers to the which-one-is-the-true-religion question. Either one of the many is right (which is what the whole cups-and-balls analogies is about) or all of them are wrong.

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

Quite true. As I said in the OP (or rather, quoted from the original article in the OP) it is impossible to tell which, if any of the world religions, is telling the truth.

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.

As we saw above, the fact that humans have a great deal in common does not at all mean that their religions are universal. Indeed, it would seem that the one thing most humans have in common is thinking that their religion is right and all the others are wrong.

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.

Sure. But it doesn't really work when we come to religions. All followers of all religions would claim that their consciences and reasoning powers led them to their own religion. And most of them would claim that any person would, if only they followed their conscience and rationality, choose their own religion (that is to say, most Christians would say that any right-thinking person would choose Christianity if they really thought about it).

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.

You're quite right. The fact that a religion makes a mistake is not necessarily a disqualifying factor. At least, not to the religious.

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.

Absolutely right. You see how difficult it is to eliminate any religion from the running?

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?

But this isn't really about me, is it? The way I would judge a religion is to ask if there is any reason to think that it might be true. I would eliminate all religions on the basis that none of them have sufficient evidence, which is why I am an atheist.
As for contributing to truth and beauty, I should say most religions could claim to do that, and most of them do. But so what? Why should a religion be eliminated if it doesn't?

You are welcome to provide us with the list of these "thousands of religions" at any time.

Sure.
https://www.religioustolerance.org/reltrue.htm
"According to David Barrett and team, there are 19 major world religious groupings in the world which are subdivided into a total of about 10,000 distinct religions. Of the latter, there were 270 religions and para-religions which had over a half million adherents in the year 2000 CE. Within Christianity, they have identified 34,000 separate groups (denominations, sects, individual unaffiliated churches, para-church groups, etc) in the world. "Over half of them are independent churches that are not interested in linking with the big denomination
Even considering a single religion, Christianity, within a single country, there are often thousands of individual "Christian confessions and denominations." For example, Barrett et al. states that there are:

4,684 groups in the U.S.

3,364 in South Africa.

2,079 in Nigeria.

1,581 in Brazil.

1,327 in South-central Asia.
Among other English-speaking countries, there are:

828 groups in the UK.

469 in Canada.

267 in Australia

175 in New Zealand.

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.

Well, as I've already said, to me, none of them meet the standard for being considered, since none of them have evidence that they are true. But since that also eliminates Christianity, that doesn't help you much.

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).

I hope you now see why you are mistaken about this.

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.

But why do you assume that a higher reality would necessarily guide humanity in any way at all? There could be plenty of reasons why it wouldn't. Perhaps a test? Perhaps humans weren't listening? Perhaps the god is asleep? Perhaps it's a god that just doesn't have that much interest in humanity? Perhaps the god is on a journey, or doing something else. Perhaps it's just a mystery (I've certainly seen Christians use that excuse before!)

I would seriously encourage you to rethink your positions. I've considered what you said very carefully, and I think I've answered your points fully. I don't think they're tenable, and I hope I've explained why.

 

[Magnanimity]

different religions if you think that they are all equivalent and that they all think they are equivalent.

This just isn't accurate in the slightest. I'm amazed you could think it is.
Ask just about any religious believer in the world if there is one true religion, and you know what they'll say?
"Yes, and it's mine."
And yes, of course most scholars of religion would tell you that the religion they are studying claims to be the one true religion, because they all do.
There are a few people - New Agers, and so on - who would say that all religions are the same. Perhaps you are one of them? But they are, quite simply, contradicted by the official stance of just about every religion that has ever lived.

Not at all.
Yes, many religions have a lot in common. Some of them (Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for instance) even share holy stories and prophets. But you know what else they share? A firm opinion that their religion is correct and all others mistaken.

I'm afraid not.
Are you in any way familiar with history over the past couple of thousand years? Seriously, your views would seem to be contradicted by virtually everything that any religion has ever said about any other religion. Generally, their attitude has been "we are right and they are wrong," frequently followed up by a holy war.

Not in the slightest. Point 2 is exactly correct, and Point 3 follows on from it.

Ask any Christian or any Buddhist, and they will both assure you that the two religions are not the same, are not equal, and each will say that theirs is the correct one.

Yes, Islam, Christianity and Judaism do share an awful lot of history, culture and values. But, as their believers would all tell you, they are completely different religions, and each considers the other two to be wrong.

I have a strong impression that you are underexposed to scholarship in this area. I see that you are quoting from certain "apologists." And that's not the worst thing in the world. Some apologists actually engage in genuine scholarship on some level (e.g., WL Craig, Robert Barron). But, CARM, RZIM, Evidence to Believe...that's just a no. It's a hard pass on all that stuff. Such ministries aren't representative of anything beyond conservative, Evangelical Christianity, I would think. They don't even extend into mainline Protestantism, Orthodoxy or Catholicism (which together comprise the overwhelming majority of Christendom) to say nothing of their inability to try to be representative of other religions. Such things are not indicative of the scholarly community, still less are they representative of the leaders who are the actual mouth-pieces of their respective religions.

Instead, we would need to take note of phenomena like this. Here we have two individuals who are high up within their respective hierarchies coming together in mutuality. Together, they co-signed a "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together." The Imam refers to Pope Francis as his "brother."

