There is no universal human religion

[midniterider]

I have a dog in my lap right now. They exist. 

[LogicalFallacy]

10 minutes ago, midniterider said:

I have a dog in my lap right now. They exist. 

 

Yip

 

I gave my dog a treat at lunch. I can provide pictures of my dog. You can come to my house and pat and play with my dog. If she bites you, you will feel it, if she barks, everyone around will hear it.

 

Do the same for God.

[LogicalFallacy]

1 hour ago, OrdinaryClay said:

Here is a question for you though, why have you not addressed any of my questions about your dog scenario?

 

I have, you either ignored the posts or are irrational... or actually meant something else as you clarify below.

 

1 hour ago, OrdinaryClay said:

How would you prove to me a dog walked through your yard at some point in the past such that all physical effects have dissipated?

 

I wouldn't be able to if all physical effects have dissipated. However given that dogs and their signs are well established facts it would not be an extraordinary claim, nor would accepting my claim do much to change your understanding of the universe. If I claimed an elephant walked through my back yard you'd have every reason to not accept the claim. Sure you know elephants exist and they have huge poo droppings, but they don't generally walk through back yards in New Zealand do they?

 

Now I claim that a whothingmywhatsit walked through my back yard. We have no evidence of this thing existing apart from some testimonies of people seeing the whothingmywhatsit. What's more is that there are stories and claims of other whothingmywhatsit's, but they are different in some way, thus we have conflicting mutually exclusive reports of whothingmywhatsit. Further to this these groups of people all claim that their whothingmywhatsit is the true one.

 

Now are you warranted in accepting the claim?

 

You keep accusing me of category errors, yet you are equivocating a claim of an event of an animal known to exist for which there is vast amounts of evidence for with a metaphysical claim that you yourself have admitted you take on faith. I'd suggest you look in the mirror.

[freshstart]

2 hours ago, OrdinaryClay said:

I already know the origins of the Bible.

Ok, so on what authority do you know the origins of the Bible? Who wrote the books of the Hebrew bible (i.e. Old Testament).

 

2 hours ago, OrdinaryClay said:

Do you know the difference between inference and deduction? Do you know what it means to "prove" something?

Yes.

2 hours ago, OrdinaryClay said:

Natural revelation is the best source for direct evidence for the existence of God.

On what authority do you make that claim?

What are you calling "direct evidence?"

 

2 hours ago, OrdinaryClay said:

Quote

If you are not willing to learn from anyone here, then what are you doing here? What is your purpose?

Responsibility.

 

Mat 12:36 "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment."

So how is it YOUR responsibility to do anything to interfere with what you believe to be God's judgment?

 

2 hours ago, OrdinaryClay said:

Were you a Christian? BTW - You need to understand that I'm a devoted unwaivering believer.

Yes, I was a Christian. And you need to understand that I am not trying to deconvert you. Unlike you, I am not unwaivering in my beliefs. I am open-minded and perfectly willing to accept that I do not have all the answers to life's questions. But after a critical examination of Christianity, unless the Christian God identifies himself in a crystal clear way, I am completely unable to believe. I feel the same way about Big Foot, unicorns, Loch Ness monster, etc. A lot of people believe in these things, but I just can't. I don't see the evidence.

[Astreja]

2 hours ago, OrdinaryClay said:

Speaking of "wishful thinking" that is what's at the core of pagan magick. I strongly urge you NOT to engage in such practices as it's an abomination in the eyes of God.

 

So what makes "evidence of things not seen" any less of an abomination?

[Joshpantera]

On 9/21/2019 at 8:44 PM, OrdinaryClay said:

A person to claim they ever understood the Bible and were a Christian and not understand the intentional double symbolism in prophecy speaks very loudly about the truth of their history with Christianity.

 

The 1st century Christians clearly understood this. They are the ones who taught me.

 

No, what christians understand is that this so called intentional double symbolism is feed to them as if true, when, reading it objectively starts to show a pattern. You can literally go into the bible right now and cut and paste out of context sentences here and there and claim that they are referring to someone or something now, when, they were never referring to that someone or something now but someone or something contemporary to the writers and writing. 

 

The young maiden and the child named Immanuel were contemporary references to contemporary people. 

 

For Matthew (anonymous writer) to then look through the scriptures, see that, and claim:

 

²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”^[g] (which means “God with us”).

 

It's a very convoluted claim. Completely out of context. The prophet was talking about something that was already fulfilled back in the preceding chapter of Isaiah, not hanging around waiting to be fulfilled nor being fulfilled twice - once in the contemporary period and then again way in the future. It's no wonder that the jews scoffed at these claims. They are ridiculous claims.

