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Understanding Religion

How can one claim to understand all religions but also claim that it is necessary to believe in order to understand?
 
devildavid said:
How can one claim to understand all religions but also claim that it is necessary to believe in order to understand?
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You may have asked a good question here, devikdavid, but it is ambiguous as between two readings.

Are you asking:
How does belief in one religion conduce to understanding all religion?

Or are you asking:
How can a non-believer understand religion?
 
Angel said:
You may have asked a good question here, devikdavid, but it is ambiguous as between two readings.

Are you asking:
How does belief in one religion conduce to understanding all religion?

Or are you asking:
How can a non-believer understand religion?
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I am questioning your claim that believing in a god or a religion has anything to do with intellectually grasping what religions are about.
 
devildavid said:
I am questioning your claim that believing in a god or a religion has anything to do with intellectually grasping what religions are about.
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Oh, that's an easy question. The answer is because believing in a god or religion is a matter of "man's reach exceeding his grasp," as the immortal line put it.
 
Angel said:
Oh, that's an easy question. The answer is because believing in a god or religion is a matter of "man's reach exceeding his grasp," as the immortal line put it.
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That is not an answer. Anything can be studied and intellectually understood without having to believe in the object of study.
 
devildavid said:
That is not an answer. Anything can be studied and intellectually understood without having to believe in the object of study.
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That is an answer. You don't believe it. That's why you don't understand that it is an answer.
 
Angel said:
That is an answer. You don't believe it. That's why you don't understand that it is an answer.
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Belief in a particular religion introduces bias, which reduces the ability to understand the religion.
 
devildavid said:
Belief in a particular religion introduces bias, which reduces the ability to understand the religion.
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Caw! This makes no damn sense at all, to begin with. Belief = Bias = Lack of understanding? Would you kindly illustrate what you mean, or what you think you mean by this?
Yet another post of yours that unwittingly supports my claim that to really understand religious belief one must have or have had religious experience.
 
Angel said:
"All Religion is True."
Angel Trismegistus



Professor Ward agrees.



Namaste​
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From the video:

Six Possible Forms of Religious Thought
Six Ways of relating material reality and spiritual reality​


1. Materialism there is nothing but material reality, no spiritual reality

2. Idealism there is nothing but spiritual reality, no material reality

3. Dualism both spirit and matter exist but they're very different and liberation from material is goal

4. Monism there is only one reality and it is both spiritual and material

5. Creation there is spirit and matter but matter is dependent on/comes from spirit

6. Emergentism there is spirit and matter but the spiritual depends on/come from the material
 
Angel said:
Caw! This makes no damn sense at all, to begin with. Belief = Bias = Lack of understanding? Would you kindly illustrate what you mean, or what you think you mean by this?
Yet another post of yours that unwittingly supports my claim that to really understand religious belief one must have or have had religious experience.
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Belief in one particular religion means you don't believe in another. It creates bias toward the one you believe in. You can't believe Jesus is god and not god at the same time. Your particular religious belief creates a bias to make a choice and not see the other choice as valid.
 
devildavid said:
Belief in one particular religion means you don't believe in another. It creates bias toward the one you believe in. You can't believe Jesus is god and not god at the same time. Your particular religious belief creates a bias to make a choice and not see the other choice as valid.
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Oh, I see what you mean. You use bias as a synonym for belief, and when you posted that this belief/bias "reduces the ability to understand the religion," you meant to say reduces the ability to understand religion, that is to say, religion generally, that is to say the phenomenon of religious belief worldwide.

This may in fact be true in many cases of belief, but certainly not in all (my own case being a counterexample, and to the extent that it is true, it is trivially true. It merely means that genuine faith in X does not entail an understanding of faith in Y,

My point is different. My point is that without a genuine faith in X, Y, or Z, etc., the non-believer cannot understand faith in X, Y, or Z, etc.

You're talking about how one faith blinds one to other faiths. I'm talking about how the absence of any faith blinds one to all faiths.
 
Angel said:
Oh, I see what you mean. You use bias as a synonym for belief, and when you posted that this belief/bias "reduces the ability to understand the religion," you meant to say reduces the ability to understand religion, that is to say, religion generally, that is to say the phenomenon of religious belief worldwide.

This may in fact be true in many cases of belief, but certainly not in all (my own case being a counterexample, and to the extent that it is true, it is trivially true. It merely means that genuine faith in X does not entail an understanding of faith in Y,

My point is different. My point is that without a genuine faith in X, Y, or Z, etc., the non-believer cannot understand faith in X, Y, or Z, etc.

You're talking about how one faith blinds one to other faiths. I'm talking about how the absence of any faith blinds one to all faiths.
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No, the absence of faith makes one objective about all faiths. They can be studied without bias.

If faith is but a personal feeling, then no one can understand another's faith at all. They can only understand what faith feels like to them. They can only make assumptions about how others feel faith.
 
devildavid said:
No, the absence of faith makes one objective about all faiths. They can be studied without bias.