Did you ever watch the exchange between Reza Aslan and Sam Harris? It's worth watching, if you haven't. Now, I personally like Harris very much. He's the one (of the 4 horsemen) that I can listen to repeatedly. He comes across as sincere. But, in the exchange Reza was continually dismayed by Harris' apparent fundamentalist attitude with his interpretation of religion. And I shared Reza's frustration when watching the video. Any hard exclusivism ('we are completely right, and you are wrong') is a fundamentalist attitude at its core. And although every religion will have fundamentalists, just as there are atheist fundamentalists, I think we should commit ourselves to believing that that is not representative of either scholarship or most religious leaders.

There is entirely too much commonality among the beliefs and practices of the major world religions (which is actually undeniable) for fundamentalism to be a plausible option. Let's take an easy example. Consider the 5 pillars of Sunni Islam: the central creed, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage. Let's compare this with the world's other largest religious variety--Catholicism. The Catholic church is creedal (different truths are affirmed in its major creeds, but I'm talking about the quality of "being creedal"). And Catholicism advocates the same practices/rituals of prayer, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage. So what are considered essential pillars for Islam are also essential pillars for Catholicism.

Given this undeniable reality of both religions, how could an adherent of either one say that they are part of the "correct" religion and simultaneously about the other religion that it "is wrong," as you say? And this isn't facile reductivism. No one would reasonably suggest that Sunni Islam and Catholicism are really just the same thing. But, they are very much the same type of thing and their respective beliefs and practices enjoy substantial overlap. Again, this is not open to debate or denial. It's just data. So, neither one could legitimately claim that "their religion is correct and all others mistaken," as you said. Use an analogy like concentric overlapping circles, if it helps..

You're describing an exclusivistic, fundamentalist perspective on religion, whether or not you're aware of this. And this perspective is not representative of the best and brightest of world religions. I can't even think of a scholar working today at a major university in the West who is a fundamentalist. And I know a lot of them. Can't think of one. They may be out there. But, in my experience fundamentalists are at the fringes of their respective religions.

 

[Magnanimity]

The thing is, ethics is a matter of opinion.

Is it? I wouldn’t think most folks would agree. What is controversial about the Golden Rule as a general guide to all social behavior? Or how about Kant’s CI? Is it not obviously true that “one should always treat others as ends in themselves and never as a means only”? Or what about atheist philosopher Peter Singer’s moral maxim in his famous Famine, Affluence and Morality: “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” Not obviously true? Or how about, as Aristotle argues, that courage is preferable to cowardice, or justice to injustice, or generosity to stinginess? Are these debatable matters of opinion or pretty much universally acknowledged to be true?

Sure.
https://www.religioustolerance.org/reltrue.htm
"According to David Barrett and team, there are 19 major world religious groupings in the world which are subdivided into a total of about 10,000 distinct religions. Of the latter, there were 270 religions and para-religions which had over a half million adherents in the year 2000 CE. Within Christianity, they have identified 34,000 separate groups (denominations, sects, individual unaffiliated churches, para-church groups, etc) in the world. "

That's quite a free attempt at religious grouping that that site has done! I've never heard of religioustolerance.org, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I haven't reached the end of the Internet. However, we've all heard of Pew, and their grouping methodology places humanity into 8 religious groups. I think I'm going to go with Pew here. Groupings do matter.

As I've said several times in this thread, there are as many individual worldviews as there are rational humans on Earth, since no two humans 100% agree with each other on religion or any other important subject-matter (politics, philosophy, ethics). So, on that logic we could say something ridiculous like there are 7 Billion religions (or 7B ethical positions or 7B philosophies...). But, broad groupings is likely the most rational approach.

But why do you assume that a higher reality would necessarily guide humanity in any way at all? There could be plenty of reasons why it wouldn't. Perhaps a test? Perhaps humans weren't listening? Perhaps the god is asleep? Perhaps it's a god that just doesn't have that much interest in humanity? Perhaps the god is on a journey, or doing something else.

The above would only apply to a finite god who would need an explanation for her existence. Every claim above would not apply to God as articulated by some of the most celebrated of their respective religions: Ibn Sina, Maimonides, Ramanuja or Aquinas. It would apply to a Zeus, I guess...

 

[Sketcher]

This is an excerpt from an article on the Daylight Atheism blog. It has been condensed, but you can read the full article here.
In summary: finding the truth about God is like a cosmic shell game; the true believer has no chance at all of finding what the truth is. You have to play the game, and if you lose, you face damnation. This is completely unfair.
That's a brief summary. The condensed article is below. I think it makes a good point. Your thoughts on it?

"Consider a shell game, such as one might see in a traveling carnival. There are three identical hollow shells on a tabletop. The barker places a pea under one shell, then slides all three around. The objective is to guess which shell the pea ends up under.

In theory, it seems like a fair game. Even if you lose track of the pea, you still have a one-in-three chance of winning by picking a shell at random. But what if the game was different – what if, instead of three shells, there were thousands, and the barker was quick-fingered enough to switch all of them around at once? The odds of winning would be almost zero. And what if the stakes were higher – what if there was a million-dollar bet? And, finally, what if participation in the game wasn’t voluntary? That would be incredibly unfair, wouldn’t it?

The facts are these. There are literally thousands of religions in the world. Some are very similar to each other, even to the point of relying on the same holy books and diverging on only a few minor issues of doctrine or interpretation. Others are wildly dissimilar, differing on every detail of significance. All of them, however, are mutually exclusive. No one is a member of more than one religion.

Religion is a cosmic shell game.

If theism – any brand of theism – is true, then the universe is just a shell game at a rigged carnival, with God the barker whirling the pea of the One True Religion around under one of thousands of identical shells. Out of all those multitudes of faiths, the reward for picking the right one is an eternity of bliss and happiness. Failure to pick the correct one instead merits an eternity of torture. And your participation in the game is not voluntary. This, to put it lightly, is monstrously unfair.

