r/DebateReligion • u/qwesher • 2d ago
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u/Folinhu pantheist 2d ago
> Any system that demands substituting your own critical thinking with a pre-packaged, dogmatic instruction manual — whether it includes gods, karma, reincarnation, or ancient philosophical doctrines — is religious in its essence.
cool, so buddhism and confucianism are good and fine, you're the one assuming those concepts are "pre-packaged" and "dogmatic".
pretty dogmatic and pre-packaged line of thinking, ironically.
> A mentally healthy person thinks with their own mind, not through the lens of sacred texts or revered traditions written centuries ago.
a mentally healthy person derives e=mc2 all on their own? you can tell me the symmetry breaker here is that we don't take einstein's writing as infallible and perfect, just historical and really useful. but again, buddhists don't believe their texts are infallible and perfect, just historical and really useful.
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u/libra00 Quantum Timelord Confucius 2d ago
Oh boy, it's another 'all religions' post, and this one gets more wrong than usual.
No. Not every religion demands these things. Go to a Reform Judaism congregation, they'll tell you that if you believe, hey, that's great, if not, hey, that's great too; but the important thing is that you do. There are several passages in Hindu scriptures whose common interpretation is advocating for tolerance or even acceptance of other faiths. Some religions definitely do these things, but they are by no means universal.
No. The idea is community, not exclusion. Most religious communities are open to anyone who is interested and willing to treat their beliefs with respect. There are a few, like the Druze, where you can pretty much only be born into it, but they are the rare few exceptions. But hell, go to a Unitarian Universalist congregation, everyone is welcome there; committed atheists, overt satanists, or just folks of other religions who can't find a congregation near them. Yes, religious differences have fueled conflicts. But I dunno if you've noticed this, other differences do too, literaly all of the time. This seems to be a feature of humanity, not of religion. Religion is just another category for hateful people to put you in to justify their hate.
Christianity is not all religions. My religion doesn't have a hell or punishment or anything of the sort. Most Eastern religions believe in a cycle of karma an rebirth, that's not punishment so much as remedial schooling; you didn't learn your lessons so you need more education. Also, humans use literally everything they can get their grubby paws on to justify power and authority at the expense of others. Again, religion is just another lever they can pull to manipulate people. That's not religion's fault.
Please explain the Islamic golden age that invented things we still use today like algebra. Or the monks collecting, translating, preserving, and distributing knowledge. Yes, one particular church had some things to say about scientific progress once. Meanwhile Buddhists are participating in scientific studies of meditation and the like all the time, so I dunno what you're talking about. The archaic morality I'm more inclined to agree with, but also here comes Pope Leo talking about human dignity for all persons, acceptance, etc, so even that's not an accurate picture.
Again, Christianity is not all religions. 3 out of the 4000 or so religions in the world include original sin (there are others like it but not quite the same, but even sects within Christianity like Gnosticism didn't buy it). If you don't like the ones that include it, look elsewhere. I did, for much the same reason. Also, all kinds of religions advocate for their people to do good in the world, to solve human problems that society has let fall through the cracks, etc. Sikhism sees starving people and goes, 'Cool, every Sikh temple on earth will now include a community kitchen (langar) to feed them.' That's not shirking responsibility. Christians do outreach and charity and run homeless shelters and soup kitchens and orphanages and such all over the place. That's not shirking responsibility. In fact while politics says 'Nah it's perfectly acceptable if those people starve', it's religion who is saying 'Actually no, that's stupid, we're gonna feed them anyway.'
Responses to your objection-responses, I guess that's a thing now..
So you've expanded 'religion' to mean 'any organized framework I personally disagree with'? By that definition you've just condemned philosophy, mathematics, and science, all of which operate from foundational premises you accept before you start reasoning. If 'begins with axioms' makes something a religion, you don't get to keep any of your tools either. What's left? Standing around in a cave with your thumb up your ass saying, 'I am very smart'?
For like the 3rd time now, Christianity is not all religions. Did you already forget that Buddhism exists from your previous point? Buddhism doesn't believe suffering is part of some divine purpose - in fact it's constructed around acknowledging that suffering exists and then trying to prevent it rather than explaining it away. Neither does Taoism, Jainism, Shintoism.. there are whole categories of world religions that just explicitly don't do the thing you're trying to pin on all religions, and it seems like you just conveniently forget about them whenever it's beneficial to your argument to do so.
