Why the hell do believers have to disprove the other religions? As stated before by people, there isn't really evidence here on earth other than the fact that we are alive on a speck on a speck on a spiraling arm in the middle of infinity. I think what we need to do, rather than disprove, is show each other and the world why religions are good, and sometimes necessary. However, we don't get the chance because of followers who don't really understand religions due to the institutions and the atheists who are too quick to point out every flaw in a religion. The problem with people like these above is that they look at the Bible or the Qur'an and they see only the words printed there (which are human interpretations of stories) and then put their own interpretations on these interpretations. Few people look at the basic messages of religion. Even Jesus pointed out how the pharisees were looking to literally into the Old Testament. Modern Islamic feminists are working to dig through the male interpretations of the Qur'an to find the basic message and end what the West calls "oppression." If you need more clarification, I'm sure you'll post something else that will attack what I just said. And you can refer to my comment on page 5 about the FSM.
Multiverse theory isn't really a religion. It's more of a hypothetical theory. It's not a fact that there's infinite universes, but there is lots of evidence which leads to the conclusion that there's possibly infinite universes, which is more evidence than there is for the Christian god
Religion is bad because it deludes one from the truth. At what point in our species are we going to decide that magical fairy tale lies are ********? It's bad because many Christians oppose the teaching of actual science in schools. They think the bible should be taught as science. It's bad because people like Ken Ham are teaching children to not "listen to scientists" and to reject evolution entirely. Most of all, it is bad because people start to assume that there's nothing left to discover. In the year 1800 nobody even knew about evolution, and nobody was trying to find out, because they had no reason to think otherwise. When that is done away with, people start wanting to discover, and they can do so through science rather than a religion which is thousands of years old.
Is that the religion itself or the institutions of religion? At what point does the Christian religion (not the people) say we don't need science? And what about Pope Francis I who is advocating for science and religion to come together to combat the global environmental crisis? The way people view a religion is what deludes them (whether theist or atheist) if they aren't willing to accept other perspectives. And honestly, capitalism is what has corrupted many of the institutions of and perspectives towards religion.
If you believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster won't eat you if you pray to him, all the more power to you, but don't shove your noodles down my mouth if you get what I'm sayin. Relgion is opinion. Are you seriously trying to tell me the world is better off without opinion? Nah.
@wazz, you keep going on about institutions. Without those institutions, those religions would not exist anymore
I'm not saying Multiverse is s religion (duh) ...what I'm saying is if you believe or even entertain the possibility of Multiverse "theory" then (imo) it makes sense to at least entertain if not acknowledge the existence of a "God" or even "Gods"
lol ok so I read up on Multiverse theory a little ...@Nathan actually it's closer to religion then you think.
@Rio You're right, I am talking about the institutions a lot. They are the reason that religions have taken a downhill turn in many books. (Crusades, Holocaust, FGM in Africa, etc.) They use religion as a way to justify immoral and hypocritical acts. I'm not saying bring down the institutions of religions, but rather we should try to reinvent them, because as you said, they are important (though not necessarily necessary) keeping a religion in existence.
I think you're missing my point. The institutions that spread religions, they have always been corrupt, ALWAYS. There is ofcourse good people in them, as there is in anything, however you're completely delusional if you think that the spread of various religions was done in the name of anything other than greed and control. Power is always at the centre of everything. It's rather convenient that religions order that certain ways of living are "sinful", whilst at the same time offering eternal salvation to those that follow their rules. Yes, institutions are and always have been corrupt. However if you remake the institutions it would just happen again, it's too easy. If you remove the institutions what do you have left? Who would talk to God then?
That's a little pessimistic, but perhaps it's true. To answer the very last questions you ask, almost every religion had advocates for individualism in finding "God" or peace. As I've said before (page 4) religion is about a reconnecting. At the basic roots of the Christian/Judeo religions, it's reconnecting with a pure soul in a fallen world. God can be the answer to this if you would like, but it doesn't have to be that way. For Islam, it's equality and the duties of Muslims to each other and the world, emphasizing the socialness of humans and their power to interact with the world in an attempt to keep balance and peace. Janism and some of Hinduism/Buddhism are also about reconnecting with peace, living lives without causing harm to others. All these things can be done by the individual and don't necessarily require an institution.