How can we be expected to make that determination? How is it fair to ask – to demand – that we sort through this morass of religious confusion and come to the correct choice? The diversity of beliefs, creeds and practices to choose from is truly enormous.

And why confine ourselves to current religions? It is entirely possible that the true religion was a now-extinct faith. Nor can we discount religions because they do not have many followers, because they are too new (or too old), or because they are practiced only by people considered primitive by modern standards. Especially, we cannot use subjective personal standards of what’s too outlandish to be true. All of these things are logically irrelevant to the question of the truth of a particular belief system, and we cannot assume anything at the outset – we must begin with the null hypothesis that all religions have an equal chance of being correct. Only then can we begin to eliminate possibilities by careful examination of the evidence.

But there is another problem we will encounter if we try to do this. No religion can be conclusively proven or disproven by the evidence alone – believers of most, if not all, traditions would agree that, no matter what they feel the facts show, in the end you still have to make a leap of faith. If it were otherwise, religion would not be religion, but science.

However, if this is the case, we can never eliminate any religion from consideration. Some may require greater leaps of faith than others, but they would all stand a chance of being right regardless of the evidence arrayed for or against them. Unfalsifiable God hypotheses could always be invoked to fill the gaps between supportive facts or explain away any contrary ones. Believers could hypothesize that their deity deliberately withheld evidence, or even created false evidence, as a test of their faith, or for unknowable reasons of its own. Many religions do not even attempt to marshal evidence in favor of their claims, but simply postulate the existence of another world beyond our own whose existence must be accepted on faith alone.

Thus, any effort to rationally determine which is the true religion is doomed before it begins. The rules of scientific analysis are stymied by a barrier of faith, and any honest seeker after truth is trapped, hopelessly mired in a swamp of religious confusion. And even if we could somehow overcome the barrier of faith – even if we really did have some way to objectively determine which religions were true and which were false – what guarantee would we have that there would be anything left at the end? We might methodically cut away the thicket of false religions only to find that we had eliminated all of them and had nothing left over. In that case, the true “religion” would be atheism. The religions on this planet cannot all be right – but they could all be wrong!

No religion is different from all the rest. No religion stands out from the crowd. How can we even begin to sort through this mess? It is impossible. Even if we confine ourselves to those religions which anchor themselves in the facts, it would take a lifetime of study to make a comprehensive survey of the evidence for the claims of even one – never mind thousands – and almost no one attempts even that much, even for their belief system of choice. It is simply too much, too hard, to ask human beings with their brief lifespans of threescore and ten years to make this choice. There are too many options, too much confusion, too many religions competing and no way to discriminate among them. Their similarities are so similar, and their differences so different, that there is no good reason to prefer any one over all the others. Anyone who picks one religion is doing little more than guessing."

So, what do you think? Do you agree with the article, that finding the one true religion is like picking out the pea in a shell game - a pea among a thousand cups, with unimaginable stakes riding on you getting the right answer, and no option but for you to take the bet? Or do you disagree with it?

Sounds like someone who hasn't researched the veracity of very many religions, or not gotten too far with doing so.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Sounds like someone who hasn't researched the veracity of very many religions, or not gotten too far with doing so.

It's kind of the point - that doing so would be an impossible task, which is why expecting a person to be able to find the one true religion is unrealistic.

 

[Sketcher]

It's kind of the point - that doing so would be an impossible task, which is why expecting a person to be able to find the one true religion is unrealistic.

That to me comes across as someone who is overweight, who has not lost any weight, claiming that he can never lose weight. Unless there's a special medical reason bolstering this, it's possible, many have done it. Yet, without the will to put in the work, it will never happen. This person sounds like someone who does not want to put in the work, but absolutely has the option to.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

That to me comes across as someone who is overweight, who has not lost any weight, claiming that he can never lose weight. Unless there's a special medical reason bolstering this, it's possible, many have done it. Yet, without the will to put in the work, it will never happen. This person sounds like someone who does not want to put in the work, but absolutely has the option to.

The problem is, losing weight is immediately visible and verifiable. Let's say you want to lose weight. Okay, it's easy. Eat less, and exercise more.
But supposing you are ignorant of these simple facts? Well, ask someone and they'll tell you.
But supposing you get contradictory advice? And indeed, it is true, there are a multiplicity of ways to lose weight on the market, and many of them contradict each other. Should you eat lots of protein, for example, or very little? Should you cut out carbs, or should you cut out sugar? Is exercising the way to do it, or fasting? The situation is complicated by inconsistent results. For example, many "diet pills" are nothing but laxatives in disguise, and so the "weight loss" can be illusory.

But even after taking all of this into account, there is a fairly simple way to check if your weight loss remedy has been effective: either you lose weight, or you don't.

But it's not at all like that with religion.
First, there are thousands of different religions to choose from, each telling you that theirs is the right one.
Second, a great many of the religions require significant investment of time in order to understand them. For some, this may be months. For some, it may be decades. For some of the religions you are presented with, you may not live long enough. a great many of the possible religions are ones that you will never even know about, since they have long since vanished.
Third, how will you know if you have, in fact, chosen the right one? Christians would tell you that you will know because you will feel it to be true - you will have the spirit of God within you, or perhaps God will speak to you. But the problem is, many religions will say the same, and many of their members will claim to have similar experiences.

