"It's true for me"

[Silent3]

Quite often in the course of discussions about religion (and "spirituality") I hear people talking about finding "what's true for me", "valid for me", "works for me". For me (ahem), there seems to be a very curious notion about the idea of "truth" behind such statements.

Favorite colors are personal things. Favorite flavors of ice cream are personal things. But the existence of deities and spirits and demons, that this prayer or that ritual will influence or appease said entities in specific ways, that one has a soul and this or that happens to a soul when we die -- how can that be personal? Those things exist, or they don't. Those actions have effect, or they don't. Souls exist and transition in this way or that, or they don't. I don't see how one constructs any sort of coherent view of the world we live in while imagining that any of that stuff is merely personal.

"Joe's favorite color is green" may well be true, but that's hardly a TRVTH of any great import. It is not a universal declaration that green is the best color ever, end of story. And while most of us would be happy to buy green-colored gifts for Joe, no matter what our own favorite colors are, we don't treat Joe's favorite color as some deeply personal thing we must regard with special reverence. It's a matter of personal taste, nothing more, and Joe himself is unlikely to attribute great cosmic significance to greenness.

Joe loves Sally. That's of much deeper significance to Joe than his favorite color, of course. Some of us might even entertain such thoughts as "Joe and Sally were meant for each other", but there's still, generally speaking, no great cosmic significance attributed to their relationship, and if we happened to know that Sally was cheating on Joe and was sticking around only because she loves Joe's big paychecks, we might not hold Joe's love for Sally up as a matter requiring unquestioning reverence and respect by everyone else either. If we're friends of Joe, we might consider it a favor to Joe to get him to question his love for Sally, his belief if you will, that Sally is a worthy object of his affections.

To borrow an example from the "Everyone's a skeptic" thread, let's say that Bob prays regularly to Shiva's penis. Why does he do so? Because he believes Shiva's penis is worthy of respect and admiration, making the offering of prayer the "right thing to do"? Because Shiva will grant him extra virility? Whatever the reason, Bob says praying to Shiva's penis "works for him".

Maybe this does indeed "work" for Bob. Bob feels more at peace with the universe now, and his sex life has never been better. But does Shiva actually exist or not? Are we prepared to say that existence itself is personal, that Shiva "exists" for Bob, while not existing for many other people? Are we going to apply some weaselly meaning of existence like "Shiva exists in Bob's heart, and that's all that matters"? If Bob tells you there's a 7-11 on the corner of Main and Walnut, and you go there and find no 7-11, is your first thought going to be "Bob was wrong", or "Well, a 7-11 exists on the corner of Main and Walnut in Bob's heart, and that's all that matters"?

This "it's true/valid/works for me" notion which many seem so happy to apply to religion, but aren't so happy to apply in any other context in which other people explicitly or implicitly make positive assertions about the existence of entities and objects and forces at large in the universe, seems to be saying something like:

• Okay, I'm just play-acting the particulars of my own religion. I don't know or care about the factual truth of any of this, it just makes me feel good, fulfilled, like I have a purpose, etc., and that's good enough for me.
  
• My religious beliefs are all just symbolism to me, even if I talk and sometimes act as if the symbols were themselves the reality I care about.
  
• My religion is the one that has it right, the others have it wrong, but I don't want to be rude or disrespectful about it. Maybe the other guys are close enough to what's right get by anyway, and my God's an understanding guy who'll give 'em credit for being sincere.
  
• We all exist in our own private little universes, where things as important as gods exist just for us, the way we imagine them, and where everyone else is either a figment of our imaginations, or they have private universes too, which somehow sync up with each other in such a way all of the 7-11s are all in the same places for everyone -- the important stuff is personal, the trivial stuff is multi-universal.
  
• I'm not really thinking about any of this much. I believe what I believe 'cause I do, I say things like "is valid for me" because they sound good and help us all play nice together, and I don't really give a damn if it all makes sense together.
  
• I'm openly embracing illogic -- not merely just the stuff you can't get to by logic, but stuff so illogical that it flies in the face an any possible logic. I will apply logic selectively as needed where it works well for me, and appeal to the importance of irrationality where that works for me.
  
• All religions reflect some "aspect of the truth" (whatever in the hell that's supposed to mean) -- I think this idea devolves pretty quickly into viewing professed beliefs as purely symbolic representations of something else, whether one admits to this merely symbolic nature or not. This view is sort of like saying that belief in Santa Claus is "really" belief in the, oh, "spirit of generosity" -- even in the face of the believer insistently claiming that a fat man in a red suit with flying reindeer and a sleigh really, really does fly around the world on Christmas night delivery presents.
  

[Fridays Child]

1. k/r

[pepperbear]

2. I got nuttin'.....

but a foot to kick this with.