If faith is but a personal feeling, then no one can understand another's faith at all. They can only understand what faith feels like to them. They can only make assumptions about how others feel faith.
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That's the point. Objectivity on a matter intrinsically subjective misses the matter going in.
As to your second point, those of faith, while they cannot overcome the inaccessibility of other subjectivities anymore than those without faith, may nevertheless, by way of empathy, infer more surely to the experience of others of faith than may those devoid of faith.
 
Even that I was raised as a Southern Baptist as a child, if I stayed within the church -- my knowledge would have been only limited to that type of a faith. I left the faith because I was not that hateful. I studied other religions, but, I came to terms one religion was as good as the other. I became a atheist, as it was the most rational argument. Remember, the church of the twenty-first century is different then the church of the first century. With that logic, it is humans that decide what is and is not accepted as a religion. A God, does not play a role in this factor -- and he never did.
 
Atheist 2020 said:
Even that I was raised as a Southern Baptist as a child, if I stayed within the church -- my knowledge would have been only limited to that type of a faith. I left the faith because I was not that hateful. I studied other religions, but, I came to terms one religion was as good as the other. I became a atheist, as it was the most rational argument. Remember, the church of the twenty-first century is different then the church of the first century. With that logic, it is humans that decide what is and is not accepted as a religion. A God, does not play a role in this factor -- and he never did.
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Welcome to DP and this forum, Atheist 2020. The atheists here need all the help they can get!

Namaste
 
Atheist 2020 said:
Even that I was raised as a Southern Baptist as a child, if I stayed within the church -- my knowledge would have been only limited to that type of a faith. I left the faith because I was not that hateful. I studied other religions, but, I came to terms one religion was as good as the other. I became a atheist, as it was the most rational argument. Remember, the church of the twenty-first century is different then the church of the first century. With that logic, it is humans that decide what is and is not accepted as a religion. A God, does not play a role in this factor -- and he never did.
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For the most part, that is true...but you should not give up...keep searching...
 
Elvira said:
For the most part, that is true...but you should not give up...keep searching...
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Have been doing that for over 30 years. I think the same way as Christopher Hitchens. Modern humans have been around 100,000 plus years, and God as we have understanding of him has been around less then 6,000 years. Or, Europe understanding all of Africa did not happen until the 20th century. During the dawn of the last century, a black African died without understand God. Therefore, he and she are burning in hell.
 
Atheist 2020 said:
Have been doing that for over 30 years. I think the same way as Christopher Hitchens. Modern humans have been around 100,000 plus years, and God as we have understanding of him has been around less then 6,000 years. Or, Europe understanding all of Africa did not happen until the 20th century. During the dawn of the last century, a black African died without understand God. Therefore, he and she are burning in hell.
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According to Logicman all dead Hindus are burning in hell, even the ones who died before Christianity was invented.
 
zyzygy said:
According to Logicman all dead Hindus are burning in hell, even the ones who died before Christianity was invented.
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Agree! Ever noticed history of Europe is designed with communities that was Latin Europe during the Dark Ages.
 
Angel said:
That's the point. Objectivity on a matter intrinsically subjective misses the matter going in.
As to your second point, those of faith, while they cannot overcome the inaccessibility of other subjectivities anymore than those without faith, may nevertheless, by way of empathy, infer more surely to the experience of others of faith than may those devoid of faith.
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Everything can be examined objectively, including human emotions and subjective reactions. No one can infer anything about the inner subjective reaction of another human being with any degree of accuracy. It is pure guesswork.
 
devildavid said:
Everything can be examined objectively, including human emotions and subjective reactions. No one can infer anything about the inner subjective reaction of another human being with any degree of accuracy. It is pure guesswork.
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Your two sentences contradict each other.
 
Angel said:
Your two sentences contradict each other.
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How so? Subjectivity can be objectively observed and studied, otherwise how do we even know there is a thing called subjectivity? But we can't feel the same subjectivity as another.
 
devildavid said:
How so? Subjectivity can be objectively observed and studied, otherwise how do we even know there is a thing called subjectivity? But we can't feel the same subjectivity as another.
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Objective study and pure guesswork are antagonistic concepts. And we are acquainted with subjectivity by way of our own subjectivity, not through objective observation and study, as you suggest.
 
slightlyperfect said:
If any assertion is faith-based, it should be disregarded. And while I have a degree in religious studies, and have studied Eastern philosophy and theology at length, Hinduism fits that criterion.

There is natural information that is available to everybody regardless of any so-called "divine inspiration," so even those more-secular assertions can be disregarded.

Sent from my BLN-L24 using Tapatalk
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Any assertion that is faith based should be discarded?
Hmmm, how about love? Since love, has different qualifiers for just about everyone, don't we use our faith in what we know from past experiences to define love? There is no SOP for the requirements for love that everyone would agree on. So, should we disregard love bc we have faith in ourselves to make the correct decision?

How about quality ...... of just about everything?

We all perceive beauty, quality of life, best car, best sports team, etc. It's the faith we possess from our experiences that guide us in these aspects.

So, what you're telling us, is that we should not think or have confidence in our choices that we make for ourselves? BC that's what we do ...... have faith, or not in choices we make ..... for everything.
 
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