Monthly Archive for November, 2010

The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, conclusion and overview

Published by davinci on November 9, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 19 is here.)

As I wrote in the beginning, the fact that there is not a single shred of evidence in the entirety of recorded human history supporting a religion which came from outsiders to the religion, and especially not from anyone not in contact with its believers, is one of the strongest arguments that religion is a human creation. All of the evidence provided by religion for supernatural beings are compatible with the thesis that they do not exist outside of the human imagination.

The Maps of War web site has an animated map on the spread of five major world religions. I strongly recommend that you view it… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, part 1
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 6
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 2
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 19

Published by davinci on November 8, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 18 is here.)

Any religious argument based on expertise in a language is necessarily unconvincing to someone who doesn’t already consider that language to be special or holy. Numerous languages have been asserted by various religions to have special or divine properties: Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Tibetan, Persian, and even English. The question of linguistic competence is often brought up by religious apologists seeking to deflect issues raised by skeptics about problematic passages in their scriptures, but when good translations and linguistic resources are available, this is just a smokescreen. When there are errors in fact or reasoning in a translation, or instances of morally reprehensible behaviour, the problems are rarely made better by referring to the primary text in the original language… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 7
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 8
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18

Published by davinci on November 8, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 17 is here.)

In my experience, whenever I have raised these problems with religious believers, the explanations they have come up with have always missed the point. An expert in the history of the ancient Near East can indeed come up with an elaborate hypothesis as to why there is so little evidence for David and Solomon. A Muslim apologist can indeed assert that the Biblical account of Solomon is corrupted where it contradicts or lacks details given in the Qur’an. Yes, you can cook up theories that agree with your religious beliefs to fit the evidence (or, even better, which ignore the evidence). But then the theory is only meaningful for someone who already accepts that your religion is true, or special, to begin with. If you want your argument to be convincing to someone who is not already a believer, you have to explain why it cannot be applied just as well to another, and possibly conflicting, religion.

Here is a theory that fits the evidence: the Biblical accounts of David and Solomon’s splendour are simply made-up… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 17
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 2
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 7
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 17

Published by davinci on November 8, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 16 is here.)

The myths about David and Solomon, and in particular the latter, would continue to evolve after the Biblical accounts were set down in writing. Already in the Bible, Solomon was wealthier and wiser than all the other kings on Earth, and he was so wealthy that he made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem (1 Kings 10:14–29, 2 Chron. 9:13–28). His wisdom was greater than that of everyone in the East (I’m sure the inhabitants of India and China would’ve begged to differ, had they even heard of him or the remote and insignificant minor stretch of land that he ruled)… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 2
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 12
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16

Published by davinci on November 8, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 15 is here.)

I have studied the world’s religions much more thoroughly than the average religious believer, and probably more than many devout ones. There are, of course, religious clergy and academic specialists who have much more in-depth knowledge of a specific religion, or some particular aspect of religion in general, than I do. But I think that I have as broad a knowledge of world religions as almost anyone. I’ve studied the scriptures and foundational texts of the major world religions (and many minor ones), and read authors ranging from popular apologists to the philosophically inclined from each of them, from every period since the foundation of the religion until now. In addition, I’ve also undertaken a pretty thorough study of history, so I have a sense of how religions have developed and interacted with one another that most believers do not have.

Religious believers will sometimes tell me that, if I only studied their scriptures more, or read certain books or talked to certain scholars, I would find that the evidence supports their religion… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, part 1
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 17
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 19
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15

Published by davinci on November 7, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 14 is here.)

When a person thoroughly studies the world’s religions, the picture clearly emerges that religion is a human creation, and that no supernatural entities are required to explain them. The spread and development of religions is actually remarkably similar to the spread and development of natural languages in many ways, and this latter field has been extensively studied without recourse to anything but naturalistic explanations… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 13
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 6
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 3
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 8
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 14

Published by davinci on November 6, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

(Part 13 is here.)

The most successful of the world’s religions were founded long ago in the past. We cannot go back in time to examine the circumstances surrounding the creation of these religions for ourselves. But what we can do (and what I think we should do) is to carefully make observations about new and recently formed religious groups, and to use these observations to draw inferences about how the first believers in earlier religions might have behaved. The only assumption this requires us to make is that people are, in general and on average, more or less the same as they have always been when it comes to matters of religion. There is no reason to believe that this is not the case for any particular group (unless evidence is presented otherwise)… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, part 1
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 10
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 13
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 13

Published by davinci on November 5, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 12 is here.)

The God of the Abrahamic religions appears not only to be ignorant of science, but also of religion. Consider that even though Buddhism was likely the world’s most populous and arguably its most influential religion in the period between the founding of Christianity and Islam (i.e., between the 1st and 7th centuries), the Abrahamic religions did not get around to doctrinally recognising its existence until more than a millennium later… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 8
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 6
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 12

Published by davinci on November 4, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 11 is here.)

The scriptures of the Abrahamic religions were completely unaware of the history of the New World until believers had already settled there in large numbers, and this gap in supposedly divinely revealed knowledge was evidently so bothersome that numerous religious movements sprang up just to explain it. The most successful of these, the Latter Day Saints (popularly called the Mormons), incorporated Native Americans into the Biblical family tree with a new set of scriptures. But in doing so, the new religion also crystallised into doctrine certain aspects of the cultural landscape of 19th century America which are already antiquated, such as the belief in the inferiority of people with non-white skin… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 13
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 2
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
2 Comments

The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11

Published by davinci on November 3, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 10 is here.)

Where different religions come into contact, the resulting belief system inevitably contains a mixture of the features of both. It would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to explain this if the supernatural beings as described by either side had a basis in reality, but it is exactly what you would expect if all of them existed only as ideas in the minds of their believers.

I have already mentioned how Judaic angels took the bodily forms of Greco-Roman gods when the Greeks and Romans converted to an offshoot of Judaism, and how the jinn of Arabic folklore were absent from the Abrahamic religions until the Arabs assimilated Jews and Christians into their midst… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 2
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, part 1
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