A Couple Interesting Points About Religion

In a recent thread, "Saved by God?", one of the major reasons why I consider myself agnostic, was briefly raised. Im a little disappointed that it didnt get more discussion so ive started a thread to see how some of you specific religion people account for it.

What follows is a couple of posts from that thread which illustrate the first point about religion I wanted to make. My second point is related to the final post so I will make it following that.

BrennerHayes- "I consider the entire Bible to be a work of fiction. I view it probably in the exact same light as you view every organized religion except for Christianity (and the Christianity-related ones.) So I probably have the exact same belief as you about every other organized religion. We both believe that they were made up by humans for various reasons. We only really differ on just one. "

Spaminator- "Yes, your probably right."

Sklansky- "And this dialogue would occur regardless of which of the several dozens of religious beliefs the second person was a practitioner of. It constantly amazes me that this in itself doesn't give people extreme pause."

Sexdrugsmoney- "David, If you would invest time to study Christianity, (ie- From Genesis to Revelations = 66 books) which I know for someone who is a novice to the religion like yourself is a big ask, (which you have stated you will not do also - fair enough) you would see that it is clearly explained."

This point, that religious Christians see other specific religions (and vice versa) as absurd, illogical, false, easily explained, etc. really should, as Sklansky put it, "give people extreme pause." Please dont misunderstand me, this doesnt prove one thing about the truth of religious claims, but it should make you think long and hard about why you hold certain views to be true.

I was born and raised Mormon. As a young child I remember going to church one day and there were a bunch of evangelical Christians outside the entrance to our parking lot handing out literature explaining why Mormons were wrong and why they were right. After church I talked to my parents about why they would do this. When my parents told me that these people also believed in Jesus and the Bible I could not believe it. I was young and I could see how Jews or Muslims might not like us but I could not grasp how a fellow Christian could feel this way.

Sorry for the personal story but it leads me to my second point. For many years I struggled with this notion, that religious people recognized the nonsense of other religions. Every time I asked religious leaders or family about it the answer was very close to what Sexdrugsmoney said....to paraphrase.."well just study and pray about Christianity and youll see why its the one" This answer was fine and good but it still didnt expalin to me why my Jewish neighbors, very good upstanding people, didnt come to Christianity after all their prayer and study.

The only answer that satisfactorily expalined this to me came from my father years later when we were discussing the above problem. He told me that the thing about religion that allways struck him most was that 90% of people die holding the same religious belief as their father. Keeping the above points in mind has helped me to more clearly see what religion is and isnt. Lots of people like to talk about the benefits and advantages of religions and for the most part they are right about whatever they are talikng about. But this is not to be confused with religion as some kind of quest for knowledge or the truth.

Anyways, sorry for the rambling nature of my post but I am curious as to how religious people reconcile these facts. Namely that specificily religious people see other specificily religious people not much different from an athiest. Now this wouldnt be much of a problem if one religion was clearly reasonable or made sense, but unless your born into a specific faith the odds are overwhelming that you will not view it as reasonable.