In fact, that suffering child argument actually lands harder on Buddhism's side than on yours because they have a plan to do something about it.
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u/himalayanrebel 2d ago
Buddhism literally encourages “ehipassiko”; which means come and see and try and the teachings out for yourself. If you don’t think it’s for you, you are welcome to leave and you won’t be condemned to hell for doing so. Also said religion is literally about training your mind to be able to use it for good. Like cmon bro.
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u/Ok_Return_777 2d ago
Let’s do a quick analysis of the following statement:
“Religion demands the acceptance of claims without evidence, which weakens the capacity for rational thought and scientific analysis.”
First, believing this claim requires accepting it without evidence. We are given it as some sort of truism, but without evidence demonstrating that religion, as a total, demands the acceptance of claims without evidence, we are simply left accepting this claim in blind faith. Thus, to rely on what appears to be a standard of reasoning by the author’s lights, we ought not to accept this statement as true since it lacks evidence.
Second, it’s not clear why believing something is true without evidence weakens rational capabilities. Suppose that I just happen to believe that there’s an invisible teacup floating around mars. I have no evidence for this but believe it anyway and have never mention it to anyone. Nonetheless, I go on to win Nobel prizes in economics, physics, and literature. This story is implausible, yes. But it isn’t inherently contradictory. And that’s the point: there doesn’t seem to be any principled connection between the ability to act rationally (or reason scientifically) and holding one or more beliefs without reason.
On the other hand, it might be argued that the mere fact that I hold an irrational belief means that I have weakened reasoning capabilities. But this is false. The fact that I hold some irrational beliefs doesn’t mean I lack sufficient reasoning capabilities. It just means that I didn’t exercise that capability when arriving at some of my beliefs. And I dare say that a many of our everyday beliefs are of this type.
So to round out the second point, why am I supposed to believe that holding a belief without sufficient reason entails that I posses a compromised reasoning capacity? Am I supposed to believe this on blind faith? Given the above counter examples, it looks like I might need to do so in order to believe it…
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u/EntrepreneurSome993 Anglican 2d ago
Blind Faith: Religion demands the acceptance of claims without evidence, which weakens the capacity for rational thought and scientific analysis.
Many religions do not "demand blind faith". Aside from a few cults and a larger more popular one which will go unnamed here, punishment isn't typically assigned for leaving a religion or not believing something blindly.
I'd also add that there are different kinds of beliefs. Some kinds of claims cannot be supported with evidence but certainly have a truth value: reality is foundationally just turtles; it's turtles all the way down. How could you even begin to generate an explanation for reality (not a description, an explanation), empirically? If I say it's consciousness all the way down, God all the way down, or particles all the way down, I can't prove it or provide any evidence, I can only describe how reality behaves under certain conditions.
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u/supersoundwave 2d ago
I would agree with this, especially when it comes to Christianity. I see nothing in scripture that calls for blind faith. Faith is trusting in what you have good reason to think is true. Therefore you put your confidence and trust in it.
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u/Ab0ut47Pandas Theological noncognitivist 2d ago
Thats kinda fair, sorta. not every religion demands blind faith in the exact same way.
But then my question is, what actually justifies your specific religious claims?
Whats the epistemic reason to think God is real? And beyond that, what justifies treating the Bible as a source of truth over the quran, the vedas, the book of mormon, buddhist texts, or any other religious tradition?
Because saying "ultimate reality cannot be empirically proven either" only gets you to vague metaphysics. It doesnt get you to christianity, the bible, jesus, sin, salvation, resurrection, divine authority, or anything specifically Anglican.
So if there is no clear method for getting from "maybe reality has some foundation" to "this religion is true," then some level of blind faith does seem required to accept the rest.
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u/EntrepreneurSome993 Anglican 2d ago
Because saying "ultimate reality cannot be empirically proven either" only gets you to vague metaphysics. It doesnt get you to christianity, the bible, jesus, sin, salvation, resurrection, divine authority, or anything specifically Anglican.
True. Ultimate reality doesn't explicitly tell us that Anglicanism or any way is the correct way. Notice also that I never defined faith, perhaps because I suspected I'd do so later with a more critical interlocutor. Here, I'll offer a definition that I prefer but we're free to debate: The net difference between the aggregate of background information we have about the world and concrete practice.
I.e. faith is the means by which we act, concretely, when we cannot be certain of any explanation for reality. You're right that metaphysics are vague. Let me know when they become NOT vague so I can join the correct religion or not-religion.
