An Inescapable Conclusion about Some Religions

[David Sklansky]

The following point applies only to some religions and their strict followers. I don't claim to know specifically which ones.

There are people who believe in religions that claim that those people who know of the major precepts of their religion, yet do not to believe in them, will be treated less well by God. Perhaps MUCH less well. This includes not only atheists and agnostics but also believers of other religions.

They also believe that God would not treat someone less well for purely random reasons. In other words if someone espoused the opinion that the religion in question's precepts was less likely to be correct than the combined probabilities of all the other religions, religions not yet thought of, and no God at all, God would have a legitimate reason to be upset with that person.

In other words in order for it to be just that God punish these non believers (of the specific religion in question) in any way, there has to be some BASIS for these people to believe that the specific religion in question was at the very least more likely than not, to be a better description of truth than all other religions plus non belief combined.

I say the above because I don't think strict practitioners and believers of a certain religion would welcome into their flock someone who said something like "I am an Episcopalian because I believe that there is a nine percent chance that its precepts are true and the probabilities I give other religions add up to to 84%, none higher than Episcopalianism, and I make Atheism about a 20-1 dog."

But there are plenty of people who feel approximately this way. And plenty others who are convinced in the accuracy of the precepts of a different religion other than the one in question. This means that the practitioners of the one in question, a religion remember that believes that there is a downside to not believing their stuff (and that believes that God won't punish capriciously), must also believe that those who don't believe in their religion are making a clear mistake. A mistake that could be corrected if they got rid of their biases, or thought a little harder, or learned a little more. But the mistake must in some way be their fault. Otherwise how would it be right to punish them in any way for that mistake?

To believe that God is unhappy with those who don't believe in a specific religion that is supposedly the true one, it is necessary that those who do believe in it do not merely say that they hope they are right or have an unshakable feeling they are right. After all those who believe in other religions can say the same thing. If believers of religion A think that believers of religion B will be sent to hell by a just God, it is necessary that they believe that an OBJECTIVE examination of the evidence should lead you to believe that religion A is more likely to be accurate than all the other competing theories, plus those yet to be espoused, combined.

It is important to understand that it is only these religions and their strict practioners that I personally have a serious problem with.