religion is proof that god doesn't exist

[miriam_e]

Religion always demolishes its own case for the existence of a god. Any proponent of any particular religion will always say "Oh yes, all those other religions are wrong. Out of the thousands of religions ours is the only one that is right." I'd always been distracted by the incredible arrogance of such a statement, but I'd never noticed before how neatly it invalidates itself.

Each religion lays claim to having some direct connection with its god which can only be accepted on faith. Yet when any religion rejects another's faith it is clearly stating that faith is not enough. But faith is the only thing religion has.

Every believer does a better job of demolishing faith than any atheist ever could.

Comments

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Yup. Said another way, believers already reject the existence of all the other gods. They only believe in one more god than I do.

Unitarians believe in, at most, one god. Well, actually that's not true. There's probably some pagan UUs who have a whole Valhalla full of gods. But historically it's true. In fact, their guy (John Calvin) took our guy (Michael Servetus) and burned him at the stake for it.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to rewrite my bit above. It isn't quite right. Religions don't actually disprove god -- they disprove(?) religion. By dismissing other faiths they unwittingly dismiss their own too. They can't have it both ways. They can't say faith is enough, while at the same time saying that faith is not enough.

I still need to work on it. I'm still sick with the flu and not thinking altogether well.

But wait...

[(Anonymous)]

Wouldn't a true religion also contain truth in addition to the faith? Under the same "logic" you use, it most certainly would, and you would still be disproven.
But either way, contradiction in an abstract concept is not nessecarily a proof of its ineptness. For example, I present the statement:
"This sentance is a lie."
Assuming the most literal interpretation of that sentance, it becomes a paradox. It can't be a lie, or it could not declare itself so. However, if it is a lie, then there is truth in it's declaring itself so. How, then, does the fabric of truth and lies manage to prevent itself from ripping at the seams? Both are abstract concepts that are seemingly destroyed by a paradox.
The answer: they are abstract concepts. Truth and lies are not physical entities, thus they cannot be simply destroyed by a paradox. They describe the world around us; they don't bend under simple ideas of contradiction.
Faith, like truth, is an abstract concept describing the belief in things that are not seen, which are true. Although the mere definition of faith is enough to prove that faith must inherantly be bundled with truth or cease to be faith, it doesn't matter. Faith is not a tangible object. It is an abstract concept, and is therefore not affected by the fralities in the concrete physical laws that mathematical and scientific theories are. Attempting to contradict faith using such laws is an apples and oaranges comparison.

Re: But wait...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Nope. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. It is simple really. :)

Religion is supported by faith alone. It has to be accepted on faith that god is the ultimate author of the bible or the koran. It has to be accepted on faith that there is one or more creators.

Religious people contend that faith is enough. Yet they also reject other religions, thereby saying that faith is not enough. But you can't have it both ways. Either faith is enough or it isn't. Clearly it isn't.

Physics and mathematics are perfectly capable of dealing with abstract concepts (numbers in the complex plane, pi, e, electromagnetic fields, relativistic time...), in fact that is, in many respects, what they were developed for and what they do best.

Faith can quite easily be shown to be a mistake. But that isn't my point. What excited me in my (rather poorly written) example above is the realisation that religious believers actually invalidate their own faith by rejecting other believers. It struck me as a beautiful kind of justice that those who would proclaim their own religion while denouncing hindu, or islam, or christian, or norse, or wicca beliefs accidentally pull the rug out from under their own feet.

On the quite separate subject of paradoxes:
Much has been made of the trickiness of paradoxical statements like the one you mentioned, but they only appear tricky when you try to tease them apart. Looked at as a whole they are clearly a nonsense. That's one of the things that makes them so interesting: they are a kind of distilled nonsense. Most statements have some degree of conditional truth. "I am warm" is true if I'm compared to a fish, but not so true if I'm compared to a bird. Other information is generally needed to decide on their truth. But "This statement is a lie" is clearly a nonsense no matter what -- it carries within it the seeds of its own destruction.

Re: But wait...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I should add a postscript. My point only applies to those faithful who deny other faiths. People who truly believe that faith is indeed enough have no problem with hindus, buddhists, flying saucer cults, and so on.

[sbarret.livejournal.com]

Any proponent of any particular religion will always say "Oh yes, all those other religions are wrong. Out of the thousands of religions ours is the only one that is right."

Actually, I don't think that is a true statement. I'm pretty sure there is at least one religious leader who feels all religions have a basic fundamental truth and enlightement/heaven/salvation can be achieved through multiple paths - The Dalai Llama. I don't know if that is his personal belief or a basic tenet of his brand of Buddhism.

Also, if you've heard the numerous jokes about folks dying and going to heaven. They are told as they pass one room - "shh. be quiet. The catholics think they are the only ones here..." - That joke and its variants suggest the possibility of multiple paths or multiple 'right ways'.

While many folks say faith is all you need, I think just as many would say that a very good person will go to heaven etc, regardless of religious beliefes. Even in christianity, there is debate whether faith alone or faith in combination with good acts get you the E-train to the pearly gates.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Thanks Sandra. You are completely correct of course.

I've made a number of other mistakes in that piece too, which I should fix. I kinda rushed it into a post because it had hit me suddenly with the force of a Mack truck how one religion dismissing another actually dismisses itself. I'd never realised this before because I'd always been distracted by the breathtaking arrogance of "Out of the thousands of fables that must be taken on faith, ours is the only one that is correct."

I'll rewrite it soon. And explicitly make the point that only religions that don't condemn other religions escape this self-invalidation. If religious people could understand this it might go some way towards peace.

I'm very grateful for the comment. I need all the help I can get in sorting this damn thing out. I want a character to say it in an up-coming short story. The catch is it has to be in a way that a religious person can understand it. My above example is way short of that and hopelessly clumsy -- just an initial feeling around for the main points. But by chatting with people (like yourself) I'm getting to grips with it better.