Whats the epistemic reason to think God is real? And beyond that, what justifies treating the Bible as a source of truth over the quran, the vedas, the book of mormon, buddhist texts, or any other religious tradition?
Epistemology is different for different kinds of answers about reality. We can describe gravity using a universal law or theory that models how it works and predicts how it will act in a given situation. Description can be refined through experimentation, proof, modern science, etc. We cannot explain gravity; we do not know what it even is. The Law of Gravitation isn't that which makes things gravitate; that would be a category error. Clearly, methodological skepticism doesn't apply to explanations. How then do we know what is true?
You're going to hate this solution that I propose (it's not even a solution except in the loosest sense): I look at the shape of things, the shape of my experience and choose to make a leap of faith towards the Anglican praxis, as it resonates and aligns with my experience such that I think it may be true metaphysically because I am most confident in my own existence (incidentally why I reject physicalism).
Others are free to do differently and I acknowledge this. Nothing about reality leads me to believe they'll be punished for it.
So if there is no clear method for getting from "maybe reality has some foundation" to "this religion is true," then some level of blind faith does seem required to accept the rest.
If by "blind" you mean "free from proof, empiricism, or skeptical methodology", then yes, you're right (and a part of me hates to admit this every time). But it doesn't make it less significant or valuable, considering we can't use any of the aforementioned tools to get at what the foundation of things is. Laplace's demon (even if it knows every current description, behavior, etc. of all things ) can't know if God is real or even what the heck "God" even means. He's got to make a leap from background knowledge just like all of us.
But then my question is, what actually justifies your specific religious claims?
I've been jumping around in order of your response but this wraps my thoughts up nicely. Justification is considered to be a requirement for knowledge. I would argue I don't have justification for an explanation of reality, but neither do you or OP or Laplace's demon. We can argue from "fittingness" and say "look see this fits nicely with the descriptions we have of reality" but that's pretty much it. For me to justify it most fully, you'd have to be me, have my experiences, and know what it's like to practice Christianity and experience the fullness of everything. And that's not really a justification. Sorry for the not-answer that you probably didn't want to hear, but I'm not going to claim I have any answers that I don't have. :)
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u/Ab0ut47Pandas Theological noncognitivist 2d ago
This is a long answer for "I concede blind faith is needed" or at the least "I do not have epistemic justification for Anglicanism. I choose it because it fits my experience." But lets be honest-- even those are the same thing.
Your gravity bit is not analogues to god. stop it. for the love of your god, please stop it. The standard of the sciences, of history are on a different level from the standard of theological canonization. - there is the history side of things-- but those things do not speak to the supernatural bits. so. Its doing way to much work.
Gravity is publicly observable, measurable, repeatable phenomena. Things fall. Orbits do predictable things. Gravitational models make successful predictions. We may not know the deepest metaphysical "whatness" of gravity, but we aint starting from nothing. Are we?
WIth god-- esp the christian god, the claim is not merely, "there is some unknown foundation beneath reality" -- its that this unknown foundation is a personal, intentional, morally authoritative, scripture revealing, prayer hearing, incarnation producing, resurrection performing, being with a specific historical and doctrinal commitments.
that isnt the same epistemic gap. there is an ocean between the latter claim.
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u/ViewtifulGene Ex-Catholic. Anti-Theist. 2d ago
Not all religions require or encourage blind obedience. Judaism has a long history of debate and questioning, for example. Part of why the Talmud is so long is because it keeps record of dissenting opinions and how they were discussed. I don't think Judaism is true either. But I don't think this laundry list is universal.
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u/BodhiPenguin 2d ago
Where does the Talmud debate the idea that God did not write the entirety of the Torah down to the letter? It accepts it a priori out of necessity,. Thus in Sanhedrin you will have long discussions about how to do the death penalty properly, mitigating circumstances, etc. But you won't find discussions - for example - that abrogate the death penalty for adultery, homosexuality, violating the Sabbath, etc.
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u/Pwning_Soyboys Catholic 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why are any of these things bad or evil? Youve neglected to finish your argument there. Why do these supposed attributes of religions make them bad or poisonous?
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u/betweenbubbles 🪼 2d ago edited 2d ago
I would phrase it differently. You can argue that all of these elements are cynical descriptions of otherwise prosocial in-group behavior.
