In a sense, I think I did sign off on this, although I would say rather that merely by deciding to "believe that Christ is the Son of God" you do not come to know it, but it is a required step.

It could be inserted into my earlier statement about self-knowledge, repentance and Grace. In a sense, faith precedes all of the above, because the self-knowledge that leads to repentance is grounded in faith: faith about the nature of God and man, and about morality primarily.

But "spiritual knowledge" itself isn't the direct result of mere belief, it's something given by God.

What would you say if I said "there is no scientific or historical evidence for fairies, so that leaves me with faith. I believe in fairies because I believe in fairies". Would you have any concerns about my epistemology here"?

As point of fact, while some christians are in your boat, many are of the opinion that there IS evidence. Sometimes it is historical, some times it is personal experiences, sometimes people give logical arguments like the classic teleological or cosmological arguments, etc.

In the spirit of the OP, the question can be asked what is the methodology by which you decided to believe this. Lofcuk is suggesting the reason he has faith is because he has faith. It might be a linguistic anomaly here, but it seems like you made a decision and presumably had some methodology - even if it was unconscious - by which you made that decision. For instance, you didn't decide to "believe that Mohammad is Allah's Prophet"

I decided to believe following an experience that involved someone praying for me. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say the experience was provocative, and it started a process for me which led to belief. If there was a methodology involved, it wasn't a conscious one on my part.

No, I would have no concerns over your beliefs. Who am I to say what you can or cannot believe in?

Also, as stated in earlier, I have no particular faith, merely agnostic.

Beliefs have consequences. For instance, people who love each other but are of the same gender because followers of an anarchonistic religion have an immoral and homophobic view that this is wrong. I think we SHOULD care that others believe true things, should aim to propagate true statements, and that doing this as not just aesthetically preferential but has various societal benefits. So no, I don't have precisey zero concern about what others believe. I certainly wouldn't post on an Internet forum if I didn't.

Okay I didn't realize you were agnostic. So were you just playing the devils advocate for how you think a believer believes various religious statements? Because your characterization is not all that orthodox (depending a bit on the strictness of the interpreting of yur comments) and certainy directly opposed by some. As an agnostic, presumably you DO have some methodology by which you accept certain statements as true and others false in your life.

I agree that homophobia is wrong, but my belief here, is probably instinctual, or political. I think to argue morally wrong is straying into unsafe territory. Again, who is the keeper of morality?

We should care that others believe in true things, if we knew what true is. I have not the confidence to declare what realities are true or false. When you say society benefits, benefits for who? Our current society is capitalism, that is not organised for the benefit of the majority (again, another discussion).

The methodologies I may have tried or believed in before, have all left me asking more questions than they solved.

There are two different kind of religious claims:
1) The social ones:
If the claim tries to avoid: blatant, swank, bigheadedness, swagger, arrogant behaviour.... and like or just everything what hurts others, than it is a true religious claim.
2) The individual ones:
If the claim orients you towards:
a) accepting your fate
b) teaching you not to hurt others
c) teaching you to serve others
than it is a true religious claim.

Just take a look at the picture of pokercast 260. It teaches you exactly the opposite.

So effectively you think something is true if you like the consequences of it. Needless to say, this is a hopelessly flawed epistemology. And of course there are all the various religious claims that don't affect your list.

As much as I understand your conclusion, I don't think this is true.
I might like the consequences of driving an Aston Martin. But any claim which would praise an Aston Martin wouldn't be religious.

Would you please give some examples for that I understand the logic behind your claims?
Which religious claims don't affect my list? Some examples please.

Sure, it is only for a narrow scope of questions. But in the domain being asked it is precisely this. You think something is true precisely if you think believing that makes you a better person in the ways you identified. It is just a horrific epistemology and you wouldn't accept it in any other context. For instance, suppose I said "things that are true are things that make me feel better about myself". Well I can think I am the president and feel good about that if I want, but that doesn't make it true. Now I realize this is a different domain of questions than the domain you identified, but the point is that you would reject it in any other domain, so why do you think it works for religion?

Almost all of them. For instance, religions of all stripes have various elements that one can think makes you more accepting of your fate or whatever else. You don't think all those things are true. And most of the details of christianity, like whether it was a talking snake or a talking iguana just doesn't change your list at all.

I don't understand what you are talking about, sorry. Just give examples and we will see if my system works or not.
My claim did assume that a claim makes sense in the first place. Making sense means it is logical. Look your example: "things that are true are things that make me feel better about myself" is not logical. Why? Cause things can be true without making you feel better about yourself. If you are tortured, than this is true but you will not feel better about yourself.
To your second point about domains: I really don't understand what you are talking about.
To clear things up. I was mostly assuming with religious, we are talking about abrahamovic religions. But my claim as far as I know will also be correct regarding Buddhismus, Hinduismus and like.
My claim is by itself very logical. Every religion as far as I know wants ppl to be happy. No religions claim: Do this cause this makes you unhappy. They all say: do this and that for that you find happiness and joy.
Now my premise is: if you do something that hurts others, than sooner or later, they will do something what hurts you and if they shouldn't, God will do it (ofc from a religious point of view).
So any claim which avoids hurting other ppl in a way that it is not just, it is a religious claim. This is absolutely conform with what I said before, I only did say this with other words.

Look: Religions say that everything is God's will, so how can a claim which doesn't want you to accept your fate be a religous claim?
Two: A story about a talking snake must make sense. If the story about the snake makes sense in a way that it teaches the 3 points which I did mention, than it will be a religious claim (don't forget: every story which makes sense, it is claiming something at least indirectly).
The reasoning you can find in my last post.