:kick:

[beam me up scottie]

3. Another outstanding post.

And very much appreciated.

Recommended.:thumbsup:

[xchrom]

4. ok -- you realize that most hindus believe that shiva is

not an actual being -- but a concept that describes something?

with a name -- shiva -- that completes the description?

or in first nations cosmology -- the bear that you experience here -- is a reflection of a greater bearness elsewhere?

the lion that lays down with the lamb -- hasn't stopped eating lamb.

and so on.

these are symbols that speak to people on a non verbal level.

that they don't work for you -- is one those truths you spent time on here.

[catbert836]

5. I see what you are saying

I'm not sure whether I have any such "true for me" beliefs. Sometimes I tend towards pantheism, but it really depends what day you ask me on. The way I figure, as long as any such beliefs don't imply any harm to others- which they usually wouldn't, since the believer accepts that everyone has a different reality- these beliefs should be tolerated and accepted.

The way i see it (and this seems to go along with what you're saying), people should seriously examine any religious beliefs before adopting them.

[Orrex]

14. Two questions

1. On what basis do we identify "beliefs that don't imply any harm to others" as superior to beliefs that advocate harm-of-others?

2. On what basis can one examine religious beliefs before adopting them?


FWIW, I agree with that beliefs that do not harm others are superior to beliefs that do cause such harm, but I'm atheist, so I'm not guided by religious doctrine or tradition. Instead, I have adopted this view based on personal aesthetics (ie., it is preferable to create happiness instead of sadness), practical experience (ie., it is of greater general benefit to create happiness instead of sadness), and empathy (ie., the ability to "put myself in someone else's shoes" enables me to feel discomfort at the thought of someone else's suffering, so I choose not to exacerbate it).

Absent these measures, how does one conclude that "an it harm none" is a superior system to "harm whom thou wilt?"

[catbert836]

20. Good questions!

My certainly inferior responses:

1. Beliefs that do not imply harm to others can really only be seen as better than their antitheses from a subjective point of view, of course. Obviously, there's not really an objective ranking of beliefs that we can look at, so you're right.

2. I think the ultimate test here is whether they make sense to the believer. I'll use myself as an example. I used to be a devout Catholic (wore a Rosary, prayed every night, etc., etc.). But when I came into contact with different religious and non-religious points of view, many right here on DU, I started to think more about why I was Catholic, something I had never done before. Eventually, my self-searching revealed that the Christian God, the Resurrection of Jesus, and the whole speil didn't make any sense to me whatsoever. But if it does make sense to someone else, I'm not one to judge. The individual as the end of the universe and all that.

[Meshuga]

33. Examining and questioning

"The way i see it (and this seems to go along with what you're saying), people should seriously examine any religious beliefs before adopting them."

Not only I agree with that. I also think people should keep questioning and examining their religious beliefs after adopting them.

[Zhade]

43. And lemme tell ya, Catbert is a phenomenal example of that.

He's really impressed a lot of people, this atheist included, with his growth.

(Just thought I'd mention that, because I really, really love seeing positive personal growth in people.)

[InaneAnanity]

6. I don't have a problem with this

I'm an atheist, first off, just to let you understand where my perspective comes from.

What bothers me about religion is not that I think its all bullshit, which I do btw. What bothers me is when people are so sure in their bullshit beliefs that they are willing to purposefully disrespect, humiliate, maim and/or kill people who disagree with them. We see this happening all over the world today, and it is a true testimony to the terrible power religion wields over the weakminded.

When someone says "its true for me" they are, in effect, acknowledging that what may be true for them won't be true for everyone else, and saying that's ok and maybe how it should be. This is a level of acceptance that I'm comfortable with, even though, as IU said earlier, its complete bullshit at its core.

If someones bullshit religious beliefs help them, or even seem to help them, I don't mind so long as they can respect other people who think differently. There are scary things in this world, and I cnan accept that some people don't want to or cannot face them as an atheist.

Also, don't take my usage of the term "bullshit" as flamebait. I don't mean it that way. Religious beliefs are bullshit to me, obviously, and they may not be to you. I'm not looking for an argument.

[Silent3]

7. There are positive and negative aspects here

When someone says "its true for me" they are, in effect, acknowledging that what may be true for them won't be true for everyone else, and saying that's ok and maybe how it should be. This is a level of acceptance that I'm comfortable with, even though, as IU said earlier, its complete bullshit at its core.

I'm all for everyone getting along better, and if a bit of squishy reasoning is part of what stops the fighting and the repression religion often brings, I'll take the squishy reasoning if that's the best that we can hope for.

