While Muslims believe that the Quran is the final and inerrant word of God, they also think that Christians and Jews can also enter heaven.
I should say that there are some passages in the Quran and Hadiths would seem to indicate otherwise but assuming that a religion’s philosophy is determined by the contents of their sacred scriptures is always a huge mistake.
It isn’t. There are beliefs that underpin science - for example the idea that things happen for a reason and that the universe can be understood - but it’s not a belief system itself. It doesn’t have teachings, and scientific experiments are not revealed truth. They’re always open to revision and correction.
These are not beliefs taught by the Church of Science, they’re facts discovered through experimentation.
I’m not saying religion should be held to less of a test than science. (I’m not sure how you arrived at this misunderstanding.) I am saying you should stop denigrating science by saying it’s basically a religion when it isn’t. They just aren’t the same thing, and it’s very misleading to say they are. There is a reason that poorly informed religious people like to claim science is a religion.
I think the problem is that you have to do so much work to define the relevant terms that once you’ve done so, you wind up leaving out a lot of real world religious belief. Once you’ve done that, the answers aren’t going to be very meaningful.
If you ignore the fundamentalists and go by the largest denominations of each (Roman Catholicism, Moderate Sunni Islam and Reform Judaism) then this part is completely false.
All three religions basically say “yeah these other guys of the book don’t do things the same as us, but they’ve got their own way appropriate for them and its cool too”.
Since you haven’t defined the “keepers”, of each religion the largest denomination seems as valid as any.
What historical evidence of their veracity? We have enough trouble finding evidence that their founders existed.
I hope our recent arrival doesn’t plan on submit the OP and his “proofs” for credit.
Yeah, but God’s position on the whole “destroy the world” thing was evolving.
Or the angels assassinated him and installed a more moderate angel as a replacement God without bothering to tell anyone.
“Hear me oh Israelites -”
“psst - needs more reverb”
“ahem -** For I Am The Lord God Your Creator; Hearken Unto Me!**”
This explanation actually makes contextual sense, you realize.
Well yes; it avoids some major problems with the standard Christian explanation for God’s alleged behavior; it doesn’t assume perfection, or that a single being acts in wildly inconsistent ways.
So the “God” that screwed over Adam and Eve was the bad guy, and the serpent was the good guy trying to lend them a hand? Makes sense.
The mythology does make more sense if you toss out the idea that everything God does is automatically good just because he’s God. And of course, you immediately get rid of things like The Problem of Evil.
Please do enlighten us, O smiling one.
You didn’t answer my question. Do you personally know the earth to be round, or do you believe it to be so?
I am positing that unless you’ve flown into space and observed the shape of the earth, what you have is a belief based on evidence (which includes the reputation of the scientists on whom you are relying, and on the overall scientific community, etc.)
At some point, of course, a belief can become so strong we relate to it as factual knowledge. But I would define as fact something that you personally experience.
So in other words, I agree with you that defining terms is essential.
The first terms are “knowledge”, “belief”, “truth”, “right”, “wrong”, “good”, “bad.”
Too bad we haven’t invented photography yet, we could have taken pictures with satellites. That’s the closest thing to seeing it ‘with your own eyes’ you’ll get. The countless photographs are probably better evidence than one eyewitness anyway.
When I flew from the UK to Singapore, then to Australia, then to San Francisco, then back to the UK, does that just prove that it’s cylindrical? I can see the moon through a telescope, and it’s round. We know that every other planet in the solar system is round too.
I know the Earth is round with almost complete certainty. Unless this is all a dream or virtual reality it’s true. There is zero equivalence between this and the evidence behind religions, because it just isn’t there.
If we accept this as a rational argument, then anything can be true. I can tell you that the sky is purple and Bono is the president of the USA, and you must accept it’s possible, because even though it contradicts with reality I wouldn’t go around saying such things if I didn’t expect people to believe it, right? Usually the more ridiculous the claim the more unbelievable it is.
When a preacher claims the world is ending in a month, a rational person does not sell all their possessions and give it to the preacher to spread the message just because it’s obvious he’d be wrong in a month.
But in the spirit of the OP, I’m going for Judaism. Both Islam and Christianity simply add to the nonsensical ‘histories’ they tell. If you start off with something that’s false and add more things that are false you’ll end up with something that it’s even more false. Seems kind of obvious saying that, but there you go.
I reject the view that that’s a belief, and I reject your nonstandard definition of fact. I also don’t have personal proof of the heliocentric solar system or the workings of gravity, but then again, a lot of scientists don’t have those things, either. Do we have to conduct elementary experiments every day to say we know these sorts of things, or can we say they’re very well supported by tons of evidence?
You’re basically suggesting that only a couple of dozen people know the earth is round(ish) and everybody else just believes it, while only a handful of people know how far away the moon is, the depth of the Marianas Trench, and so on and so on. I think these are very silly definitions of fact and belief. I accept the scientific view because it actually makes sense based on the evidence we’ve acquired. For example, based on what I’ve observed personally the earth could be at the center of everything and for that matter the sun could be very tiny and very close to us, but when you look at the totality of the evidence, it doesn’t make much sense.
Well put.
I was motivated by the observation that much of the world seems to be becoming more intolerant / fundamentalist and when rooted in faith and emotion, there is no peaceful solution. But if it were possible to discuss the sources of those beliefs rationally and open-mindedly, perhaps that greater clarity would lead to greater tolerance.
At some point in this dialog (above) I suggested narrowing the debate to the reliability of each religion’s core book or books. If we do so, we can avoid all doctrinal issues.
And yes, now that you ask (above), it seems to me we should also keep to the most fundamentalist views of these books - because it is the fundamentalism that is threatening the world and it is there that we should try to shine the light of reason.
I suggest to read The True Religion of God by Dr. Bilal Philips and you will get your problem solved 
What’s in red is true today i.e after the quran was revealed only, before that people had to believe in their prophet and scripture.
Which sect’s interpretation of which versions of which three books are up for discussion?
If people actually did that, they’d realize that all of those beliefs are nonsense and give up on them. Religions are called “faiths” because they are based on faith; not rationality, not facts, faith.
No need to descend to insults.
The scientific community uses the term, “established fact” which means most or all scientists in that particular field accept it to be true. Those of us who are not scientists in that field accept it to be true based on our faith in those scientists. We trust that they are duly following the scientific method etc. I think that we have very good reason to have faith in them at this level. The general reliability of science is itself a type of evidence that we use in order to accept a particular claim as fact. But, again, that level of knowledge is not the same for you and I, nor for a scientist, as it is for someone who actually witnessed/experienced the fact first-hand (i.e., the scientists conducting the experiment, or the astronaut).
In the present debate, we are discussing in my opinion historical claims. We are not historians, so perhaps this debate is impossible in this forum. But let’s take Islam as an example, which I admit I am not an expert in. I have read the Koran (twice) and I have discussed Islam with committed Muslims. Orthodox Islam is based on the belief that a certain historic event occurred - namely that God (whoever that is) spoke to a person named Mohammed and taught him this book. If a Muslim were to begin to doubt the veracity of that story, then it might be a little harder for him to be radicalized. Or, if a Jew or Christian (or agnostic) were to begin to believe in that story, they might become more sympathetic to Islam.
What do you suggest.