Contradictions

It is always amuses me how religious people seem unbothered by contradictions - by which I mean - contradictions between their fairy-tales and the fairy-tales of other religious perspectives.

Take any religion you can think of. Hinduism - and you can find contradictions in dogma i.e. professed belief, between groups. Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism all show evidence of deriving from the Dharmic traditions of Hinduism, yet when it comes to the nitty-gritty of who is and isn't a "reincarnation of an important deity" - nevermind the very problematic contradictions between Hindu beliefs about Humanities past and the evolutionary FACTS reproduced by the epistemological genius of the scientific method.

So that brings me to another question...Millions upon millions of years Eastern religions claim; for instance:

The Jaina theosophy, unlike Hindu and Buddhist theosophies, asserts that each soul passes through 8,400,000 birth-situations, as they circle through Saṃsāra.

Why would simply believe a baseless claim like this? Well, Jainist (along with all Eastern - excluding some Buddhist sects) epistemology has remarkably low standards for knowledge:

Jain philosophy accepts three reliable means of knowledge (pramana). It holds that correct knowledge is based on perception (pratyaksa), inference (anumana) and testimony (sabda or the word of scriptures)

The first one is obvious. All of a human beings reality comes through perception. That said, the incoherence of the Jainist, Hindu and other epistemologies - compared to CS Peirce, for instance - is that there is no logical explanation for perception and inference are tied together.

Obviously, the last claim is the BS one, whereas the first two are no where near as clear as more modern epistemologies. But still: isn't the last one the basis for the egregiously out-of-nowhere belief that human life goes back millions upon millions of years into the past? Ugh. As a philosophically educated guy, I really can't help but feel contempt for the human penchant to "just believe" simply because someone else told them. Reason - the very device were supposed to use to distinguish truth from falsity isn't even considered.

Here's another gem from Jainism which to me makes a whole lot of sense given the social-context these individual humans develop within:

A male human being is considered closest to the apex with the potential to achieve liberation, particularly through asceticism. In the Digambara traditional belief, women must gain karmic merit, to be reborn as man, and only then can they achieve spiritual liberation

Jainism

I can go on all day detailing all the annoying contradictions Eastern religions present with reference to evolutionary-based sciences, but if you aren't a reader into philosophy - by which I mean, philosophy of science (Popper, Peirce, Kuhn etc) you really haven't got your head screwed on right, because you have done something that is absolutely inexcusable: you are treating "tradition" - and therefore, past human beings - as being beyond the same requirements for thinking and asserting that we subject ourselves to. Thus, the only rational response to contradictions with contemporary sciences is to understand them as suboptimal attempts to acquire knowledge - but sometimes we humans are way off the mark, and end up believing entirely in untruthful even as we cultivate "spiritual powers".

Of course, with modern liberalism and feminism, some Jains have got it into their head that "tradition is wrong". Yes - fallibility: learn it and accept it, because this is an intrinsic part of how we operate. We are wrong about many things; and indeed, the further out we go out from the here and now, the less we can know - and hence, the ludicrous attempts of Indian mystics to "know all of history" has ended up producing a mythology that is inconsistent with much more sophisticated and intelligent methods of dating i.e. chemical dating, which shows - whereever we look i.e. space (astrophysics) or Earth (chemistry) an evolving universe, an earth that emerged 4.5 billion years ago, and a life process that took manu hundreds of millions of years to produce the many species we see today.

Do You Believe This Stuff?

New agers and people with an interest in religion, philosophy and spirituality - but not the sciences - are gulls. These are precisely the "old minds" we need to evolve past: people who need myths and falsities to make themselves feel better are not doing anyone a service - in my opinion. They are putting themselves ahead of the species; they are putting stupid and embarassingly pretentious/unreal claims ahead of improving what we know.

I don't say this with the intent of demonizing such people, as I know what developmental trauma - which affects brain functioning, metablism, and affectivity for the rest of the life process - does to our human brains: it never lets us go, so we might as well assume a Buddhist epistemology that resists making claims and assertions about reality i.e. mindfulness, when we know - or neuroscientists and developmental psychologists know - that later on psychological distress has a great deal to do with the early life dysregulation of the brain stem. This is also why "ritual abuse" is such a diseased way of being in the world: it does not need to be this way; and the mind doesn't have to know reality this way - but for the person who believes these sorts of things has an elaborate mythology in his head that justifies these sorts of actions. The perversity of the power-politics of cities and commerce has transformed these people so that they are compelled to believe nonsensical things purely out of fear and hatred.

