everything is an experiment
(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]
(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]
(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]
(Part 9 is here.)
The second way to answer the question of why most people believed in religion throughout history is to point out that they didn’t, at least not in the way that believers typically imagine. If most people followed the religion of their parents, community, and rulers, they also usually did not care very much about it. The mainstream practices of every major religion is heavily influenced by the cultures of the people who converted to them… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
(Part 8 is here.)
I have written above that the quality of the theological arguments for monotheism are so poor that Buddhists (and according to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha himself) had already anticipated a logical problem that monotheistic theologies cannot even in principle deal with, before the two major monotheistic religions in the world today even existed. In any religion that asserts the existence of a God and a Devil, both of whom are greater in knowledge and power than mere humans, it is necessarily the case that mere humans cannot distinguish between them.
If the errors in theological arguments can be easily spotted by anyone trained in logic, and no religion has ever been able to produce evidence supporting its claims from a source outside of the religion’s influence, one might ask why it is that most people throughout history have believed in religion, and most still do today… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
(Part 7 is here.)
Indeed, a demonstration of omniscience to a being who is not himself or herself omniscient is impossible. As limited humans, we have no way even in principle of verifying whether or not another being is omniscient. This is a problem that the early Buddhists were already aware of, and they made use of it in their arguments and polemics against theistic religions… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
(Part 6 is here.)
It is obviously impossible for me to point out the errors in each and every argument asserting that there is evidence in support of some religion, since there are an infinite number of such arguments. But anyone who has studied religions broadly can see that apologetics arguments fall into categories, and that entire categories can be dismissed based on errors in logic, a lack of understanding of statistics, or ignorance, whether of the actual context or meaning of an underlying text, or of some specific facts about the real world… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
(Part 5 is here.)
I wrote above that it is a “deflection” for a believer to say that God (i.e., his or her particular God) is not to be tested. A supernatural being can certainly choose to behave in a way that renders him or her indistinguishable from a figment of human imagination, and God can certainly order His minions to do so. The problem with this reasoning, however, comes from the other side.
Those Protestants who denounce the Roman Catholic Marian apparitions as Satanic skullduggery simply do not take their logic far enough… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
(Part 4 is here.)
This lack of external evidence for supernatural beings is not restricted to the Abrahamic family of religions. Many Hindus consider the Buddha to have been one of the avatars of the god Vishnu. In Buddhist texts, however, it is Vishnu who submitted to the Buddha and became a protector of the Buddha-Dharma, although he is not an important Buddhist deity in areas where Buddhists are not in contact with Hindus. If either of these beliefs is true, Vishnu could simply indicate this directly to the followers of the wrong religion. But he does not do so. Instead, there is no evidence whatsoever that he has any ability to act outside of the sphere of influence of the people who believe in him, and except through them. And, naturally, he never says or does anything that is contrary to the beliefs of those speaking or acting on his behalf… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
(Part 3 is here.)
The point is that the actions attributed to Gabriel by Islam are remarkably indistinguishable from those of a mythological character. The argument can likewise be applied in the other direction: if Christianity is true, Islam would be finished if Gabriel had simply appeared during the Hajj at Mecca and told the Muslims that they are mistaken. Regardless of whether you believe Christian or Muslim claims about the archangel Gabriel, there is simply no evidence whatsoever that he exists outside of the imaginations of those who are supposed to have interacted with him… » [Expand post] [Permalink]