So in short - no, choosing the right religion is not at all like trying to lose weight. If we can stretch the analogy into the absurdity that it would require to match the task of seeking a religion, then it would be like trying to lose weight for a body you have never seen and will never see, with a thousand different weight-loss programs to choose from, all of them claiming that only they work and all of the others are fakes, and with no feedback on how the weigh-loss experiment is going.

 

[Sketcher]

The problem is, losing weight is immediately visible and verifiable. Let's say you want to lose weight. Okay, it's easy. Eat less, and exercise more.
But supposing you are ignorant of these simple facts? Well, ask someone and they'll tell you.
But supposing you get contradictory advice? And indeed, it is true, there are a multiplicity of ways to lose weight on the market, and many of them contradict each other. Should you eat lots of protein, for example, or very little? Should you cut out carbs, or should you cut out sugar? Is exercising the way to do it, or fasting? The situation is complicated by inconsistent results. For example, many "diet pills" are nothing but laxatives in disguise, and so the "weight loss" can be illusory.

But even after taking all of this into account, there is a fairly simple way to check if your weight loss remedy has been effective: either you lose weight, or you don't.

But it's not at all like that with religion.
First, there are thousands of different religions to choose from, each telling you that theirs is the right one.
Second, a great many of the religions require significant investment of time in order to understand them. For some, this may be months. For some, it may be decades. For some of the religions you are presented with, you may not live long enough. a great many of the possible religions are ones that you will never even know about, since they have long since vanished.
Third, how will you know if you have, in fact, chosen the right one? Christians would tell you that you will know because you will feel it to be true - you will have the spirit of God within you, or perhaps God will speak to you. But the problem is, many religions will say the same, and many of their members will claim to have similar experiences.

So in short - no, choosing the right religion is not at all like trying to lose weight. If we can stretch the analogy into the absurdity that it would require to match the task of seeking a religion, then it would be like trying to lose weight for a body you have never seen and will never see, with a thousand different weight-loss programs to choose from, all of them claiming that only they work and all of the others are fakes, and with no feedback on how the weigh-loss experiment is going.

You're overstating the enormity of the task, and the implications of it.

First of all, most people are around at least one religion. They can start by investigating those. If they still haven't found the pea, they can look into the other major world religions they are not around, and so on. They can uncover at least some shells in easy reach.

Second, since I believe the pea will be found under Christianity, I dismiss the need to investigate every last little religion and cult. If the answer is within Christianity, and Christianity is not just in the top 10, but the most popular religion in the world, then the benefits of looking into the other religions are just ancillary. Hence, one doesn't have to overturn all of the shells.

Third, seeking truth in religion itself has meaning and value. It challenges people in healthy ways. Even if the game were to be impossible to win, people are better for having played it.

Fourth, if the consequence of getting it wrong is a fate worse than death, it is irrational to not even make an effort to getting it right because you know that you will die.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

You're overstating the enormity of the task, and the implications of it.

No, I don't think I am in the slightest.

First of all, most people are around at least one religion. They can start by investigating those. If they still haven't found the pea, they can look into the other major world religions they are not around, and so on.

There are some difficulties with the course you suggest.
How will they investigate the religions near them? Do you see any difficulties they might have in doing so?
First, are you aware that most people in the world live in areas where on religion predominates? It's true, many - though not all - have access to information online, but that isn't a magical solution. Indeed, they may even find false information there. And that brings us to the second problem.
This is that there is not just information, there is disinformation. Take, for example, a Muslim person who wishes to investigate Christianity. Most likely, they will begin by asking the people the trust the most - their teachers and family. Can you foresee any difficulties here? Perhaps they will research Christianity online. Do you think they might go to muslim websites? And if so, can you see how they may not gain a correct impression of Christianity?
Third, a person who does wish to investigate another religion may face severe penalties from the society they live in. I'm sure you're familiar with the persecution that Christians can face in certain countries around the world for not believing in the dominant religion where they are. Do you see how a person in, say, Afghanistan could encounter severe difficulties, including violence and legal penalties, for trying to learn about Christianity?

They can uncover at least some shells in easy reach.

But is that how the shell game is played? The shells are swapped around, and you get to uncover as many as you like until you find the pea, at which point you win the game?
It's true, if you tap a shell and you're wrong, the magician or barker may laugh and let you have another try. But this is just them having fun. In fact, you've lost the game by this point.

Second, since I believe the pea will be found under Christianity, I dismiss the need to investigate every last little religion and cult.

The obvious problem is that every believer of every religion would say the same thing. "Don't worry," says Sketcher the Christian. "You don't need to think about every shell. The pea is under the Christian cup."
"Quite so," says Dr. A. A Bilal Philips, PhD. "It's just that it's not Christianity. It's Islam, as Jesus himself would tell you."
"You're both right, in a sense," says a Hindu. "There is just one true religion. It's Hinduism, and I will be happy to explain why."

If the answer is within Christianity, and Christianity is not just in the top 10, but the most popular religion in the world, then the benefits of looking into the other religions are just ancillary. Hence, one doesn't have to overturn all of the shells.

This is a textbook logical fallacy: argumentum ad populum. Just because lots of people believe something to be true, doesn't mean that it is.

Third, seeking truth in religion itself has meaning and value. It challenges people in healthy ways. Even if the game were to be impossible to win, people are better for having played it.

I thought you said the answer was Christianity, do people didn't need to play it? I mean, you did suggest that they try to a little, presumably for the mental exercise, but since you told them you already know the answer, there's no real need for them to do it, is there?
But you're right, in a way. The game is almost impossible to win.