We Don't Know Everything

When any religion claims to know everything, I am inherently skeptical of the claims. I have too much time involved with every major religion to not be bothered by the contradictions; but the contradictions of the East are matched by equally irritating contradictions in western religions - starting from the farce that God made Judaism, and then made Christianity and Islam, just to # with humans. The logic of the situaiton quickly reveals a God - that, if real - is monstrously stupid and completely unfair to all people not lucky enough to be born into the "right group". And the right group may not even be the religion itself; it could be the 'elect'; the "Cohanim" if your Jewish, or a big-powerful religious family if your Christian or Muslim.

Its nonsense that people are willing to think this way - but why is it nonsense? Because we are largely controlled by the context. Ergo, if the context controls us, what use is there in demonizing other people - or even entertaining the idea that you are part of a "truer religion" than another person?

It's this sort of childishness that I hope humans can overcome. It's fear and nothing more when you think you "have the truth" and everyone else is ignorant and leading wrong-lives. I don't mean to say that truth claims can't be made: I just said above that science and the epistemological method it advances justifies itself at a logical level as warrenting the status of "better knowledge". Sane people have no problem accepting this point.

Rather, when a religious person throws around the term "evil", when referring to Franciscan monks who are pro LGBTQ rights, and consider them "sodomites" and "followers of Satan"...

...this is the sort of insanity that religious people (of the Abrahamic faiths mostly) constantly indulge in. It is amazing to me: you have a mind, and instead of using it to figure out why you're using it the way you're using it (an epistemological question) its always ontology: its always assuming you ALREADY have the truth - and how nice for you, and how horrible for those who will rot in hell and burn in its sulphurous fire-pits.

People like this always assume the perspective of the wise-sage, which makes a little sick just thinking of it. Its a joke: its pretentious, and yet, the scaffolding of development has also made it inevitable, which makes my complaints against them more or less an act of venting: venting against how stupid, naive, and fear-disposed we are, and the lack of epistemological honesty about a question I always ask myself: is this a reasonable thing to believe?

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a reply to: Astrocyte

It is always amuses me how religious people seem unbothered by contradictions - by which I mean - contradictions between their fairy-tales and the fairy-tales of other religious perspectives.

There is no contradiction if you pretend something contrary to your belief system doesn't exist.

Denial is one word, Hypocrisy another. Then theres Selective Memory, playing favorites, Marginalization, de-humanization, Condemnation, Exclusivity.

a reply to: Astrocyte

You're a smart person, right? Without these religions we wouldn't have modern science.
Are dogmas wrong? Sure, we constantly have to update our knowledge base.
People get stuck in bias. But that's true for all of them not religious folks only.

And the road towards the truth always leeds through falsehood and never ends. That statement technically is coming from spiritualism and absolutely right.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Why is it acceptable for science-minded people to accept contradictions but not religious folks? Science lead us to believe that butter was bad and margarin was better. Now science tells us the opposite. Was this a scientific fairy tale?

Why people without faith feel a need to denigrate those with faith is beyond me. You simply do not have the open-mindedness to accept a spiritually based life. That's fine, I have no problem with that. But your need to ridicule something you don't understand demeans none but yourself.

originally posted by: Astrocyte

I can go on all day detailing all the annoying contradictions

I'm not aware of any contradictions in religious thought.

Remember, to be a contradiction there must be two things.

1) a system of logic (of which there are many) that is "binary"
2) a statement that asserts something is true AND that same thing is false

People use a lot of "confused thinking" to construct statements they claim are contradictions, but on inspection we find they simply haven't formulated their thoughts properly.

Let's give an example I'm familiar with:

Well known Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote a famous essay titled

"Why I'm not a Christian".

In it, he argues that the Christians claim their God is "omnipotent".
Yet, he says, the Christians claim their God is also "good."

So, says Russell, a God that had to be always "good" could not at the same time be "omnipotent", because there were things he could not do, such as "evil things."

Therefore, Russell concludes, the Christian God is contradictory, and their idea of God must be rejected by any rational person.

That's why Russell decides he is not a Christian.

He can't accept that contradiction.

But, Russell was confused in his thinking.

Here's the problem with Russell's thought.

He starts with an hypothesis that God is "omnipotent".

And then he immediately subjects that omnipotent God to his own human form of logic and reason.

But, if God must be limited to human binary logic, which Russell uses to reason about him, that God can't really be omnipotent in the first place.