The point of this thread is to find a methodology for finding out what claims are or are not true. I am presuming that you espoused a methodology to determine whether a religious claim is true or not based on whether it has these consequences of various individual or social improvements. However, just because something has a consequence that we like does NOT make it true.

Right, this is precisely why you would never accept my example (nor should you). Analogously, it is ALSO possible that things are true (or false) regardless of whether they make you a better person in the ways you identified. Even if we just restrict to religious claims. That something gives an effect we like (such as making us more humble) doesn't mean it is true.


Yet you don't believe, presumably, the religious claims made by buddhists or hindus. As in, you presumably believe that jesus was the son of god and whatever else. However, since BOTH christianity and hinduism have parts that can be interpreted by your metric to have these individual and social benefits but are not thought of as true.

How can something have effects and/or consequences without being true in the first place?
Regarding christianity and buddhism....:
What they claim about the world after death no one can prove, but what they say about how an individual should live his life, is nearly the same, just put in other words and using other names. These differences don't make them controversial.

If this thread is about how to find out if something is true or not than the thread doesn't make much sense anyways, cause we just don't know what 'true' is. At least when you mean 'true' is everything what exists physically. I mean a claim like: praying to god is good for you. How can we prove the physical existence of 'good'? So the only way to describe true in a way that it makes sense is: If a claim makes sense by itself. If it is logial or not.
Still I must admit that I did understand this thread as how we can find out if a religious claim is truely a religious claim or not.

very good stuff Shahrad as usual .

I want to ask you your thoughts on the Bahá'í Faith which emphasize "Three core principles to establish a basis for teachings and doctrine"

1) the unity of God 2) the unity of religion, 3) and the unity of humankind-- The belief is then "From these postulates stems the belief that God periodically reveals his will through divine messengers like Muhammad, Moses, Buddah and Jesus, whose purpose is to transform the character of humankind and develop, within those who respond, moral and spiritual qualities. Religion is thus seen as orderly, unified, and progressive from age"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%..._Faith#Beliefs

I was interested b/c I understand that the clerics in Iran are on the fence when it comes to the Bahá'í Faith. In other words Some Ayatollahs like Bahá'í Faith some do not. To me it seems the Bahá'í Faith are the most humane group (maybe not a organized religion idk educate me) on the planet . And I say this as a Catholic ! lol

So my question to you Shahrad is what is your take on the Bahá'í Faith??

Double post. Sorry.

Wtf... I hate the android app, now the double post is gone... Anyhow, it may be for the best.

A belief in something can have consequences without the underlying belief being true. As in, it could be true that believing in Yahweh or Allah makes you a better person. But that doesn't mean Yahweh or Allah are true.


So how do you decide whether to believe in the christian view of the afterlife or the buddhist one? As in, what methodology do you use to decide which is true? They are competing religious claims, and perhaps they effects on how an individual should live his life is similar, but that doesn't tell you which is true. This is the essential problem of religious claims: there is no good way to decide which ones are true, since there is no good evidence to suggest any are true.


Perhaps there are language problems going on here. As in, the goal is not to categorize what claims are religious claims or not (and this doesn't seem too difficult to agree on what claims are indeed religious) but to decide what religious claims actually are true. As in, what claims correspond to a physical reality like god actually existing.

Don't know much about bah'i faith. Most probably the way of their thinking is close to sufismus. Ayatollah's usually don't like Sufis. The problem with bahai's is (as far as I know) that they are a sect, they act organized. Real Sufismus means to learn not to plan your next second. So organized sufis sects are acting in contradiction to their claim.

Simplest answer is to simply ask Hashem ( "G-d" ) just as Avraham would have. Of course, that means that you should be on "good terms" with Hashem and that you are considered His friend so that He will give you a reasonable answer in this life. If one is not in "good terms", then there will be answer, but one will have to wait awhile...

In general, for claims to have merit, there is usually a "cloud of witnesses": e.g., the Pesach, or the resurrection of Yeshua HaMashiach. Of course, eyewitnesses fall asleep in this world, so all that is left is the corpus of written accounts, so ultimately one must trust in what is written ( or spoken; in any case, it is "the Word" in some real sense ). In the real world, it's quite common for us to put trust in Wikipedia, etc., but less common for human beings to put trust in writings thousands of years ago, even if they happen to be Tzaddikim to the nth degree. Just as in the courts of law today, the testimony of multiple witnesses is important.

Some examples: Islam and Mormonism don't really have a "cloud of witnesses" in the same general sense whereas some forms of Judaism and Christianity at least do, regardless of how far from "orthodoxy" these forms stray. Protestants are essentially "correct" in their stance of "...if it lines up with the Bible..." because the biblical literature of the Protestant canon is comprised of multiple witnesses; proper theology is never really based on a handful of scriptures from just one witness/author. Fortunately, the Protestant canon is somehow the preservation of the TaNaKh and the most important writings that the Early Church considered "significant"; BTW, this was no "accident" ( even though on technical grounds, some of the New Testament writings are not usually translated correctly into English ).

We are here on Earth in mind, body, and spirit. Trust God! Jesus is the Son of The Most High. Only the FATHER is perfect.

-Pancho

this thread feels so long ago

So I guess it's safe to say, given all the Jesus talk, that everyone here considers the religion of Islam to be BS, right? So, in essence, you're all atheists when it comes to Islam (and all the other world's religions).

But...their religion has all the trappings of yours, including an infallible holy book. How can you be sure? And yet, you lose no sleep over it, right?

Religion is funny. (Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha)

Nice logic.

The Bible and the Quran are books
The Quran is a false book
ergo: the Bible is a false book


Wheeeeee

I think what he is saying is that Islam and Christianity are very similar religions and yet the proponents of each believe that their religion is correct and the other false. This is not a particularly strong argument but it should be fairly easy to understand.