Fourth, if the consequence of getting it wrong is a fate worse than death, it is irrational to not even make an effort to getting it right because you know that you will die.

Then you're in trouble, because you're not going to get it right. There are thousands of religions to choose from. You say that you know what the answer is, but I'm afraid your answer means exactly nothing, because every other religion says the same thing.

Do you see what I mean? The person facing the thousand cups is confronted by a thousand people - Sketcher the Christian, and hundreds of others, each one saying that there is only one truth, and it's underneath their cup.
Sounds like quite the problem!

 

[InterestedAtheist]

I have a strong impression that you are underexposed to scholarship in this area. I see that you are quoting from certain "apologists." And that's not the worst thing in the world. Some apologists actually engage in genuine scholarship on some level (e.g., WL Craig, Robert Barron). But, CARM, RZIM, Evidence to Believe...that's just a no.

It's true that there are a great many scholars I have yet to encounter, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But this is really a bit like criticising someone for claiming that French and English are different languages just because they don't have a doctorate in linguistics. I'm afraid it's you, not me, who is confused. I shall do my best to explain it to you.

Such ministries aren't representative of anything beyond conservative, Evangelical Christianity, I would think.

It depends on what they're talking about. In their views on God and abortion, or hell, or evolution, quite possibly not. But when you hear them say things like "Jesus was and is the son of God" or "Jesus was crucified and rose again three days later" or "there is only one true religion, and it is Christianity," they are in fact stating simple and obvious truths that are at the heart of their religion, and have been since it began. You saw the poll I put up. A dozen people have answered so far, and all of them agreed that Christians see their religion as the one true religion. Not very scientific or wide-reaching, of course, but it's significant nonetheless.
So perhaps it's time for you to back up what you're saying. You think that all religions are equal and that they all agree with you? Okay. Find. Quote me the Bible where it says that there are many Gods, and that Yahweh is just one of them. Find me a verse in the Quran that says that Islam is only one of many true faiths.

They don't even extend into mainline Protestantism, Orthodoxy or Catholicism (which together comprise the overwhelming majority of Christendom) to say nothing of their inability to try to be representative of other religions. Such things are not indicative of the scholarly community, still less are they representative of the leaders who are the actual mouth-pieces of their respective religions.

I'm sorry, but they very much are. The idea that there is but one true religion is a focal point of just about every religion. And I invite you to find proof that I am wrong on that, if you are able.

Instead, we would need to take note of phenomena like this. Here we have two individuals who are high up within their respective hierarchies coming together in mutuality. Together, they co-signed a "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together." The Imam refers to Pope Francis as his "brother."

Yes, and good for them. But notice what they did not say. They did not say that their religions were equally valid. They spoke of the importance of working together, of the many values they shared, and of how they could and should help the world, yes. But the Catholics still believe that Catohlicism is the one true faith, and the Muslims that Islam is.
You may be interested in this article about the meeting: Pope Francis: “Diversity of Religions” is “Willed by God” - The Fatima Center
"Moreover, saying that “the diversity of religions” is “willed by God” has every appearance of heresy. The mission of the Church from the beginning is to bring the knowledge of God to the world and “teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19), that all peoples might leave their particular idols and creeds and be converted to the Catholic Church. The Church infallibly teaches that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), so unless Francis means that this diversity of religion is permissively willed by God to elicit the Church’s response to reach out and convert other religions, he is negating dogma and dignifying the errors of fake religion.
For to say that God willed diversity of religions in the ordained sense is to say that God engendered these religions, which is heresy. And since Francis obviously means that diversity of “colour, sex, race and language are willed by God” in the ordained sense (which they are), we can only assume he means “diversity of religions” the same way.
Naturally, other religions cannot coexist with the Catholic Church for the simple reason that Christ did not found them—they operate outside of grace. And whereas some religions may appear to agree with certain aspects of Catholic teaching, they exist in opposition to the Catholic Church, which means the Church may never unite with them."

Did you ever watch the exchange between Reza Aslan and Sam Harris? It's worth watching, if you haven't. Now, I personally like Harris very much. He's the one (of the 4 horsemen) that I can listen to repeatedly. He comes across as sincere. But, in the exchange Reza was continually dismayed by Harris' apparent fundamentalist attitude with his interpretation of religion.

I haven't seen it, no, but I do admire both of those persons. I imagine that Reza Aslan had a lot to say about how Christianity and Islam could and should work together. But I bet if you asked him about it, he would say that both Christianity and Islam - as well as just about every other religion - consider themselves to be the one true religion.

There is entirely too much commonality among the beliefs and practices of the major world religions (which is actually undeniable) for fundamentalism to be a plausible option. Let's take an easy example. Consider the 5 pillars of Sunni Islam: the central creed, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage. Let's compare this with the world's other largest religious variety--Catholicism. The Catholic church is creedal (different truths are affirmed in its major creeds, but I'm talking about the quality of "being creedal"). And Catholicism advocates the same practices/rituals of prayer, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage. So what are considered essential pillars for Islam are also essential pillars for Catholicism.

Yes, and both of them are rather sexist organisations, and both of them practice a thing called "prayer" and both of them meet in special houses in which to pray.
But there's one more thing they have in common. Both Christianity and Islam each believe that they are right, and the other is wrong. Seriously, how is it you don't know this?

Given this undeniable reality of both religions

Oh dear...