So, what has happened, is Russell "unknowingly" introduces the contradiction with his "silent assumption" that God is "limited" to his form of logic.

And even in the human form of binary logic which Russell uses to argue his case, it is well known that from a contradiction one can draw "any conclusion".

The result is that Russell's contradictory conclusion, is really the result of his contradictory set of hypotheses, one hypothesis being a "silent assumption" which he does not declare explicitly in his arguments, and there really is no actual contradiction in the Christian concept of God at all, when we identify that "silent hypothesis" and show how it disproves his argument.

See?

Confused thinking, is what makes many people think they see contradictions, when there are none.

It's true: you are the One.

Many people claim that all religions are essentially the same, or that they all lead to God.

This cannot be true because they all contradict each other.

God is NOT religious, nor is He the one behind religion.

If two beliefs directly contradict each other, both of them cannot be true, no matter how "tolerant" we become. This means it is false to say that every religion is true, or that every religion leads to God. When people make such claims they show that they have not taken the time to study the world's religions, because a brief reading of the sacred texts of only a handful of religions quickly reveals contradictions on the most fundamental levels.

They could all be false, but they can't all be true. Are any of them true? This is the most important question anyone can ask. Recognize religious contradictions. Embrace them. Test them. Seek the truth.

Contradict: They Can't All Be True

All religions are true. The contradictions do not matter. The purpose of religion is to answer the four great existential questions:

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. What does it all mean?
4. What is going to happen to me when I die?

These questions cannot be answered objectively based on evidence. They are essentially unanswerable questions. People generally uncomfortable with unanswerable questions so people invent religion so they can be comfortable.

It really doesn't matter how your answer these questions. On the cosmic timescale everything we do is meaningless. But it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. So we might as well choose meaningful. So what people do when they invent religion is they choose answers to these questions that give them greatest possible amount of divine meaning in their lives.

When people answer these questions they do so with an article of faith. An article of faith is taken to be true without any supporting evidence. An article of faith is assumed to be true. Then bases on a set of articles of faith, a person will live their life as if those articles of faith are proven to be true.

For some people, they cannot accept articles of faith. For some people, they want to choose a religion based on evidence. What they are looking for is to make a "decision" on how to answer the great existential questions. Where as most spiritual or people more open to religion "choose" to believe what they belief. The difference between a choice and a decision is very important.

Is it "right", is it "wrong", who knows, who cares. Either you live a divine life or one based on nihilism. Choose.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Hello, hi Astrocyte. I enjoy reading these threads of yours. The easier it is to read, the more I can focus on the points you are making.

Could you please define in your own words, what religion and mysticism mean to you?

a reply to: dfnj2015

Good points.

But it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. So we might as well choose meaningful

That choice is yours, to solve the meaningless - you have used a leap of faith to bring meaning into your life.

Sometimes things are just the way they are with no intrinsic meaning.

I have learn't to be at peace with without knowing some of the great unanswerable questions.

Its only when I see death that I remember that both religion and science have been abused to promote genocide that I'm saddened.

Either you live a divine life or one based on nihilism. Choose.

I dont understand what you mean by "divine life"?

I have a spiritual life and I still enjoy existential nihilism moment's.

"Choose?" Science tells us that free will doesn't exist. I try not to ponder too much on that.
Its like do I really need to know the 40 additives in every can of soup? If I delve too deeply into those additives and their effects I would starve. ( I understand that there are other food alternatives )

originally posted by: dfnj2015
All religions are true. The contradictions do not matter. The purpose of religion is to answer the four great existential questions:

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. What does it all mean?
4. What is going to happen to me when I die?

These questions cannot be answered objectively based on evidence. They are essentially unanswerable questions. People generally uncomfortable with unanswerable questions so people invent religion so they can be comfortable.

It really doesn't matter how your answer these questions. On the cosmic timescale everything we do is meaningless. But it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. So we might as well choose meaningful. So what people do when they invent religion is they choose answers to these questions that give them greatest possible amount of divine meaning in their lives.

When people answer these questions they do so with an article of faith. An article of faith is taken to be true without any supporting evidence. An article of faith is assumed to be true. Then bases on a set of articles of faith, a person will live their life as if those articles of faith are proven to be true.

For some people, they cannot accept articles of faith. For some people, they want to choose a religion based on evidence. What they are looking for is to make a "decision" on how to answer the great existential questions. Where as most spiritual or people more open to religion "choose" to believe what they belief. The difference between a choice and a decision is very important.

