you don't pick one at random. you pick one that makes sense. what makes sense for example is the positive impact a religion has on the world. which religion is doing the most good? that alone will narrow down the selection to a few dozen if that many. besides the good it does, another question could be: what makes sense to you? which religion has the better answers to explain the world in which we live in today? take the issues and questions that matter to you, and then look at the answers and see if they are satisfactory. keep searching until you find the answers you seek.
This is the "by their fruits you shall know them" argument (which I think is among the stronger arguments for the record), but I've personally used this to try and find a "correct" religion and what I discovered (personally of course) is that there is good and bad in essentially every religion. Using this as a standard is basically impossible.
But if you took it at a high macro level and did narrow down to a few dozen, those are still terrible odds. If I have a 1 in 36 chance of picking the wrong religion and being damned, I think we need a better standard of evidence to narrow this field a bit. Unless of course you believe that a loving (some would say omni-benevolent) God would think it's reasonable to torture 97% of his children who are actively searching him out, just because they picked the wrong church. (that's not even considering all the others of course).
for me the standard of evidence is the search for the truth. that means, keep searching until i am satisfied. it could take a lifetime, and maybe that's the point. don't just make a choice and then blindly accept everything from then on.
Your comment is a manifestation of this weird double standard that gets applied to atheists/agnostics where they’re supposed to be burdened to “find answers” and it’s a problem that they don’t have that religious burden.
It also manifests in this sort of insulted vibe that religious people get when their faith is questioned.
Basically, it’s socially not okay to question the faith of someone in a particular religion because it’s their culture, it’s their belief system, but the atheist/agnostic “belief” system isn’t respected in the same way. The person who has not found any evidence of god as described in various religions is told to seek enlightenment as if they are the ones who are incomplete.
People who use the scientific method don’t “pick at random” when there is no available answer. They test for answers and wait until they observe the answers and have the ability to reproduce those observations.
In short, the religious expect the non-religious to be afraid of dying and to be looking for a solution, when it’s completely valid and logical to have determined that there is no solution and therefore it is not worth spending time dwelling upon.
i expects everyone who questions any religion to do that search. whether they believe in god or not. if you question something, then it is on you to go find answers. even if you found your belief system that works for you. maybe especially if you found one you should always keep your eyes open and investigate your own beliefs, and not just blindly accept it.
This is still kind of backwards. The person who doesn’t accept something blindly has no obligation to question anything. There is no obligation to obtain a belief system. Someone who is agnostic is not blindly accepting anything.
The person who doesn’t accept something blindly has no obligation to question anything
not accepting something blindly IS the same as questioning something.
or reverse, if you do not question your beliefs then you are accepting them blindly.
There is no obligation to obtain a belief system
i didn't say there is, except maybe that rejecting all belief systems is also a kind of belief.
Someone who is agnostic is not blindly accepting anything.
again, i didn't intend to make that claim. if anything that was more targeted at those who do follow a particular religion and stopped asking questions.
Your arguments are a bit unsatisfying to me, though.
> what makes sense for example is the positive impact a religion has on the world. which religion is doing the most good?
I try to have a positive impact on the world by being vegan and donating to (secular) humanitarian organizations. I struggle to see how believing in a religion would improve on this (although I’m open to a good rebuttal!).
> which religion has the better answers to explain the world in which we live in today?
I think that the secular scientific tradition does better here than religion (even if it isn’t perfect, of course).
> take the issues and questions that matter to you, and then look at the answers and see if they are satisfactory. keep searching until you find the answers you seek.
I did that, and it doesn’t look good for religion, as explained above. And yet, here we are with one of the parent commenters telling us that we should believe in the Bible, lest we burn in hell.
Hence my comment above: what evidence shows this, and if there is no evidence, why should I believe it (or any other religious scripture) over my current ideals?
I struggle to see how believing in a religion would improve on this
that's not what i am asking. if you believe that religions are "wrong", then it's on you to verify that.
what evidence shows this, and if there is no evidence, why should I believe it
i can't tell you that. you need to look at each religion yourself and decide.
as i asked in another comment, have you looked at all the major religions (as listed on eg wikipedia), and can you say with confidence that none of them do better than secular scientific tradition?
first of all, i am not making the claim that religions are ‘right’ and/or have better answers. i am making the argument that if you want to find out if they are giving better answers or any answers for that matter, then you need to research them.
i can tell you what i believe but i am not here to represent any particular religion, and i can't speak for all the religions. you will get better results and answers if you look at each religion yourself, and come to your own conclusion.
Ah, but the original claim (not by you) that I replied to and that spawned this subthread was:
> I strongly encourage you all read this book(the bible) and take it to heart.
This seems to be somewhat different from what you’re arguing now, though.