Given this undeniable reality of both religions, how could an adherent of either one say that they are part of the "correct" religion and simultaneously about the other religion that it "is wrong," as you say? And this isn't facile reductivism. No one would reasonably suggest that Sunni Islam and Catholicism are really just the same thing. But, they are very much the same type of thing and their respective beliefs and practices enjoy substantial overlap.

Yes, they are very much the same type of thing. An ancient, Abrahamic religion which considers that it has exclusive access to divine truth.

Again, this is not open to debate or denial. It's just data.

I'm sorry to deny or debate you, but you are quite simply mistaken. Most religions consider themselves to be the one true faith.
Now, if you wish to disagree with that, please find me some respected religious leaders to back you up. Not, please note, in giving their personal opinions about how religions should all be equal. Find me some respected figures who tell us that all Christians believe that their religion is equal with all others, or that all Muslims believe that all religions are valid.

So, neither one could legitimately claim that "their religion is correct and all others mistaken," as you said. Use an analogy like concentric overlapping circles, if it helps..

And yet that is exactly what they all do claim.

You're describing an exclusivistic, fundamentalist perspective on religion, whether or not you're aware of this. And this perspective is not representative of the best and brightest of world religions. I can't even think of a scholar working today at a major university in the West who is a fundamentalist. And I know a lot of them. Can't think of one. They may be out there. But, in my experience fundamentalists are at the fringes of their respective religions.

You are, I think, mistaken about what fundamentalism means. Going by what you say, I am starting to think that you are an extremely liberal believer. That's nice, but it has obviously led you astray. Just because you think that all religions should be considered equally valid, does not mean the religions themselves do. In fact, they don't.

Is it? I wouldn’t think most folks would agree. What is controversial about the Golden Rule as a general guide to all social behavior? Or how about Kant’s CI? Is it not obviously true that “one should always treat others as ends in themselves and never as a means only”? Or what about atheist philosopher Peter Singer’s moral maxim in his famous Famine, Affluence and Morality: “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” Not obviously true? Or how about, as Aristotle argues, that courage is preferable to cowardice, or justice to injustice, or generosity to stinginess? Are these debatable matters of opinion or pretty much universally acknowledged to be true?

You're kidding, right? These things you've mentioned are enormously debatable. Religion, on the other hand, makes certain claims that are either right or wrong.

That's quite a free attempt at religious grouping that that site has done! I've never heard of religioustolerance.org, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I haven't reached the end of the Internet. However, we've all heard of Pew, and their grouping methodology places humanity into 8 religious groups. I think I'm going to go with Pew here. Groupings do matter.

That's quite a cavalier dismissal of thousands of years of history. Perhaps you're not a historian, but I would have thought that most people would be aware that human civilisation stretches back tens of thousands of years, and includes a great many religions along the way.
And by the way, you might note that your Pew methodology places humanity into eight religious groups. Groups of religions, not religions themselves.

As I've said several times in this thread, there are as many individual worldviews as there are rational humans on Earth, since no two humans 100% agree with each other on religion or any other important subject-matter (politics, philosophy, ethics). So, on that logic we could say something ridiculous like there are 7 Billion religions (or 7B ethical positions or 7B philosophies...). But, broad groupings is likely the most rational approach.

Yes, and we could also say that there are seven billion countries, for each man is an island, don't you know. But in fact, we don't, because the seven billion people group themselves into different national areas, called countries, and do a similar thing with their religious beliefs. And one of the beliefs that these religions tend to hold quite firmly is that they are right and others are wrong.

The above would only apply to a finite god who would need an explanation for her existence. Every claim above would not apply to God as articulated by some of the most celebrated of their respective religions: Ibn Sina, Maimonides, Ramanuja or Aquinas. It would apply to a Zeus, I guess...

Yes, it would, and to many other gods as well. Furthermore, who are you to guess the mind of a god? This is what I mean about faith being a trump card. any believer of any religion can quite simply say that they have been given a special knowledge by their god that theirs is the one true religion, and how could anyone gainsay them?

 

[InterestedAtheist]

@Magnanimity , here is a link to one of the forums on this site where Christians discuss Christianity.
Christian Philosophy & Ethics
Why not go on there and tell them what you told me. Tell that that religions have much more in common than not. Tell them that fundamentalism doesn't make sense. Tell them about Reza Aslan. Ask them if they agree with you that all religions are equally valid. See what they say.

 

[Sketcher]

There are some difficulties with the course you suggest.
How will they investigate the religions near them? Do you see any difficulties they might have in doing so?
First, are you aware that most people in the world live in areas where on religion predominates? It's true, many - though not all - have access to information online, but that isn't a magical solution. Indeed, they may even find false information there. And that brings us to the second problem.
This is that there is not just information, there is disinformation. Take, for example, a Muslim person who wishes to investigate Christianity. Most likely, they will begin by asking the people the trust the most - their teachers and family. Can you foresee any difficulties here? Perhaps they will research Christianity online. Do you think they might go to muslim websites? And if so, can you see how they may not gain a correct impression of Christianity?

Third, a person who does wish to investigate another religion may face severe penalties from the society they live in. I'm sure you're familiar with the persecution that Christians can face in certain countries around the world for not believing in the dominant religion where they are. Do you see how a person in, say, Afghanistan could encounter severe difficulties, including violence and legal penalties, for trying to learn about Christianity?

Yet, there are still Afghan Christians, and they were there long before the US invaded. It's riskier there for sure, but some will find it worth the effort. And honestly, using an example like that to claim that still wouldn't be worth the effort in a country like the US really falls flat to me.