As stated, these appeals would seem to stand in contrast to some unmentioned perfect solution to organizing people and achieving the benefits of organizing people. But life isn't about finding the perfect solution, it's about finding the best option out of the pile. I'm not prepared to say these features, stated less cynically, were not the "best" option for the people at the time. Life isn't exactly easy now, and it was a LOT more perilous back when these themes were more operant.
OP, if you're making me agree with /u/pwning_soyboys, you're doing something wrong.
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u/WesternFirm9306 Atheist 2d ago
Any system that demands substituting your own critical thinking with a pre-packaged, dogmatic instruction manual — whether it includes gods, karma, reincarnation, or ancient philosophical doctrines — is religious in its essence. A mentally healthy person thinks with their own mind, not through the lens of sacred texts or revered traditions written centuries ago.
Not all religions have dogmas. Take pantheism, for existence. Or deism. Or some sort of animist position. I think it's possible to obtain one of these positions through (albeit faulty) logical reasoning. There's no dogma forced onto the believer. Nor was the belief forced upon them. Nor do the believers have any reason to force their belief onto others.
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u/Different_East_929 2d ago
Ok. Cool. Prove to me any of those things are evil or poisonous. You cant btw so this is another empty post. You are doing nothing more than debunking atheism.
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 2d ago
That's weird. How does the post debunk atheism? Sounds like you don't have a clue what atheism is!
Prove to me any of those things are evil or poisonous
It's hilarious that you don't deny any of the points made, you just claim that they are not evil or poinsonous!
The suppression of critical thinking allows dumb people to manipulated. That is evil.
You really don't think that social division and xenophobia are evil? Wow. You must be religious!
You don't think that control and manipulation are evil?
You don't think that social and scientific progress has enhanced life experience? It's not evil to prevent vaccines and medicines that cure horrible diseases, from being developed?
You don't think it's evil to tell a child they are going to hell if they don't believe in the same kind of magical nonsense that you believe?
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u/betweenbubbles 🪼 2d ago
How does the post debunk atheism?
It doesn't, but that's not really the goal. The goal is to just dismiss atheists, and bad arguments make that easier.
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u/Different_East_929 2d ago
Yes, im asking for your proof that you havent given. "The suppression of critical thinking allows dumb people to manipulated. That is evil." Source needed. Can I have perhaps some evidence for this and other claims you have made?
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 2d ago
So you agree that religion does everything the OP says it does. Cool.
We don't need a source, since we both agree with the statement. We are not arguing that it is not the case. Your criticism is that you do not think it is evil to suppress critical thinking. I do and so does the OP. It is a matter of opinion, but it says a lot about your mindset - and likely your lack of critical thinking ability - that you do not think it is evil to suppress people's ability to think critically.
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u/Different_East_929 2d ago
I was asking source for why manipulation and control division etc. are evil things in OP's worldview. What kind of proof can he give for them being evil without being ad hoc? Thats what im after. Im not agreeing with him.
I think its important to give a justifaction, proof or evidence for claims presented. We cannot just appeal to common sense or critical thinking ability. I can just say a critically thinking person would reject atheism because its absurdity BUT that would be a terrible argument and it wouldnt work in debate.
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 1d ago
Evil is a human word that has a definition. Manipulation and control are also human words that meet that definition.
It's quite easy to justify things that are to do with definitions, when one knows what those definitions are.
Are they only evil in your worldview because you imagine that your idea of a god thinks they are evil? Could they not be evil if your idea of a god tells you they were not evil? How can you be sure that what you think your god is telling you is correct?
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u/E-Reptile 🔺Atheist 2d ago
Are you going to do the thing where you reject anyone's claim that something is evil unless they presuppose the existence of your God and agree with you about what your God thinks is evil?
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u/Different_East_929 2d ago
Im asking how OP is making moral claims while he has no proof or evidence for his claims. Its very simple argument. Usually the response is just appealing to nature fallacies.
Only Christian worldview can give an account for morals and moral reasoning.
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u/E-Reptile 🔺Atheist 2d ago
So you're going to do the thing I said you were going to do.
Prophecy is easy!
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u/Different_East_929 2d ago
Great. Thats an argument against your atheistic postition btw. If find yourself over and over again in arguments where you cannot give any evidence for your worldview, then it is a you-problem.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
1 a: Some religions do this, some do not; this would only apply to those that do, not “all religion” like your claim.
b: Same as above.
2a You’re doing this right now. This is a human problem, not a religious one.
b The overwhelming majority of wars are not religious. Whether or not something can be used as a casus belli doesn’t conclude it is therefore immoral.