But the "it's true for me" approach (let's call it ITFM for short) has it's downside too. It's an intellectually weak position, and it leaves those who use ITFM unarmed against dogmatic extremists. What criticism can an ITFM-er make against, say, a Dominionist? Dominionism, after all, must be "true" for the Dominionists. It seems to "work" for them. Shouldn't we all be happy they've found something that works for them?

[InaneAnanity]

8. Dominionism

If Dominionism stopped there, itd be fine, but of course dominionism extends itself to "Its true for me, so I'll make it true for you whether you like it or not."

I see the ITFM crowd as using religion as a sort of tool rather than believing it as a fundamentalist does. Look at it like sushi. You may not like sushi, but I doubt you have a problem with others liking it. Similarly, if you like sushi, I doubt you have a problem with those who don't like it.

ITFM are similar religiously. Many east-asian religions have that sort of thing in their dogma; I know that hinduism and buddhism teach that there are many ways to reach god, and because of that members of those religions are accepting of differing belief systems.

ITFM are harmless religious types. Its near impossible to convert someone to atheism; if we criticize ITFM types, we're more likely to turn them into fundamentalists than atheists, I think.

[Silent3]

15. My point wasn't that ITFM-ers are harmful in and of themselves...

...but that they can't be as effective in fighting something like Dominionism as they might otherwise be, as their squishy logic of acceptance makes it hard for them not to be just as accepting of dominionists as they are of everyone else. If an ITMF-er tries to make a distinction, and is giddy with feeling of brotherhood toward liberal Christians and Wiccans and Ramtha followers, on what basis does he reject Dominionism?

I think it is possible to have a more intellectually robust ecumenism, an ecumenism that can take a solid stand against fundamentalism, but it comes a price that many believers might not be willing to pay, which is to regard their scriptures and teaching, their deities and saints, in a more symbolic and abstract way than is comfortable or satisfying for many people. Further, instead of vaguely speaking about "different aspects of a common truth" there would be a need to get down to defining more clearly what exactly that common truth is, hopefully coming up with something with a little more heft than "We should all be nice to one another. Group hug!".

[InaneAnanity]

16. This is what Sam Harris has criticized

That religious moderates, ITFM folk mainly, enable the fundamentalists by not being in a position to criticize them.

He has a point, but theres nothing any of us can do to change things. We should be thankful that these people are intelligent enough to reject fundamentalism and appreciate the differences between people.

Alot of people are unlike you or me, and live their lives without questioning things so much. There are good, nice people, who simply never question whether god exists or not, but this doesn't stop them from recognizing the good in other people and rejecting the hate inherent in religious fundamentalism.

I just don't think criticizing these people is a smart thing to do.

[SPKrazy]

18. You've Just Defined Liberal Christianity!

I think it is possible to have a more intellectually robust ecumenism, an ecumenism that can take a solid stand against fundamentalism, but it comes a price that many believers might not be willing to pay, which is to regard their scriptures and teaching, their deities and saints, in a more symbolic and abstract way than is comfortable or satisfying for many people. Further, instead of vaguely speaking about "different aspects of a common truth" there would be a need to get down to defining more clearly what exactly that common truth is, hopefully coming up with something with a little more heft than "We should all be nice to one another. Group hug!".

Progressive Christians very much view scriptures and teaching in more symbolic and abstract ways than fundies do.

Now the "different aspects of a common truth", is not something that is just "we should be nice to each other", but more than people of all faiths have simply found truth in their beliefs because those beliefs "spoke" to them in a way that made sense.

That is what I believe to be true.

And their's nothing wrong with "we should all be nice to one another", the group hug thing is a little stereotypical of some "Jesus Freak" from the 70s type group, or some new age thingy.

But all in all, I think we have what you say believers might not be willing to pay for already.

Look around, I think you are missing it in the mainstream liberal Christian religions, or at least with a good percentage of members of those sects.

[Silent3]

21. I'm not sure, but I think I'm talking about...

...a more radical degree of doubt than you might be thinking of. While they do exist, what percentage of even liberal Christians are willing to consider the person of Jesus Christ himself as possibly a myth or a mythologized man, rather than the actual Son of God? How many are willing to consider the teachings of Jesus as possibly merely human in origin rather than divine? While many Christians are willing to take much of the Bible as allegorical and symbolic, I still get the impression that most Christians, liberals included, consider a lot of the story of Jesus to be true in an historical sense, and they believe in an actual Creator God, even if they're willing accept that God works through things like evolution.

It seems to me there's still enough specific assertive beliefs among most liberal Christians that the "my truth/your truth/whatever works for you" view of the world is a bit difficult to make logically consistent.