 

In fact, they are as ridiculous to jews as are the claims of mormons to christians. It's complete made up and evident fantasy. Both being guilty of the same twisting and manipulating of some previous religious framework to suite their own agenda. 

 

It's all black and white obvious when the blinders come of. You have the blinders firmly attached though.....

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Clay, I am guessing you, like I was, born into christianity.  Into a set of assumptions about christianity taught to you by family, church, and the society around you.  I even attended 2 Christian colleges.  Was taught the Bible was the inerrant word of god, the source of pure truth, and to question it would endanger my soul.  And other religions were false.

 

But at one point it dawned on me that if I had been born in a different country, which primarily followed a different religion, to parents and extended family who were very devoted to that religion, I would be just as devoted to that religion, thinking Christianity was a "false" religion. 

 

Unless you have good knowledge of all religions and Gods, and the history of religions and gods, how do you know which one is the true one?  

 

While my friends were praying for more faith in Jesus, God, and the bible, I prayed to God to help me find the TRUTH about religions and gods.  After 20 years of honest study I finally decided all gods are myths.

 

The New Testament was brought to you by the Catholic church, who was killing people, and burning scripture that didn't agree with them.  Not by a bunch of "holy" Jesus followers who loved their enemies and prayed for them.  I think Jesus probably existed, but was made into what the Catholics wanted him to be.  And, by the way, Jesus wasn't officially declared divine until 325 AD. 

 

If you are basing your faith on the christian Bible, and  haven't done a rational study of how it came to you,  and with an open mind, of the history of all gods and religions, you are like a person studying the tail of an elephant, and thinking you understand the whole animal.  Religions with "supreme god heads" are the largest superstitions in the world.

 

How do you know you have the truth if you haven't looked at all the available evidence??

 

[mwc]

     I have no proof a dog walked through my yard.  Now I have live life knowing that my failure to be able to do so doesn't matter one whit whatsoever.  Well, except, now I have to take it on faith that a particular dog, not just any dog mind you but a very special dog, walked through my yard in the past.  This dog loved me and continues to love me to this day.  It's already dead, of course, but when I die I will go walkies with this dog unless I fail to believe it walked in my yard.

 

          mwc

 

[Moonobserver]

On 8/14/2019 at 2:33 PM, TEG said:

Hello.  As an ex-fundamentalist I am still fascinated by the phenomenon of religion.  And I have asked myself, is it possible that there really is something “out there,” meaning some sort of deity or spiritual world, or something “in there,” meaning a non-corporeal soul.  It seems to me that if there really were some sort of spiritual world that was accessible to man, then there would be some sort of universal human religion.  We all see the same moon; why don’t we all see the same god?  Example:  hinduism and buddhism are two of the world’s main religions.  But as I understand it, they do not agree on something as fundamental as the existence of the atman, or soul.  Hindus say there is one, buddhists say there isn’t.  This seems like a pretty important question for religion to answer.  Another example:  Jesus told his disciples that the holy spirit would guide them into all truth.  Down through the centuries, he has not been a very good guide, as evidenced by religious divisions and even warfare, with each group using the tinfoil-hat argument that the devil has deceived their opponents.  Another example:  how many gods are there?

 

I can imagine someone objecting to this by saying that when people have spiritual experiences, it is so unlike everyday experience that it cannot be put into words, or that everyone sees things from a different angle and so has a different perspective.  But I still have trouble with the fact that the amount of agreement between religions is so small, and can’t help but think it is much more likely that religious experiences are basically hallucinations.  Even near-death experiences, which have common elements, have neurobiological explanations; plus, they happen when a person is dying and their brain is starved of oxygen.  People having heart attacks often have chest pain, shortness of breath, etc.; people whose brains are shutting down sometimes have near-death experiences.

 

So what I have been searching for is some reason to believe that religion or spirituality is based on something “real” other than a feeling that you have, and I have not found it.  The ancient babylonians and greeks used the same trigonometry that we use.  Anyone on earth doing basic experiments would come up with the same value for the acceleration due to gravity.  But religions are as diverse as science fiction novels.  So I have concluded that religion is, basically, science fiction that people actually believe.  It is the product of man’s mind, and is thus as diverse as man himself.  It sometimes makes people better, and sometimes makes them worse, just like everything else.  If someone’s religion or spirituality helps them through life’s rough spots, the way that crutches help people walk, fine; but I do not believe that there is anything more real to it than that.

 

Just wondering if anyone else has wondered along these lines.

Don't know if I can address your line of thinking in full, but for what it's worth I offer a little dialog which has occurred to me concerning the nature of "illusion":

 

STUDENT: Master, neurology has told us that just because we see something doesn't mean it's there.

 

MASTER: Student, physics has told us that just because something is *there* doesn't mean it's there.