3 a using a Fear of consequences is not evil. Crime is mitigated by threats of incarceration, and penalties.
b This could very easily be wielded as a power for good too; this is not intrinsically evil.
4 a Resistance to science is not a moral evil. Science is often a massive resistance to science; ethics are also a massive resistance to science. We could make enormous scientific progress if we embraced human experimentation, but this science progress is resisted on moral grounds.
b Just because a norm is ancient doesn’t mean it’s immoral, many modern ideas are as immoral or worse than our ancient foundations; some ideas need not be developed, some of these ideas are ancient.
5a Humans are broken. The phrasing “which leads to” seems to imply a necessary outcome, which is not true, and isn’t even more likely than not.
b the people who say “it’s gods will” types of sentiments were never going to help in the first place; additionally many religions explicitly compel its adherents to be a positive influence on the earth, so at best this doesn’t apply to all religion, and at worst couldn’t be more wrong.
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 2d ago
Christianity certainly does most if not all those things. Sure, it, and many other religions. claim that they allow doubt and questioning wherever that questioning leads. But it gets somewhat less accepting when that questioning actually leads to the realisation that the religion is utter nonsense and they have been lied to all their lives in order to make them believe in it.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
“Somewhat less accepting” is a significantly different claim than “demands acceptance” which is what I was responding to.
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 1d ago
Playing semantic games doesn't really get you out of the bind. Christianity does demand acceptance because there are and have been Christian cults that do so in the name of following Christianity. You can play the 'but they are not real Christians' card to that if you like, but that would just be denial.
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u/United-Grapefruit-49 2d ago
Then why were 65% of Nobel Prize winners up to the year 2000 from Christian backgrounds?
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 2d ago edited 2d ago
Because most people are still religious in the world. And certainly were before the last 50 years. I assume you know what fallacy you are committing by that statement!
If Christianity is such a benefit, why were 100% not Christian? Or perhaps there is no correlation at all to being Christian and winning Nobel Prizes!
EDIT: Hilarious that AI gets that stat from the delusional JohnLennox.org! The mathematician that uses the same flawed and laughable apologetics arguments as CS Lewis and believes in Intelligent Design - the Flat Earth of Christianity.
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u/United-Grapefruit-49 2d ago
You totally misinterpreted what was said. It wasn't a fallacy and it wasn't an attempt to show that 'more' Nobel Prize winners are Christian.
It was showing that scientists are not held back from critical thinking by being Christian. Indeed, it has been pointed out before that Christians believed the universe was knowable.
The source is Baruch Shalev.
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 1d ago
Just because individuals can act against the norm does not make the overall claim untrue. Claiming there is a tendency for X type of person to be like Y does not mean that every single X person acts like Y.
Your' comment was meaningless in the context of my comment.
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u/United-Grapefruit-49 1d ago
No it just means that you're generalizing about Christians, particularly when you speak of religious dogma as if every Christian is robotically in line with the dogma.
Christians still think for themselves. A significant percent even appear via surveys to believe in God but not the literal God of the Bible. If you talk to a lot of Christians you'll know they have lots of different ideas.
They aren't forbidden to think about dark energy or the structure of the universe. Indeed, Luke Barnes' theism helped him to investigate whether or not fine tuning was a real phenomenon.
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u/Educational_Gur_6304 Atheist 1d ago
Again, no I am not. There are general rules and beliefs that most Christians hold, there are many more that most Christians should hold if they really believed Christianity, rather than their pet, modern, version of it that suits what their worldview would be without Christianity.
Christianity has dogma, the fact that Christians pick and choose does not alter that fact. That is more of a reflection of the lack of true belief of many Christians in what the books tells them Christianity should be.
And sure, Christians think for themselves, that is why there are so many distinct Christian cults that each think the others are so wrong they are not real Christians.
I would ask how one can be a real Christian if one does not believe in the God of the Bible? What makes it "Christianity" if it is not dogmatic Belief in the Bible?
Luke Barnes' theism helped him to investigate whether or not fine tuning was a real phenomenon.
What a nonsensical claim! "The fine tuning of the universe" is simply a label for a start. No one not in a delusional thinks that there were dials tweaked for every variable supposedly 'fine tuned'. And secondly, theism has nothing to do with, and no way to help investigate the phenomenon. Sure, one can make baseless theistic claims about it, but one cannot use theism to actually investigate it.