At any rate, I still don't see where "common truth" is being spelled out here. Saying that "those beliefs 'spoke' to them in a way that made sense" doesn't tell me anything about the common truth supposedly behind those beliefs, and what exactly that truth is, it only tells me that there's a commonality of a "oh, that makes sense to me" effect.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. There may be more doubters than you realise

From a survey of Church of England clerics in 2002:

A new survey reveals that a third of clergy in the Church of England express doubts about the Resurrection and only about half believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus. The poll of 2,000 of the church's 10,000 clergy also found that about half believe that faith in Christ is the only route to salvation.

The survey, conducted by Christian Research, did reveal more orthodox beliefs on some of the other core doctrines of the church. More than 75 percent, for example, accept the doctrine of the Trinity and a similar percentage believe that Christ died to take away the sins of the world. More than 80 percent subscribed to the belief that God the Father created the world.

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_20296_ENG_HTM.htm

[SPKrazy]

38. So Therein Lies Why I Am What I Am

an Episcopal

[SPKrazy]

37. This One Would Be Willing

because whether it is true that he existed or not

it doesn't really take away from the teachings or my beliefs

as for the human vs. the divine? I think there is the real possibility that Jesus was a man, who was able to attain great spiritual insights and even the ability to "see" into the spiritual realm

I don't think that Jesus ever thought he was here to create a new religion, he was Jewish, and I don't think he ever said he was the messiah, or that he was divine.

Most of the stories about his divinity are written through the post Easter view of Jesus (as far as I know) and the authors of those stories are not known for certain.

There is no doubt that there was a group of people who followed something in the early first century in the middle east. There is no doubt that those beliefs were spread throughout the Roman Empire during that same time frame.

Surely no thinking person believes that they are historical documents, but rather they are stories of a man who became divine in death and memory.

In my mind, the man Jesus is as real to me as the divine Jesus.

In my heart, the same is true.

So, I am not moved by these other possibilities as they are in fact ideas that I've entertained and read about from bible scholars who have no claims that the bible is inerrant or meant to be a factual document.

[Random_Australian]

9. Ok, I'll bite.

I put it to you that the reason that truth is worth pursuing is to get an accurate enough description of this world to allow us to make it reasonably liveable.

(If you want me to prove this, just ask, but I did not want to clog up my answer. :))

Therefore rather than truth itself bieng the goal, it is the things that we can atain with that truth.

I put it to you also that the variation of the ways in which people think means that in order for the most amount of people to live a reasonable life, there must be some differences at some levels. But first, a quick note on similarities and differences.

In all this, we must have a good (accurate) interpretation of the simple things in life. Like physical objects, like 7-11's. Therefore anyone calling creationism 'science' can go kiss an elephants behind. :)

Anyway, back to the point:
That the most accurate way to judge a persons belief in terms of good or bad is done by weighing the need for accuracy in all cases versus the benefits that society gets from that person believing that particular thing;

And that use has two properties:
1) It is not the same for each person
2) It is more likely that the person knows what to believe than any other.

Therefore, while objective truth must be only one thing, (sort of - that is an argument for another day!) what is 'true' for a person subjectively may be different. (If you want to make the world a different place, which was assumed. If you assume every non-Christian is going to hell you get a different result)

If anything is unclear, feel free to challenge.

In fact, please please challenge this! I need to think it through proper, so I need some feedback!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. What do you mean "true for a person subjectively"?

I think "true" and "subjective" are mutually contradictory: there is no way something can be true except objectively. And I don't think "for" is a semantically applicable word to "true", either - Something isn't "true for", it's just "true".

What people *believe* to be true will clearly different, but there is a big difference between

"I believe this, but I'm not sure of it enough to try and force you to believe it too"

or

"My answer to this subjective question is"

than

"This is (objectively) true for me, but may not be for you".

[Random_Australian]

25. Uh, that is why I put it in quotation marks. That means that it was not

referring to the literal concept of truth, just what people refer to when they talk of their 'truths'.

[Silent3]

17. I don't know if it's possible to look at truth that way...

...without tacitly admitting to yourself that you aren't really talking about truth anymore, but simply about what helps you get by, true or not.

Consider a chicken who believes the purpose of the farmer is to feed and house the chicken. That belief works quite well for the chicken until the day the farmer enters the chicken house not with a feedbag, but with an axe. The chicken is going to face that axe someday no matter what, so one might say the chicken's brief life is happier spending most of its days seeing the farmer as a generous provider than it would be if it knows all along that the farmer is its future executioner, and instead faces daily terror at the sight of the farmer.

Unless the chicken is a particularly clever and resourceful chicken who, armed with the unpleasant truth of its predicament can plan a successful escape and find a peaceful and safe life somewhere beyond the farm, the false (or at least misleadingly incomplete) view of the farmer as a provider is more beneficial to the chicken than the full truth of its situation.