It's not pessimistic, it's realistic. I don't live in any fantasy worlds. If I said God had spoken to me, I would be locked up in a mental asylum or laughed at. So, if there is no institutions, who decides what religion is? You? Me? Bob the builder? Whether there is a god, many gods or no gods is irrelevant in a discussion about religion, it's not provable either way. What IS relevant is why RELIGION is? Religion is the worshipping of a / some gods /deities. Who decides what the 'entity' is called? How should it be worshipped? Why should it be worshipped like that? This all brings us back to control, the person who decides the above is the person in control, then come the 'sins' or punishments, if you don't live like this you will go to hell, you won't go to Valhalla etc etc etc. Let's use a controversial example; homosexuality. Is homosexuality is 'wrong' yet we have 'souls' who is to say that the attraction is not a 'soul' being attracted to another 'soul'?
Actually I'm gonna stop you at your definition of religion. Like on page 4, re and ligio (the latin roots of religion) mean to reconnect or to connect again. There doesn't have to be a god(s) that you worship. Example:religious naturalism. Followers of religious naturalism don't worship a god, but they find "essence of life" in everything. That might not be the best way to state it because its a bit confusing, but it has the correct effect. In religious naturalism, they recognize this essence and find some way to reconnect with the natural world from our human society. It could be an animal, a tree, or even a rock that gives the impression of life. Thus, there is no need for them to worship a god
And to comment on your last set of questions. Patriarchal societies wrote religious texts, have translated religious texts, have interpreted religious texts. If you read a book about someone describing the life of a penguin, would you still understand what it really is to be a penguin the way a penguin sees it?
Yes, it is closer to religion because it hasnt been experimentally proven. I don't even think we should be calling it a [scientific] theory with how much evidence there is for it... since there are competing scientific claims. It's kind of stupid for one to believe in it since it's impossible to know what is outside of the universe. We can entertain ideas all we like, and that's great, but at the same time it would be idiotic for me to spread Multiverse theory to everyone, or build a community based on the faith in multiverse theory when there isn't much experimental evidence for it in the first place. Now take Multiverse theory and replace it with the belief that a Jewish god made a man out of dirt 6,000 years ago, created the entire universe, flooded the entire planet only a few thousand years ago (umm... fossils? How did we get so many races in such a short time?) and an impossibly large wooden boat (larger than the world record) was made whuch held millions of species of animals and somehow Noah knew how to care for them all. While Multiverse theory is possible, it's far less likely that the ancient Jewish god exists. It's therefore worse for someone to believe in god than in Multiverse theory. Therefore I wouldn't say that the theory and religion are very comparable due to the likelyhood of each being true.
There was a 21 gram weight difference which followed the death. He used an extremely small control group (like 7 people lmao) and compared the weight loss to a dog. The weight loss was caused by sweating after death. After death the lungs stop working and the body temperature rapidly increases. This causes sweating, and people lose weight in this way. The reason why the dog didn't lose weight was because dogs cannot sweat. It's not interesting and it was totally false. It was a completely unscientific way of performing an experiment. If you want to learn how to do an experiment incorrectly and get the wrong conclusion, then maybe you should consider looking into it. The scientific community of the time, which was still for some part Christian, completely rejected his claim. I've disproved it before on this forum. The Wikipedia article does a pretty good job debunking the claim. Give it a good read.
Yeah but like I said earlier ..if you even entertain the idea that Multiverse might be reality then why wouldn't you at least entertain the idea that God exists in at least "1" alternate reality? if not many?
We might have different views on the definition of entertainment. Obviously I have to entertain the idea in the first place before I can reject it. You can entertain the idea, sure. But not in the same way that you can entertain a plausible event. All I was saYing was that there is a difference between multiverse theory and the Abrahamic religions. While it is plausible that there is a multiverse (it's not as much of an extraordinary claim), it's nearly impossible that the Abrahamic god exists. If i assume that the abrahamix god exists, then i also have to believe that noah fit millions of animals into an impossibly large boat and i have to ignore all the evidence there is that the earth is billions of years old. Therefore I can't entertain the idea that an Abrahamic god exists in the same way that I could consider multiverse to be a reality. I personally break it down into likelihood of occurrence... and to me it seems almost impossible for that God to exist.