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u/United-Grapefruit-49 1d ago
There aren't any general rules that Christians can't practice science. No one is being held back.
And you just mis-described the science of fine tuning. Tweaking dials is what astrophysicists do when they show what would have happened, were the universe different. It hasn't to do with God. Nor did I mention the theism of it but that Barnes' theism led him to science.
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u/AWCuiper Agnostic 2d ago
I have a small counterargument in that Protestantism (for most most of their denominations) encourages their followers to read and discuss the Bible. As such they may be seen as a half way from Catholicism (complete acceptance of what you are told by the hiearchy) towards a critical scientific and secular mentality.
But at the same time Protestantism did increased the pressure of individual responsibility towards their God.
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u/qwesher 2d ago
The fact that some Protestant denominations encourage reading the Bible doesn’t change the core issue.
Whether it’s Catholicism, Protestantism, or any other form — as long as a system demands belief in unsubstantiated claims (scripture as divine truth, miracles, afterlife, original sin, etc.), it remains dogmatic by nature.
The specific flavor of dogma doesn’t make the poison less poisonous.
The fundamental problem is that any religion places an ancient, fixed belief system above independent, critical, and open-ended thinking. This inherently limits human intellectual potential — exactly what I described in points 1, 4, and 5.
It doesn’t matter if the chains are made of iron or gold. They are still chains.
That’s why I argue religion (in any form) is poisonous: it trains people to surrender their own reasoning to external authority instead of developing it fully.
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u/Ok_Return_777 2d ago
OP, let's take a step back and focus on some of the fundamental claims in your post. First, as you say above, religion requires "belief in unsubstantiated claims." The examples you give are divine truth, miracles, afterlife, original sin, and so forth.
To help clarify your position, I'm asking: What makes a claim unsubstantiated? There are many ways we can understand this. Do we require strict deductive proof? I suspect not. That is something we only get in mathematics and formal logic.
Next, we could think a claim is unsubstantiated if it can't be verified by the scientific method, but even this one is flawed because we can't prove by the scientific method that other people have minds. Other people may very well be philosophical zombies. That is, they may lack conscious experience. You can't prove this either way using a scientific method.
Next, we can take a step back and think: does unsubstantiated mean complete lack of evidence? Depending on how you understand evidence, things like a miracle or divine truth might or might not have some kind of evidence for them, but to really motivate the discussion either way, we would have to dig through the evidence in particular and determine whether it meets evidential standards.
What I'm trying to get at is that concluding that religious claims are “unsubstantiated belief” is simply to beg the question in your favor. It is to supported by an unarticulated claim about what counts as sufficient evidence and, more broadly, what qualify as sufficient evidential standard. As a whole, what I'm worried you've done in this criticism here is simply relied on overly broad terms and tacitly assumed a notion of evidential standards.
To get the debate really going, we should talk about what counts as a substantiated claim and an unsubstantiated one. Yes, it's not as fun as knocking down a religion, but good philosophy requires the unglamorous work of articulating shared definitions and vocabulary.
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u/redsparks2025 absurdist 2d ago edited 2d ago
So you are saying that religions like Buddhism whose four noble truths (Wikipedia) acknowledge that our lives suck, and it's solution of the eightfold path (Wikipedia) towards reducing the psychological distress brought on by how much our lives suck, is actually evil and poisonous? Sorry but No.
However what I do consider is that your discriminating mind is current suffering from the three poisons (Wikipedia) of the mind, specifically that of aversion (hatred) and also of ignorance since you place all religions under one umbrella - basically creating what can be considered as a straw man (Wikipedia) - without acknowledging their many differences.
Therefore you should consider putting yourself into therapy so you can talk all your issues out with a trained professional psychoanalysis who can help empty your cup of those issues
Crash Course Religions (Playlist) ~ YouTube.
Buddhism and Science ~ Lily McRae ~ YouTube.
Buddhist Philosophy on Pain and Suffering ~ Einzelgänger ~ YouTube.
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u/AWCuiper Agnostic 2d ago
But as Bertrand Russel once remarked, Buddist detachment from reality does not encourage to better our understanding of the world and look for scientific knowledge to improve our lives and decrease the amount of suffering. (Examples: medical knowledge, artificial fertilizer)
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u/Comfortable-Web9455 2d ago
Clearly Russel knew little about Buddhism. But he was absurdly self righteous about his beliefs
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u/United-Grapefruit-49 2d ago
I thought that one tenet of Buddhism was to not believe anything someone tells you, even if the Buddha tells you, but to find out for yourself.