The relationship between benefit and truth can be shaky at best. You might try to consciously decide to believe in this or that because of some benefit you derive from the beliefs you select, but as soon as you understand that that's what you're doing, if you do so consciously, there's a tacit admission you're trying to play a game on yourself, and with that admission it's hard to see how effective that game can truly be. Can a chicken that knows the farmer is coming with an axe one day, or who has at least considered that possibility, ever with complete success choose to "believe" in a more comforting reality?

[Random_Australian]

24. But we never, ever get to know the truth!

That is part of mediated cognition - so the chicken in your example, by what mechanism does he find out that the farmer is going to kill him?

Say another chicken tells him. Are there not circumstances under which that chicken could tell him WITHOUT it being the intent of the keeper to kill the chicken?

Implicit atheism cannot claim to have the most accurate world view - rather, the world view with THE HIGHEST CHANCE of bieng accurate.

************
P.S. consciously deciding to believe is easier than it looks if you really, really want to. For me, I wanted to make the visions go away, and to do that I had to believe that my mind was doing a lot of the interpretation, and that what I was seeing (as in, all things I see, not just suspect things) was just an effect of mediated cognition.
Simultaneously, I had to assume the opposite belief that what I saw normally was an accurate representation of the world in order to interact with it properly. These are mutually exclusive, but I believe them both to this day without any problems. In other words, faith can override logic any time.

[Silent3]

34. Not knowing the truth and "it's true for me" aren't the same thing

Finding some belief to cling to in the face of great uncertainty and ignorance should carry with it a knowing contingency, an awareness of the very tentative nature of any such belief.

I do not often see that kind of attitude among religious and "spiritual" believers. They typically treat their beliefs as if they were in possession of Wisdom with a capital W. Trying to reconcile that kind of importance and significance attributed to one's own beliefs, and trying to hold onto more than a very abstracted symbolic interpretation, while simultaneously embracing an ecumenical attitude, leads to all of the problems I brought up in the opening post.

Invoking "but we never, ever get to know the truth" is by far a better argument for doubting your own beliefs and everyone's beliefs than it is for pretending that everyone's beliefs are somehow personalized bits of truth, with all possible mutually contradictions hand-waved away.

P.S. consciously deciding to believe is easier than it looks if you really, really want to. For me, I wanted to make the visions go away...

Not sure I want to touch that! :D But anyway, what you proceed to describe sounds like applying different criteria under somewhat different conditions, so I don't see that anything which is mutually exclusive is actually being held as true simultaneously.

[Random_Australian]

42. Ok, here is the solution:

1) I was not saying they were personalised bits of truth, remember! I said that truth is not the thing that is most important - well, it is really damn important, but if it came to 'either the world gets to know the truth, a single, only truth and it makes everyone cry in pain forever OR the people get a fairly accurate decription of reality and then live happily ever after' then the latter would win.

2) You are quite right - you do NOT see that kind of attitude. I was talking about the best attitudes to form.... and no-one has been able to get a wide range of people with good enough attitudes to fix the world yet, as you may have noticed.

3) My concept of God, (which, if it comes to, I will argue is a better elaboration of the standard model) involves pre-axiomic things. You would be suprised how difficult it is to get things to contradict under those conditions. I have been trying it.

:)

There we go!

[greyl]

10. This is another fine post you've gotten me into.

My relatively thoughtless reply:

When someone falls back on the "It's true for me" response to a targeted question about their beliefs, they are bullshitting. They are choosing to innoculate their unexamined static familiar from a dynamic analysis of what is unknown and transcendant to/of them.

Bluntly, I think it's an acknowledgment that, under examination, it isn't even true for them.
It's an avoidance of the constant growing pains of honest self-examination.

There's also an ecumenical Faith Salad aspect to the whole attitude - an unspoken rule among them like "don't ask, don't tell, don't even make me think about it".

The fact remains, however, that they're all products of the same culture and all view humans as the very "subject" of religion, innately flawed, doomed to suffering and misery, and in need of salvation (whether it be eternal life in heaven or release from the cycle of death and rebirth). Together, they function as our culture's harem of scolding wives: always moaning about their greedy and materialistic husband, always trying to get him to lift his eyes to higher, nobler things.

Ecumenism among our culture's religions is not about reducing competition among themselves but rather about standing shoulder to shoulder against the common foe---modern skepticism and contempt. They would like to be perceived as no longer squabbling among themselves over petty differences but as together representative of some great, undeniable fundamental truth that the common foe MUST respect.
Daniel Quinn

[Zhade]

44. Honestly, I think you're onto something. Something painful.

Perhaps even painfully true. I know from experience that you described my past dalliances with belief pretty correctly.