But is that how the shell game is played? The shells are swapped around, and you get to uncover as many as you like until you find the pea, at which point you win the game?
It's true, if you tap a shell and you're wrong, the magician or barker may laugh and let you have another try. But this is just them having fun. In fact, you've lost the game by this point.

But the religions I know about don't have God or their main god figure playing the role of a barker who doesn't care if you win or lose as long as you paid. The religions I know about have God or their main god figure wanting people to make it to Heaven, or whatever the goal of that religion is. If that's the case, it is reasonable to believe that goal is more accessible than you are positing.

This is a textbook logical fallacy: argumentum ad populum. Just because lots of people believe something to be true, doesn't mean that it is.

While that is true by itself, it also stands to reason that if God cares and wants people to make it to Heaven, the right way to make it there will be among the top religions, either in the present or the future. If the One True Way is very obscure, it will grow out of that obscurity to prominence if he wants it made known. If he doesn't though, it doesn't matter - even if the One True Way is known, he'd still find ways to make that harder, if he doesn't want people to make it. In other words, God will promote his own way if he wants people to make it, or will add challenges if it is too easy to find if he doesn't want very many or any people to make it.

I thought you said the answer was Christianity, do people didn't need to play it? I mean, you did suggest that they try to a little, presumably for the mental exercise, but since you told them you already know the answer, there's no real need for them to do it, is there?
But you're right, in a way. The game is almost impossible to win.

I believe Christianity is the answer, so I believe people should come to that. I believe seeking God is a good and positive thing.

Then you're in trouble, because you're not going to get it right. There are thousands of religions to choose from. You say that you know what the answer is, but I'm afraid your answer means exactly nothing, because every other religion says the same thing.

Do you see what I mean? The person facing the thousand cups is confronted by a thousand people - Sketcher the Christian, and hundreds of others, each one saying that there is only one truth, and it's underneath their cup.
Sounds like quite the problem!

That presumes knowledge that you do not have. If one doesn't look at all, one has zero chance of getting it right. If one looks, then there's a chance of getting it right. And if the consequences of not getting it right is a fate worse than death, then there's no reason to not try.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Yet, there are still Afghan Christians, and they were there long before the US invaded. It's riskier there for sure, but some will find it worth the effort. And honestly, using an example like that to claim that still wouldn't be worth the effort in a country like the US really falls flat to me.

Please don't ignore the whole point and respond to just a small part of it. That's strawmanning.
The overall point is that there are many problems with a person choosing to explore another religion. You say that it's easy to explore other religions, but there are many places in the world where it is extremely difficult. Afghanistan is a good example, but only the worst of many. And let's not forget that we are living in a relatively liberal and enlightened age; at most times and placed throughout history, a person who went about exploring other religions would have been in danger of their life. You say this is not the case in the USA, but you're ignoring what I wrote above; even in a relatively tolerant and cosmopolitan area there are still considerable difficulties to a person trying to explore a new religion.
And let's not forget that there are a multitude of religions to choose between. Even in Christianity there are a large number of different denominations, many of whom insist that the other denominations are invalid. To a person who wants to find out what the true faith is, your advice to "just try a few because it makes you a better person" is practically insulting. So if you say that it's easy for a person to try turning over a number of shells to see if the pea is underneath them, I have to say that you haven't thought this through carefully enough.

But the religions I know about don't have God or their main god figure playing the role of a barker who doesn't care if you win or lose as long as you paid. The religions I know about have God or their main god figure wanting people to make it to Heaven, or whatever the goal of that religion is. If that's the case, it is reasonable to believe that goal is more accessible than you are positing.

I think you need to read the OP again and consider it more carefully.
Think about this: there is only one god or collection of gods per religion. So no matter how many shells (religions) there are, only one of the gods (or pantheon of gods; but let's say "god" for convenience) is actually real.
So, this god is watching humanity throughout the whole of history, watching them create religion after religion, with most of the human race throughout history getting it wrong. You say that whichever God is real probably wants His children to join his religion, but that's not what it looks like, because most people choose different religions. Therefore, whatever religion turns out to be right (if, in fact, one of them does), then most of the people who play the game will have lost.

While that is true by itself, it also stands to reason that if God cares and wants people to make it to Heaven, the right way to make it there will be among the top religions, either in the present or the future. If the One True Way is very obscure, it will grow out of that obscurity to prominence if he wants it made known. If he doesn't though, it doesn't matter - even if the One True Way is known, he'd still find ways to make that harder, if he doesn't want people to make it. In other words, God will promote his own way if he wants people to make it, or will add challenges if it is too easy to find if he doesn't want very many or any people to make it.

First, there's a simple flaw in your argument. You say "if God cares and wants people to make it to Heaven." But who says he, she, it or they do? Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't care. Maybe it's a test - testing is a big part of most religions. You can't just dismiss a religion because it's old, small or even extinct.

Second, follow your reasoning to its logical conclusion. You say that God wants people to find the True Way, and Christianity must be it because it is so popular? If you use this line of argument, I'm afraid you'll find it creates more problems for you than it solves. After all, if there is an all-powerful God who does actually want all people to become Christians, then why do we have so many other religions? And why has Christianity been so unsuccessful in the past? Taking Christians as a percentage of all human believers throughout history, it's been very small indeed. Even today, most people are not Christians. Why not? And then there's Christianity itself, which was fractured terribly five hundred years ago and has never recovered. Today there are a huge number of Christian denominations, many of whom insist that the others are not "real" Christians, as I said earlier.

I believe Christianity is the answer, so I believe people should come to that. I believe seeking God is a good and positive thing.