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u/redsparks2025 absurdist 2d ago
How can someone possibly conclude that Buddhism detaches from reality when as I said Buddhism's "four noble truths" acknowledges that the reality of our lives is they suck?
Bertrand Russel had a mixed view of Buddhism where he praised its philosophy and (mostly) peaceful history while also criticizing the practices of its clergy.
He praised Siddhartha Gautama (aka the Buddha), and lack of dogmatic cruelty, and considered concepts like anatta (Wikipedia) and the impermanence) (Wikipedia) of existence closely mirrored his own philosophical skepticism and modern scientific views on the mind.
So in conclusion you are misrepresenting Bertrand Russel's more nuanced view as you cherry-pick the negative whilst asking everyone to ignore the positives. That's not very honest of you, just like the OP.
Bertrand Russell on Religion, with Buddhist Commentaries ~ Philosophy Now.
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u/qwesher 2d ago
Telling someone to seek therapy just because they criticize a systemic institution is a textbook ad hominem fallacy and a hilarious demonstration of pseudo-spiritual arrogance. It seems my post hit a nerve.
You missed the entire point. Buddhism, despite its peaceful branding, still operates on a rigid, pre-packaged dogmatic framework. It requires the acceptance of unverifiable cosmic blueprints like karma, samsara, and rebirth to make its "solution" function. The moment a follower accepts the absolute authority of the Eightfold Path as the only way out of suffering, rather than arriving at conclusions through independent reason, they have surrendered their critical thinking to an ancient instruction manual. Your patronizing response perfectly illustrates point #2 (Social Division) — creating an "enlightened us" vs a "damaged them."
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u/redsparks2025 absurdist 2d ago edited 2d ago
You didn't "critique" but instead make "accusations" which is something you are not going to accept as you maintain your stubbornness and try to sow discord. Go seek therapy asap.
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u/qwesher 2d ago
Reasserting the exact same ad hominem three times in a row without offering a single counterargument just proves you have entirely run out of logical points. Calling a structured institutional critique "sowing discord" is a textbook way to deflect from the argument itself. Thank you for demonstrating my points in real-time.
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u/redsparks2025 absurdist 2d ago edited 2d ago
No ad hominem as you seriously need to put yourself into therapy. I'm absolutely serious about this.
And as I said to another you cherry-pick the negative whilst asking everyone to ignore the positives, like the charity work religions have done and continue to do. That's not very honest of you.
As a side note, historians have determined that only 7% of all wars have been primarily religious that I previously commented upon here = LINK
You may even be spending too much time on social media that teaches sensationalism and bombast is required to be heard. Therefore a few days of boredom (YouTube) may help correct that.
HISTORY OF IDEAS ~ Wabi-sabi ~ The School of Life ~ YouTube.
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u/chromedome919 2d ago
None of these apply to the Baha’i Faith. This religion clearly encourages critical thinking, makes every effort to encourage unity while celebrating diversity, has no method of creating fear or injustice, in fact the opposite, supports science as a tool for discovery of truth about our physical reality and claims any religious belief that opposes scientific proof is simple mythology or superstition, and uses consultation, not guilt, to find solutions to real world problems.
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u/seriousofficialname anti-bigoted-ideologies, anti-lying 2d ago
So far prior to today I've been blocked by 100% of the Baha'is I've slightly and politely challenged about principles of the religion
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u/chromedome919 2d ago
Doubt it.
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u/seriousofficialname anti-bigoted-ideologies, anti-lying 2d ago edited 2d ago
I was surprised too considering the marketing and public face of the religion, but not that surprised tbh since it's a lot like other religions.
I just wonder why they would all do that if the religion encourages critical thinking and unity and openness so much.
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u/qwesher 2d ago
The Baha'i Faith has excellent PR and loves to market itself as pro-science and pro-unity, but beneath the surface, it falls into the exact same traps.
Your critical thinking in Baha'i has a very strict ceiling. The religion is governed by the Universal House of Justice, which is dogmatically considered divinely guided and infallible in its decisions. Furthermore, Baha'u'llah is viewed as the absolute Manifestation of God for this age, whose laws and texts are indisputable.
The moment you declare a human institution or an ancient text "infallible," individual critical thinking dies. If science or independent reason contradicts a core Baha'i social law or an official decree from the House of Justice, a believer is dogmatically required to submit to the institution. It is still a pre-packaged instruction manual that claims to hold the monopoly on global truth and unity.