Fantastic, if uncomfortable for many, post.

[greyl]

46. Thanks :)

I'm speaking from personal experience with my own past dalliances. Resisting the urge to post in the Oija board thread. It's by no means an arrogant judgement.

(I'm afraid the off-the-cuff "unexamined static familiar" phrase may have turned some people off, but it made sense to me. ;))

[catbert836]

53. "It isn't even true for them"

As much as I hate to say it, you may be on to something there. On my particular spiritual path, I certainly have passed through the "It's true for me stage" more than once. My personal spiritual beliefs (when I have any, it depends on what day you ask me) are an odd combination of pantheism and many Eastern traditions including Buddhism and Confucianism. Whenever I find myself in a religious debate with an atheist or a theist, or whatever, I have to check myself to make sure I don't say "It's true for me", because either my beliefs are true or they're bullshit (once again, my viewpoint here depends on my situation). Saying that "it's true for me" would avoid confrontation, but, as you say, it avoids intellectual growth.

Thank you for having the courage to post that. I wouldn't have been able to do it. :yourock:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. Yes!

This annoys me so much!

Open-mindedness is considering the possibility that you may be wrong and the other fellow may be right, not pretending that you may both be right at once even though your views contradict one another!

[Silent3]

13. A wonderfully succinct summary

Open-mindedness is considering the possibility that you may be wrong and the other fellow may be right, not pretending that you may both be right at once even though your views contradict one another!

This is crying out to be a sig line! :D

[SPKrazy]

19. "Open Mindedness Is Considering The Possibility"

that you may be wrong and the other fellow may be right.

No argument there.

Not all views contradict each other (and it doesn't take pretending to have it either)

Read a great book by a Buddhist about Buddhism and Christianity, and he was contrasting differences and similarities between the two. Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh

He showed how one can be right, and that beliefs don't have to contradict each other.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

26. This is precisely what I object to.

The essential teachings of buddhism as I understand them include that reality is an illusion, that we transend it by our own worth to attain nirvana, and reincarnation, and that buddha (who lived in India two and a half thousand years ago) attained enlightenment, and that the basis of morality is the eightfold path.

The essential teachings of Christianity as I understand them include that humans are essentially sinful and that only through the gift of grace, not through our own works, can we attain salvation, that there is only one God and that Jesus Christ (who lived in the middle east two thousand years ago) was his only son; that his chosen people were the Jews, and that the basis of morality is the ten commandments.

Buddhism and Christianity *do* very clearly contradict one another; if you squidge your views to the point where you can claim to believe both then you're certainly not a Christian and almost certainly not a Buddhist.

[SPKrazy]

36. Oh Come On Now!

your narrow definitions of things is really what bothers ME

I'm more of a believer that God is, and is in EVERYTHING!

That means God is everywhere, all the time, and in everyone, and EVERY RELIGION

So "squidge" on that!

[Silent3]

40. That's so broad a definition as to be useless

And then there's the baggage that conveniently goes along for the ride.

If you define God as being everything and everywhere, why not just use the word "universe" instead?

Does it naturally follow that whatever is everything and everywhere is spiritual in nature, that it is a personality or intelligence of some sort, that love and caring and eternal life and all of those other bit of cultural baggage attached to the word "God" are attributes or consequences of your very broadly defined God?

Does it naturally follow that a religion's understanding of God is any better or more truthful just because God is everywhere? Is a book about trees, which made out of paper from trees, necessarily more authoritive or truthful than in might otherwise have been just because it's made out of its subject matter?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

A word is only as good as its definition. A word without a definition is meaningless, valueless, and useless, just a sound, like "flibbit" or "squrg".

"God is everywhere, and is in everything" is waffle of the finest order. If you say God is everything, then the words "everything" and "God" stop being any different, so all you're saying is "everything is everything"; x = x; which is hardly a world-shattering discovery. Wrapping it up in language like "God is everything" is a good way to make it sound meaningful and useful, but it doesn't actually tell us anything about the world.

Saying God is "in" a religion is utterly meaningless. In particular, it's got nothing to do with whether the claims of a religion are true or not - although if your claim that "God is, and is in, everything" are true, then you are explicitly contradicting the claims of at least the Abrahmic religions.

Why not just come straight out and say what you actually mean, which is "I don't actually have any views on religion, but I want to sound profound and openminded".

[greyl]

48. I think they're more similar than that at their foundation.

Both say this world is but a stepping stone to something better.
Both say that humans are born in a flawed state and in need of salvation or enlightenment to overcome endless suffering, either on the Wheel of Life, or in hell.
Compare the Four Noble Truths and Leviticus. ;)

Of course there are multitudes of particular contradictions between them, but...