Sure, but here you're trying to disprove a logical argument. What you yourself think doesn't matter. Because, as I think I said to you earlier, while Sketcher the Christian may say "But of course it's not really a problem because we know that the pea is underneath my particular version of Christianity," every other believer will say exactly the same thing for their religion.

That presumes knowledge that you do not have. If one doesn't look at all, one has zero chance of getting it right. If one looks, then there's a chance of getting it right. And if the consequences of not getting it right is a fate worse than death, then there's no reason to not try.

No, it's watertight logic. Yes, of course there's a chance of getting it right. It's a one-in-a-thousand chance, but it's still a chance.
Does that sound like a fair game to you? Thousand-to-one odds, with infinitely high stakes and no option to not play?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

This is an excerpt from an article on the Daylight Atheism blog. It has been condensed, but you can read the full article here.
In summary: finding the truth about God is like a cosmic shell game; the true believer has no chance at all of finding what the truth is. You have to play the game, and if you lose, you face damnation. This is completely unfair.
That's a brief summary. The condensed article is below. I think it makes a good point. Your thoughts on it?

"Consider a shell game, such as one might see in a traveling carnival. There are three identical hollow shells on a tabletop. The barker places a pea under one shell, then slides all three around. The objective is to guess which shell the pea ends up under.

In theory, it seems like a fair game. Even if you lose track of the pea, you still have a one-in-three chance of winning by picking a shell at random. But what if the game was different – what if, instead of three shells, there were thousands, and the barker was quick-fingered enough to switch all of them around at once? The odds of winning would be almost zero. And what if the stakes were higher – what if there was a million-dollar bet? And, finally, what if participation in the game wasn’t voluntary? That would be incredibly unfair, wouldn’t it?

The facts are these. There are literally thousands of religions in the world. Some are very similar to each other, even to the point of relying on the same holy books and diverging on only a few minor issues of doctrine or interpretation. Others are wildly dissimilar, differing on every detail of significance. All of them, however, are mutually exclusive. No one is a member of more than one religion.

Religion is a cosmic shell game.

If theism – any brand of theism – is true, then the universe is just a shell game at a rigged carnival, with God the barker whirling the pea of the One True Religion around under one of thousands of identical shells. Out of all those multitudes of faiths, the reward for picking the right one is an eternity of bliss and happiness. Failure to pick the correct one instead merits an eternity of torture. And your participation in the game is not voluntary. This, to put it lightly, is monstrously unfair.

How can we be expected to make that determination? How is it fair to ask – to demand – that we sort through this morass of religious confusion and come to the correct choice? The diversity of beliefs, creeds and practices to choose from is truly enormous.

And why confine ourselves to current religions? It is entirely possible that the true religion was a now-extinct faith. Nor can we discount religions because they do not have many followers, because they are too new (or too old), or because they are practiced only by people considered primitive by modern standards. Especially, we cannot use subjective personal standards of what’s too outlandish to be true. All of these things are logically irrelevant to the question of the truth of a particular belief system, and we cannot assume anything at the outset – we must begin with the null hypothesis that all religions have an equal chance of being correct. Only then can we begin to eliminate possibilities by careful examination of the evidence.

But there is another problem we will encounter if we try to do this. No religion can be conclusively proven or disproven by the evidence alone – believers of most, if not all, traditions would agree that, no matter what they feel the facts show, in the end you still have to make a leap of faith. If it were otherwise, religion would not be religion, but science.

However, if this is the case, we can never eliminate any religion from consideration. Some may require greater leaps of faith than others, but they would all stand a chance of being right regardless of the evidence arrayed for or against them. Unfalsifiable God hypotheses could always be invoked to fill the gaps between supportive facts or explain away any contrary ones. Believers could hypothesize that their deity deliberately withheld evidence, or even created false evidence, as a test of their faith, or for unknowable reasons of its own. Many religions do not even attempt to marshal evidence in favor of their claims, but simply postulate the existence of another world beyond our own whose existence must be accepted on faith alone.

Thus, any effort to rationally determine which is the true religion is doomed before it begins. The rules of scientific analysis are stymied by a barrier of faith, and any honest seeker after truth is trapped, hopelessly mired in a swamp of religious confusion. And even if we could somehow overcome the barrier of faith – even if we really did have some way to objectively determine which religions were true and which were false – what guarantee would we have that there would be anything left at the end? We might methodically cut away the thicket of false religions only to find that we had eliminated all of them and had nothing left over. In that case, the true “religion” would be atheism. The religions on this planet cannot all be right – but they could all be wrong!

No religion is different from all the rest. No religion stands out from the crowd. How can we even begin to sort through this mess? It is impossible. Even if we confine ourselves to those religions which anchor themselves in the facts, it would take a lifetime of study to make a comprehensive survey of the evidence for the claims of even one – never mind thousands – and almost no one attempts even that much, even for their belief system of choice. It is simply too much, too hard, to ask human beings with their brief lifespans of threescore and ten years to make this choice. There are too many options, too much confusion, too many religions competing and no way to discriminate among them. Their similarities are so similar, and their differences so different, that there is no good reason to prefer any one over all the others. Anyone who picks one religion is doing little more than guessing."

So, what do you think? Do you agree with the article, that finding the one true religion is like picking out the pea in a shell game - a pea among a thousand cups, with unimaginable stakes riding on you getting the right answer, and no option but for you to take the bet? Or do you disagree with it?

Yes, I disagree with it.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Yes, I disagree with it.

I can't imagine why. Still, thank you for reading it.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I can't imagine why. Still, thank you for reading it.

You're welcome.