Reader GJ writes:
According to Wikipedia, there are 19 major religion in the world that almost 75% of the world believes in. If we are to believe that only one of those 19 is correct and the path toward eternal life, that means we only have a 5.26% chance of getting it right. How anyone can put so much faith in their religion when the odds are so low? I mean we are almost talking lotto scratch off odds. I just recently started looking at religions this way and it’s really helped me.
And just think of all the various sects inside each of those 19 major religions!
Don't pretend that all of those 19 religions are just different versions of Christianity or Islam. Most of them don't believe in this sort of "eternal life", or that eternal bliss is found through believing in dogma. I'm fairly certain Christianity and Islam are alone in that regard.
But as to the real point of the quote: Yes, stepping back and looking at all of the world's religions does help one recognize how silly it is to believe dogmatically in just one. The fact that you can colour a map by the dominant religion of each region is a pretty strong indication that these are simply human phenomena, and not the teachings of any cosmic force or creator.
I see signs on the side of the road all the time about his religion or her heaven and when i do i feel bad. I want them to be right i want theyre blind faith to be true but deep down i know its not. Its hard for me to watch these people cling to they’re faith like they do, not knowing if they are right or not not knowing what will become of them. Its sad…
Yes, all those sects – I’d wager there are about four and a half billion of them. Seriously – do any two Christians, Muslims, or Scientologists believe exactly the same thing, point for point, on matters of doctrine and dogma? They each have their own beliefs and understandings about what their religion purportedly teaches. Think about how many christians will tell you, when confronted with the “heretical” beliefs of another christian, that their fellow godwalloper is simply “interpreting the bible incorrectly.” When pressed, the “correct” interpretation is only ever their own.
If we include atheism, it narrows the chances even further. However, I would definitely agree it is hard to see how people can put their faith in one religion, ignoring all other views and evidence contrary to that opinion.
Not only is it a crap shoot to pick the “One” belief. But all the time and money that people waste on it. It could be put to so much better and productive use.
They can’t all be right, but they CAN all be wrong.
This is where you might be wrong. Alot of religious people believe and understand exactly this debate. They base their religion almost solely on family tradition while leaving the overall belief much more open. Can you honestly believe that they put that much stock in one religion. The biggest problem with this arguement is its failure to recognize the entire picture. Everyone doesn’t believe in the same thing. Christianity alone has been debated since its very emergence in the first and second centuries!
You can opt out of the 19 but you can’t opt out of making a choice
Converse of Pascals Wager.
Its actually the refutation of pascal’s wager, he only compared the advantages of belief vs. non-belief for his analysis. The math gets fuzzy when you start including multiple possibilities with non-heaven/hell solutions.
It doesn’t make much of a difference to most believers though, I brought up the ‘multiple solutions’ problem to a friends pascal wager in college once. He then went on to say that some kind of afterlife is better than nothingness so the atheist position would always loose to ANY belief. I tried to get him to understand that comparing wildly improbable baseless possibilities isn’t a way to make educated decisions, you need evidence that a particular religion is true before a cost benefit analysis even becomes relevant. But he was convinced that somehow, somewhere there is a god, and his name is Jesus.
Believing “just in case” is like deliberately lying to god in case he is real and you meet him. He will not be amused!
What if “god” has created several contradictory religions and then hidden all direct evidence of himself, so that he can punish those that blindly believe, and reward those that think and examine the evidence to conclude that there is no god?
It might be that all believers will go to hell and atheists to heaven; there’s no way of knowing, unless you accept that you have the Word of God in advance.
Whoever said the choice of religion is a rational or even informed choice?
The certainty that one’s own religion is true, even while observing globally how many other religions there are and where they are concentrated, comes from the same place as people thinking their country or culture is superior to the rest of the world, and not merely different.
I did a digital media project on this, sorta. You might find it funny.
http://is.gd/cqzDI
That’s wrong logic on many levels.
1) First, this assumption is unfounded: “If we are to believe that only one of those 19 is correct and the path toward eternal life”. Why only one? Why not 0, not 5? No, they are not mutually exclusive. Also, the term “correct” in the context of beliefs is not well defined. Also, eternal life is not an universal goal.
2) Second, and more important. The probabilistic reasoning is not applicable here. Suppose, we are talking not about God, but about truth in more generic sense, and let’s include atheism in addition, as another opinion about truth, Universe and everything. I don’t even know what percentage of the world is atheists, but would it matter for an atheist? I don’t think so. Everyone has reasons to think he/she is right, no matter how many people share your ideals.
I think perhaps the point here is that you can’t just “have faith to have faith,” since then you are left with too many options. You must have legitimate justification behind your belief, not just believe because ‘everyone’s doin it.” This also functions as a decent response to Pascal’s Wager (like we need any more of those).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU&playnext_from=TL&videos=-aypBPmzNcc
Thermintrees and Qualiasoup are two of my favourite youtubers on religion.
And what if neither of the are right? But rather we who are atheists get the better death.
God has no use for your silly math…. You and your arrogant reason. Your use of math in this context is equivalent to an insect trying to judge the size of a piece of dung. Firstly, realize you are just an tiny, insignificant insect and secondly, do not presume to speak or judge for the omnipotent one. Why? Because you are an insect.
That medium looks an awful lot like Pat(sy) Robertson. Looks good in drag!