[Solon]

22. I think this view is only inconsistant in Monotheistic religions...

I'm a Polytheist, I believe that the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God exists, but then again, I just don't worship Him. His people will get whatever rewards are consistant with their beliefs, those of us who aren't followers, well, it doesn't matter, now does it, those are THEIR beliefs not mine. In my religion, my Gods don't punish unbelievers, there is no overreaching judger of souls for such people, by and large, they would be considered "outside the jurisdiction" of my religion.

[Silent3]

23. You're saying that monotheism is wrong

There either is a single God, as the Abrahamic religions claim, multiple gods as you claim, or no gods at all. Those three views cannot be reconciled under any one definition of what means by the word "god".

You're saying that the Christians, Jews, and Muslims are wrong about monotheism. Maybe you don't care that you're doing so, and that's fine by me. If, however, you imagine that you're rising completely above the fray, free from saying anyone is right or wrong simply because you're willing to say, "it's fine for them to worship that one particular god", you are failing to achieve the detached aloofness that you desire.

Further, not that it's much crazier than any other religious notion, you seem to be postulating a universe in which your ultimate fate depends upon which god or gods you choose and how you choose to worship them. Do you really believe that the Christian Hell exists, but only for those who choose to believe in God in that manner while failing to measure up? And that one can evade just a terrible fate simply by choosing an easier going God? Do you really believe that there's a Valhalla for Vikings who died with a sword in their hands, as long as they truly believed in Valhalla?

There's no way to prove such a concept is ultimately right or wrong, but it sounds like sloppy faith salad thinking to me.

[Finder]

27. Abrahamic religions believe in more than one god but only worship 1.

Christians have combined the three types of deity into one to make the religion attractive to a wider range of converts. Judaism has used the tree of life to show the 10 different aspects/attributes of deity including the feminine for the same reason.

[Ron Green]

29. Perhaps "right" and "wrong" are not as useful in this discussion as are

other ways of expressing it. To use "right or wrong" in talking about matters that are beyond our time- and space-based understanding seems inappropriate language.

[Silent3]

30. I think what you're saying was already covered...

...under one of my original bullet items: "I'm openly embracing illogic". :)

"Beyond our time- and space-based understanding"? Oh, puhlease. I'm not denying there's stuff beyond our understanding -- there's obviously plenty of that. But what you seem to be saying is that wherever the unknown or incomprehensible is involved, let's indulge in thinking that's as squishy as we like, let's pretend that blindingly obvious contradictions aren't contradictions at all, but signposts of Great Mystery.

There's plenty that's beyond our understanding due to good old fashioned ignorance. Why dress up our lack of knowledge and understanding with cloying New-Agey catch phrases about "time and space"?

All we need now is for someone to chime in with "3-D linear thinking". :D

Here are two assertions:

A: Exampleville contains no poor people.
B: Exampleville contains 143 poor people.

These two statements cannot both be right at the same time. You could play games with "well, one is about Exampleville, NY and the other is Exampleville, CO", or play with the definition of "poor", but that wouldn't mean we'd really found some magical way for contradictory statements to be simultaneously true, all that would do is demonstrate a need from great clarity and disambiguation.

Yet people will play these same kinds of games with "what do you mean by God" and act as if simple matters of disambiguation are really Deeply Meaningful contraindications to the applicability of logic itself to such ineffable spiritual matters.

For any given meaning of "god", Solon's polytheism is either right or wrong. I don't have to have that answer to know that a truth value exists, nor to point out the obvious fact that his polytheism and monotheism are incompatible. One or both views must be wrong, no matter how much one's desire to avoid confrontation or to float around on fairy dust makes one want to reject such a terribly judgmental and dogmatic sounding word.

[Ron Green]

31. "Thinking that's as squishy as we like."

I'm not advocating squishy thinking, but you're tilting at windmills a bit, I think, when you so earnestly advocate for Aristotelian logic in dealing with questions that are ultimately unanswerable except by Art or personal belief (ITFM.)

Just how do you propose to deal with the "plenty of stuff beyond our understanding?" The tools of reason can point only in general directions, because "time and space" (I'm surprised at your fear of this fundamental truth, calling it a "cloying New-Agey catch phrase) really do bind us to reality here on earth, although there's major supposition of existence beyond this puny realm.

[Silent3]

35. You can't always get what you want

I'm not advocating squishy thinking, but you're tilting at windmills a bit, I think, when you so earnestly advocate for Aristotelian logic in dealing with questions that are ultimately unanswerable except by Art or personal belief (ITFM.)

Some questions are unanswerable. Period. End of story. No answers forthcoming. No workarounds, mystical or otherwise. Sometimes we just have to say "we don't know". When we won't hold still for that lack of answers and start saying instead, "we don't know, but...", that's where the wishful thinking and squishy thinking begin.