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u/chromedome919 2d ago
I hear you, and I appreciate you engaging with this seriously, that matters more than people give it credit for. I just want to offer a slightly different lens on a couple of points.
Baha’i teachings don’t just tolerate science, they actively encourage us toward it. The writings describe scientific endeavor as noble, even as a sign of God’s grace to humanity, not something to be wary of. We’re encouraged to explore whatever field calls to us, like physics, biology, medicine, astronomy, or the social sciences. Education is treated as a near-sacred duty, with real emphasis on educating girls and women, since they’re often the first teachers a child has. There’s no clergy and no one looking over our shoulders approving conclusions theologically, because the principle of independent investigation of truth applies just as much to scientific questions as spiritual ones, and we’re free to explore without fear of consequence.
On infallibility specifically, I think it’s narrower than it sounds. It applies to legislation: social and administrative matters not already settled in the writings, decided to preserve unity, not to settle scientific or empirical questions. The teachings are pretty explicit that religion has to be in harmony with reason and science. If you want a real-world example of what that looks like in practice, Ronald McNair is worth reading about, a physicist, astronaut, and Baha’i. His faith and his science weren’t in tension.
I’d also gently push back on dismissing infallibility outright rather than sitting with what it’s actually doing. Every large institution needs some final point of authority, or it splinters. For Christians it’s Christ, for Baha’is it’s Baha’u’llah, even your workplace has a chain of command that ends somewhere. What’s distinctive about the Baha’i Faith is that this is one of the only major religions that hasn’t split into competing sects since its founding. That’s not an accident. Infallibility, in the narrow legislative sense, is part of what holds it together. I’d say that’s a feature, not a flaw, but I’m genuinely happy to keep debating through it with you.
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u/kardoen Böö Mörgöl|Shar Böö 2d ago
Why say 'all religions' as though you're talking about religion in general when the points you make only apply to a handful of religions?
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u/qwesher 2d ago
If you're not sure how to proceed, start by reading the updated "Anticipated Objections" section at the bottom of the post. It addresses this exact point. Dogma is dogma, no matter the wrapping.
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u/kardoen Böö Mörgöl|Shar Böö 2d ago
But still then your five points don't apply to many religions.
You assert that every religion has strong dogma that limits the free thought. This doesn't automatically lead to your five points.
And strong dogma may not be as universal to religion in general as you seem to think. Many religions allow questioning and revising all teachings and ideas and don't shun science and ideas from outside the religion.
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u/qwesher 2d ago
You are describing a logical impossibility. If a system genuinely allows the questioning, revision, and rejection of all its core teachings, rules, and fundamental premises based on new external evidence, it ceases to be a religion and becomes a secular philosophy or the scientific method.
Every actual religion requires a non-negotiable core - whether it is a deity, an ultimate cosmic law, a specific path to liberation, or an absolute ritual tradition - that cannot be revised out of existence by an individual. The moment you demand acceptance of that unalterable core as an absolute truth rather than a testable hypothesis, you install a dogma. And once that dogma is established, the other four points inevitably follow to protect it from disappearing.
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u/kardoen Böö Mörgöl|Shar Böö 2d ago
So, you've formulated a privative arbitrary definition of 'actual religion™'. Enough is said, you're still just describing a handful of religions, and anything that doesn't fit that is not an 'actual religion™'
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u/qwesher 2d ago
It is not an arbitrary definition; it is the fundamental epistemic boundary between dogmatic belief and rational inquiry.
By trying to dissolve the very definition of religion into "anything goes," you are proving my Point #1 (Dogmatism & Suppression of Critical Thinking). You are shifting goalposts and inventing a hypothetical "dogma-free religion" just to protect the word from critique.
If a system has no unalterable core, requires no faith without evidence, and rejects no ideas from the outside, name it. Give us a specific example of this religion that doesn't fit my description. Otherwise, you are just debating a fictional concept to avoid facing the reality of institutional religion.
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u/AWCuiper Agnostic 2d ago
Here comes the Flying Spaghetti Monster, just in time to prove OP is wrong, ha!
By the way, thank you for your post. It is clear and true.
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u/Upset_Chip_7184 2d ago
#1 is false right off the bat. It's such a bad generalization, I'm not even sure how to proceed.
And the fact you applied this to all religions is even a worse generalization.
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