For what it’s worth, I shared my beliefs (veganism, humanitarianism, and the scientific method), and I still think that if you believe that your beliefs (religious or not) hold more truth and/or usefulness than mine, you should be able to (at the very least) provide some pointers to relevant literature.
again, i don't want to make the claim that my beliefs are in some way better. that would be hubris, and that's a big reason why i want you to do your own research.
but here are a few points that relate to the current discussion:
science and religion must be in harmony. that is, they should not contradict each other. if there is a contradiction (in any specific point) then one of them is probably wrong. to resolve that difference science needs to do more research and religion needs to get a better understanding of the claim. perhaps there is an interpretation that can explain the discrepancy.
religion must be the cause of unity, harmony and agreement. if it is the cause of discord and hostility, if it leads to separation and creates conflict, the absence of religion would be preferable.
there will be a time when humanity will learn to live without meat. but today is not the time yet. that doesn't mean i'd believe that being a vegan today would be wrong, but rather that not everyone lives in a position where they can afford to give up meat because they have nothing to replace it with.
most religions are ill-equipped to deal with the problems we are facing today. religions need to adapt and renew themselves to be able to address the questions we are having today. the return of jesus plays a critical role here.
independent investigation of the truth. everyone should do their own research and study of religion. we can't leave that to priests or other studied leaders. those played a role in times when people where illiterate and depended on others to do the studying for them.
this is why i am hesitant to tell you what i believe, or what you should read, because in discussions like this it easily comes across as telling you what you should believe, as the example you are quoting shows. but that is precisely what i don't want to do, because that would be wrong. you need to find your own answers. that doesn't mean that i think reading the bible would be wrong. it's just not enough. you should also read about all the other religions, at least the major ones, if only to get a better understanding about the different beliefs that the people in this world today are holding. it is probably not necessary to read all the holy writings of each religion, at least not unless one of them piques your interest and you want to learn more.
> again, i don't want to make the claim that my beliefs are in some way better. that would be hubris, and that's a big reason why i want you to do your own research.
Well, we’re on a discussion forum, so the point is to discuss our opinions, not to claim that we’re better than another :) I think it’s unfortunate that you wouldn’t share some of your beliefs; we could have constructively criticized each other’s beliefs, and thereby sharpened our critical thinking skills. Alas.
> science and religion must be in harmony. that is, they should not contradict each other. if there is a contradiction (in any specific point) then one of them is probably wrong. to resolve that difference science needs to do more research and religion needs to get a better understanding of the claim. perhaps there is an interpretation that can explain the discrepancy.
My take is that religion is an encoding of human morality [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44127397], but that the prevailing religious texts are outdated compared to our current understanding of the world.
> religion must be the cause of unity, harmony and agreement. if it is the cause of discord and hostility, if it leads to separation and creates conflict, the absence of religion would be preferable.
Agree, but I think that the correlation between religiousness and harmony is not as strong as many religious people seem to claim. I think it is hard for many religious people to imagine a-religious harmony, because religion is such a foundational part of their worldview.
> there will be a time when humanity will learn to live without meat. but today is not the time yet. that doesn't mean i'd believe that being a vegan today would be wrong, but rather that not everyone lives in a position where they can afford to give up meat because they have nothing to replace it with.
Agree, with the caveat that most HN readers are in a position to replace meat, and that eating plants directly is more efficient than feeding animals plants and eating the animals (IIUC). However, I can’t possibly claim to know whether it’s possible for every culture on Earth.
> most religions are ill-equipped to deal with the problems we are facing today. religions need to adapt and renew themselves to be able to address the questions we are having today. the return of jesus plays a critical role here.
See above.
> you should also read about all the other religions, at least the major ones, if only to get a better understanding about the different beliefs that the people in this world today are holding. it is probably not necessary to read all the holy writings of each religion, at least not unless one of them piques your interest and you want to learn more.
Agree, but I don’t think this approach precludes not believing in any of them.
———
For what it’s worth, I do believe that most religions include many valid moral guidelines (‘love thy neighbor’, etc.), but I think most of them also include many infamously unproven teachings (the existence of a creator and afterlife/reincarnation).
I think it’s unfortunate that you wouldn’t share some of your beliefs; we could have constructively criticized each other’s beliefs, and thereby sharpened our critical thinking skills.
actually, i'd love that. i just had some bad experience doing that in public where uncharitable readers can chime in. my email is in my profile. how about we continue the discussion there?
prevailing religious texts are outdated compared to our current understanding of the world
it's not that the texts themselves are outdated, but that peoples interpretations of those texts is. for example when the bible claims that the world was created in seven days, we today know that this can't possibly be true, therefore this text can't possibly be meant to be taken literally. it also means that it was never meant to be taken literally, but the people who did take it literally lacked the scientific understanding to realize that.
but this problem may also occur with a religious text written today. when a discrepancy is found it doesn't mean the text is wrong, but our interpretation of it is. or maybe the scientific findings are faulty. it's no different than having findings that contradict a scientific theory. either the theory is wrong or the findings are in error. the interpretation of a religious text is just like another theory.
the correlation between religiousness and harmony is not as strong as many religious people seem to claim
well, that to me is an indictment of those religions, and rightly so.
most of them also include many infamously unproven teachings (the existence of a creator and afterlife/reincarnation)
well, the problem here is that these are by their nature either unprovable or we simply lack the scientific knowledge to verify or falsify them.
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. this is the leap of faith that a believer in science needs to do. it is fine to reject claims that can clearly be proven wrong (such as the age of the earth) but for anything that can't be proven we need to keep an open mind. that doesn't mean to blindly accept it. keep that skepticism, but at least allow that those claims are at least in the realm of the possible, specifically because we have no way to prove otherwise. to reject god or the afterlife without proof is just as much an act of faith as is to accept them.
