this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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This logic is not sound. Why couldn't be the case that only one religion is right?
Three people looking at a triangle might have different opinions about what shape it is. It is inconceivable that they are all right, but that does not imply that they are all wrong.
I think the part that’s left out is “since they all can’t be right, yet use the same standard of authority for truth, the most likely scenario is that none of them have a reasonable claim to truth”.
If only one religion is right, then the God of that religion is either evil or an asshole or not all knowing and all powerful.
If you think about it, and all knowing all powerful God that allows a gigantic portion of his beloved children to live in complete and total ignorance for their entire lives without even the chance of ever knowing the truth would be a terrible asshole at best, and that's only assuming that he doesn't throw everyone that doesn't get the truth he didn't give them into hell forever.
Of course that only covers the abrahamic religions. I feel like Zoroastrianism would probably still be okay because as little of it as I understand it seems to be more like the world is a stage where a chess game is being played and each piece moves as it will and the battling deities over watching the game can only make so many moves each to keep it fair.
Buddhism can't really complain about it other than that it sucks that we're all currently stuck in hell and having to live tens of thousands of lives until we're allowed to get out, seems like more people should make it out as time goes by.
Either way though, if there is one true religion it would be amazing if the god of that religion would occasionally pop onto the planet and remind everybody that they exist, maybe give us the bread and circuses show to catch us back up, maybe throw out a couple of worldwide hey I forgive everybody's and then pop back off just to remind us.
A thousand years without a reappearance of the God of all gods is a long time to keep the torch burning.
He just stepped out to grab some milk and cigarettes, he'll be back soon.
https://slrpnk.net/comment/9243887
A dramatization, if you will.
God's Final Message
After discovering that the people of the Universe were rather unhappy with their Universe, God set out to make sure they understood He hadn't purposefully tried to screw with them. And so He wrote the following message on a mountain for anybody within range to see. The message went as follows:
WE APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
The message eventually became a tourist attraction.
Yeah, so if you’re a worshipper of the Greek pantheon you could be right. The Greek gods are powerful but not all-powerful, wise but not all-knowing, and not particularly loving (they have their own agenda). Sometimes they’re even assholes but not particularly evil.
Zoroastrianism sounds cool as hell tbh
The logic seems sound to me.
If they all look at thin air, and claim there is different kinds of magical beings, and as evidence they say they imagined it, isn't it reasonable to conclude there actually is none of the magical beings they claim? Since they use the same vastly erroneous process to make similar extraordinary claims.
As Richard Dawkins say: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
religion is about a lot more than an origin story, friend
How so, isn't it a definite origin for how all of the everything got here and what it means to be part of the origin. Is there a religion without an origin story implied or actuated?
did you just not read my comment? all I said is there is more to religion than an origin story eg beliefs, holy texts (like the talmud which isn't about origination), and rituals/practices. lighting the candles on shabbat isn't about where we came from
I'm not to familiar with Jewish customs but aren't those candles part of a metaphor for the dawn of creation. The seven days to create the cosmos? How is that not part of the origin story of the everything?
but it's not just about that
That's why it says "most reasonable conclusion." If all of these religions have the same level of evidence of their existence, all have people who are certain that their religion is real and all others are false, and they all claim to be the "truth" then what's most reasonable?
Obviously it's possible that any given religion is correct about the world, but if you ask me which is more probable: that every human religion is wrong except the 1 that is correct, or that every human religion is wrong? I think I agree with the original quote
The reasonable conclusion comes from the vast range of possibilities of what is true, which is exponentially larger than the range of possibilities specifically expressed in the world's popular religions, even if we were to assume that every human being has their own understanding of what is true. The range of possibilities not conceived of by one of eight-billion human beings is vastly greater, so the chances of one person getting it right is akin to winning the lottery.
If we assume that any two people agree on religious truth, that number of religions becomes less, and the odds it is not one of those becomes even greater.
Note that there are about (not quite) 40,000 denominations of Christianity (and then all the non-denominational churches, some of which are megachurches that stay ND so they are not recognized as an NRM, which law enforcement presumes is a potentially-dangerous cult-or-sect) so we get very specific as to what religious truth is, and we fight wars or litigate over these specifics.
Considering the scope of the universe compared to the scope of life on earth (let alone human life), it's highly more likely the Milky Way galaxy (including the solar system and everything in it) is incidental to any divine purpose of the cosmos. The difference between the chances that we're special or important, and the chances mold under a specific Sequoia tree in central California is special or important is infinitesimal.
So even when we only consider theistic possibilities within the universe as we see and understand it, any popular religion that has a non-zero possibility of being true still doesn't have much more than that.
or they each see a different face of the same truth
Correct. By their very nature of certain religions being mutually exclusive, they can't all be correct, but they could all be wrong.
They aren't wrong because some are mutually exclusive. That's a non-sequitur. They are false or at least not true, because the evidence either falsifies the claims or doesn't prove them to be true.
And it's obviously the one with a god of THUNDER!!!
What, there are two?
I do think it's reasonable to say they are all wrong, but I agree with you, this logic provided in the image doesn't make sense.
It being impossible for all to be true, doesn't imply they are all false.
It's likely they are all false, if you subscribe to the philosophy of science, where without testable evidence, it's deemed unreasonable to assume something likely to be true.
The (in my opinion) correct opinion is that all religions are very likely false, because none have provided convincing evidence according to the scientific method.
It could be the case, but it’s more reasonable to think that they are all wrong rather than to think that 334 of them are wrong and 1 of them is right.