Aristotelian logic requires foundational postulates, so to that extent you're correct in saying logic can't in and of itself get you anywhere. But those postulates are merely non-logical, there are not illogical. Many of those postulates derive from common experience; some of them are implicit in any attempt two people make to communicate. Postulates of morality ultimately boil down to personal choices -- choices which are again non-logical, not illogical (well, they can be illogical, but then you end up with an inconsistent and self-contradictory morality).

If you try to play up the fact that some people may be basing their beliefs off different postulates, that simply comes down to a matter of disambiguation, as in my Exampleville example, it's not reason to pretend Big Truths are personal or a valid excuse to hand-wave away the problem of reconciling truly mutually contradictory beliefs.

Love, poetry, music, morality, thinking about what a god might be and if such a thing exists... none of these are beyond logic or require abandonment of logic. It's only a cramped view of logic, its power and flexibility, that leads to the sadly common contrary view.

Just because logic won't take you to a place you've decided you need to get to doesn't mean logic is what's at fault.

Just how do you propose to deal with the "plenty of stuff beyond our understanding?"

Where evidence and reason fail, saying "I don't know" does nicely for me.

The tools of reason can point only in general directions, because "time and space" (I'm surprised at your fear of this fundamental truth, calling it a "cloying New-Agey catch phrase) really do bind us to reality here on earth, although there's major supposition of existence beyond this puny realm.

First of all, you haven't arrived at any sort of "fundamental truth" if your understanding of "space and time" is as depressingly limited as it often is among many of those whose toss around the words "space and time" a bit too much and too lightly. Maybe your own understanding of those concepts is good (deity-of-you-choice help us if your "understanding" comes from crap like "What the Bleep") -- I don't know, I'm reacting to my general sense of where that trite phrasing often comes from.

The only thing I "fear" in what you've said is seeing the vocabulary of science abused in defense of nonsense like crystal therapy. It seems to me a far more fearful reaction to refuse to acknowledge and accept the limitations our situation in the universe imposes upon us, instead insisting that you've got to abandon logic and embrace mysticism because you can't otherwise get what you seem to think the universe owes you.

[Ron Green]

39. Jeez, try decaf.

insisting that you've got to abandon logic and embrace mysticism because you can't otherwise get what you seem to think the universe owes you.

"Embrace mysticism?" "can't otherwise get?" "universe owes?"

Man, I hope it's true for you, because it sure ain't true for me.

[Dervill Crow]

32. Monotheism?

If the commandment meant "Thou shalt not worship other stuff and make it into your god," that's what the commandment would have said. It doesn't. It says, "Thou shalt worship no other gods before me." That's pretty darn clear.

[Zhade]

45. Christianity and Judaism aren't even monotheistic, really.

I mean, first off, trinity, hello, that's three but one but three but one but *BOOM*

Second, one of those commandments the intellectually dim harangue others to have on federal property says something about having "no other gods before ME", clearly indicating, in the biblical god's view anyway, that other gods exist.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

49. I think you're wrong on both counts.

The last time I checked, Jews didn't have any concept of the Trinity, and Christians make it very, very clear indeed that the three are aspects of the one - vide St Patrick's analogy of the shamrock. Calling Catholics "polytheists" because of the doctrine of the Trinity is a favourite Protestant way to start fights.

And I think that very, very few modern Christians or Jews would interpret the commandment to mean "there are other Gods than me to worship". They'd read it as either "Thou shalt not act as though other Gods exist", or possibly "Thou shalt not worship devils maskerading as Gods" - although your interpretation may well have been the one originally intended.

[greyl]

47. Are you confident that if everyone arrived at their "knowledge of truths"

using the appropriate blend of empiricism, rationalism, and logic that the world would work better for everybody?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

50. I don't think that's relevant.

It may well be the case that self-delusion is good for society.

However, whether or not people holding a belief has good consequences is nothing whatsoever to do with whether it's true or not.

But for what it's worth, yes, I do think that if people formulated their beliefs more empirically, rationally and logically then the world would be a better place.

[greyl]

52. You bring up an interesting point of consideration.

"whether or not people holding a belief has good consequences is nothing whatsoever to do with whether it's true or not"

After first glance, my response was "I agree, true, it doesn't always follow that a false belief results in bad consequences or that a true belief always results in good consequences."
However, I'm having a hard time coming up with an example that isn't very contrived and improbable of a false belief having ultimately good consequence. (Ultimately as in after the passage of much time)

Otherwise, I agree, and my answer to my question is "yes, I think it would work better". ;)

[jokerman93]

51. Works for me!

:smoke::thumbsup:

K&R