Is it "right", is it "wrong", who knows, who cares. Either you live a divine life or one based on nihilism. Choose.

.... somtimes i feel out of place on this forum... like i need to increase my iq by 100

a reply to: TobyFlenderson

I often critique religions but I also question the philosophy of science. Both have underlying assumptions that have shortcomings.

It can't be disputed that many men of religion are altruistic while some scientists work on death and destruction.

Likewise it can't be disputed that religion is used by the religious and Political to control through death and destruction the "other" whilst science tries to mitigate the harm.

Such a conundrum

a reply to: Ghostsinthefog



Philosophy and metaphysics is the forum. All are welcome. IQ is not a measure of whether someone contributes. Say something.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
Thus, the only rational response to contradictions with contemporary sciences is to understand them as suboptimal attempts to acquire knowledge - but sometimes we humans are way off the mark, and end up believing entirely in untruthful even as we cultivate "spiritual powers".

Reconciling Science and Religion: Awake!—2002

“Science and religion [are] no longer seen as incompatible.”—The Daily Telegraph, London, May 26, 1999.

BOTH science and religion, in their noblest forms, involve the search for truth. Science discovers a world of magnificent order, a universe that contains distinctive marks of intelligent design. True religion makes these discoveries meaningful by teaching that the mind of the Creator lies behind the design manifest in the physical world.

“I find my appreciation of science is greatly enriched by religion,” says Francis Collins, a molecular biologist. He continues: “When I discover something about the human genome, I experience a sense of awe at the mystery of life, and say to myself, ‘Wow, only God knew before.’ It is a profoundly beautiful and moving sensation, which helps me appreciate God and makes science even more rewarding for me.”

What will help one to reconcile science and religion?

An Enduring Quest

Accept the limits: No end is in sight in our quest for answers about the infinite universe, space, and time. Biologist Lewis Thomas noted: “There will be no end to this process, being the insatiably curious species that we are, exploring, looking around and trying to understand things. We’re not ever going to get it solved. I can’t imagine any terminal point where everyone will breathe a sigh and will say, ‘Now we understand the whole thing.’ It’s going to remain beyond us.”

Similarly, when it comes to religious truth, the reach is boundless. One of the Bible writers, Paul, stated: “Now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror . . . My knowledge now is partial.”—1 Corinthians 13:12, The New English Bible.

Partial knowledge concerning both scientific and religious questions, however, does not prevent us from reaching sound conclusions based on the facts we have. We don’t need a detailed knowledge of the origin of the sun in order to be absolutely sure that it is going to rise tomorrow.

Let the known facts speak: In the quest for answers, we need to be guided by sound principles. Unless we stick to the highest standards of evidence, we can easily be misled in our search for scientific and religious truth. Realistically, none of us can begin to evaluate all scientific knowledge and ideas, which today fill huge libraries. On the other hand, the Bible provides a manageable compendium of spiritual teachings for our consideration. The Bible is well supported by known facts.

For example, when we understand that the Bible uses the term “day” to represent various periods of time, we see that the account of the six creative days in Genesis need not conflict with the scientific conclusion that the age of the earth is about four and a half billion years. According to the Bible, the earth existed for an unstated period before the creative days began. (See the box “The Creative Days—24 Hours Each?”) Even if science corrects itself and suggests a different age for our planet, the statements made in the Bible still hold true. Instead of contradicting the Bible, science in this and many other cases actually provides us with voluminous supplemental information about the physical world, both present and past.

Faith, not credulity: The Bible provides us with knowledge of God and his purposes that cannot be gleaned from any other source. Why should we trust it? The Bible itself invites us to test its accuracy. Consider its historical authenticity, its practicality, the candor of its writers, and its integrity. By investigating the accuracy of the Bible, including statements of a scientific nature and, even more convincingly, the unerring fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies throughout the ages and into our present day, one can acquire firm faith in it as the Word of God. Faith in the Bible is not credulity but a proven confidence in the accuracy of Scriptural statements.

However, concerning knowledge in general, earnest effort is required to distinguish between fact and speculation, between reality and deception—in both science and religion. As the Bible writer Paul advised, we need to reject “the contradictions of the falsely called ‘knowledge.’” (1 Timothy 6:20) To reconcile science and the Bible, we must let the facts speak for themselves, thereby avoiding conjecture and speculation, and examine how each fact supports and adds to the other.
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Wisdom can be whispered by the fool, Everyone is free to share love or not IQ seems to be a very small part of the equation.a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight