Is religion necessarily arrogant by nature? That is, when people follow a religion, is there an assumption, however benign, that they are smarter/better than everyone else? Like this unspoken belief? I ask because it seems to me that if you are willing to make it a driving force in your life, you wouldn’t do so unless you were willing to bet the farm that what you believe in is real…ergo those who do not believe are unfortunately wrong. Guess they should have followed the religion you follow! Well, they are not as smart as you!
If you say you accept that they might be also right, then what makes your own chosen religion so special? So singularly unique that you are willing to live your whole life according to it?
That would mean religion is an exercise in pitying the non-religious? It also makes me think…shouldn’t the fact that religious fundamentalism exists and there are people all over the world saying that everyone who doesn’t worship the God they do is going to Hell seem to indicate that there is no real consensus? I mean, odds are greater that no one is right versus that they alone are right and everyone else is wrong?
This might be somewhat true about proselytizing religions, but for example, it is my understanding that Jews do not believe that Gentiles need to follow their rules or become Jews themselves. They do believe they had a special relationship with G-d, but I don’t know that that precludes others having a different special relationship.
I don’t see how that follows at all. I may believe something simply because there is objective empirical evidence for it.
I think the OP’s thesis could more concisely be expressed as:
Are beliefs that are not based on evidence inherently arrogant?
And it’s not an unreasonable question, given that hundreds of millions religious people around the world devoutly believe in things that are mutually contradictory, and cannot possibly all be true. If these beliefs are based on perceived “revelation” rather than evidence, then it seems an arrogant position to suppose that a deity would choose to reveal important truths solely to adherents of your particular religion, while allowing adherents of other (presumably fake) religions to wallow in ignorant delusion.
Jews do not find themselves better than Gentiles, just different.
These are the laws for a Goyim, or Gentile, they are all that God asks so how would a Jew expect more than God?
[ul]
[li]Do not deny God.[/li][li]Do not blaspheme God.[/li][li]Do not murder.[/li][li]Do not engage in illicit sexual relations.[/li][li]Do not steal.[/li][li]Do not eat from a live animal.[/li][li]Establish courts/legal system to ensure obedience to said laws.[/li][/ul]
To a Jew, if a Gentile adheres to this, they are as righteous as any, for even the Jews were once Gentiles.
Jews do not entice them to become Jews, because it is very hard to be a Jew, to be a Jew is to take on a lot of responsibility and a lot of risk.
Well then, speaking of evidence-based beliefs, I’ll just say that I’ve seen plenty of evidence that a person can be religious without being arrogant. (ETA: in response to Riemann)
But there are lots of nontheistic/nonreligious beliefs that are not based on empirical evidence. There is, for instance, no empirical evidence that a woman has the right to choose, or that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or that rounding up Jews/Gypsies/homosexuals and consigning them to concentration camps is wrong. In fact, it’s generally true of ethical beliefs that they cannot be proven by empirical evidence. And political beliefs are just a subset of ethical beliefs. And prettuy well everybody, religious or not, has political beliefs and ethical beliefs.
So, if that’s the OP’s question, then it’s a question that’s not confined to religion, and it’s a question that’s relevant to everyone, or nearly everyone.
Not always. In these discussions I always hold up my sister, who became “born again” after what she insists was a personal experience with God. She then started going to church a lot and studying the bible. But she freely admits she is neither wise nor knowledgeable and is just an “ignorant student” where bible study is concerned. Her faith, however, is unshakeable. I wouldn’t say she’s betting anything on it, she is simply living by it. She doesn’t judge me (a gay atheist) and if she is concerned for my soul she doesn’t mention it. I don’t think her relationship is really with her church, except socially and as a means to the end of learning more about God and the bible, her relationship is very internal with her idea of God.
Not all here, either. As with most observations of this sort, you are probably experiencing confirmation bias. The non-insufferable atheists are all the silent ones who don’t mention it in their daily lives. What the relative percentages are no-one knows.
Well, rounding up Jews/Gypsies, (although not so much homosexuals*), has been proven in the past (not just Nazi past) to be counter-productive, its leads to resistance both from within and without, which typically will cancel out any “benefit” you might gain. So you could say that there is empirical evidence that it’s a bad thing.
*Since Homosexuals have been considered and are still considered in most of the world, to be deviants, that does not lead to as much resistance.
Surely weakening/undermining repressive regimes is a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing?
Which makes the point. There might be empirical evidence that X action will produce, or at least tend to produce, Y outcome. But whether Y outcome is good or bad is not susceptible of empirical verification; it depends on an ethical value judgment. If you have the belief that undermining Naziism is a good thing, or alternatively that it’s a bad thing, in neither case is there objective empirical evidence for that belief.
For some, they believe that there is an all-powerful being who created the world and is concerned with how you behave and what you think, what you eat, how you dress. That this being is unknowable and mysterious but at the same time they not only know that this is the correct being to worship but that they know its mind and its preferences and its laws…that seems supremely self-centred and arrogant to me.
The more that religions move away from the above model the less arrogant they become but by doing so they also shed a lot of their self-proclaimed power.
Obviously, the answer to the overall OP question is no, though I completely understand the small epiphany of sorts that is behind it.
From a simple logic point of view, it can certainly seem to be the height of arrogance, to even imagine that the entirety of existence is understood and explained by an “in” group of any kind.
Where the initial insight falls down, is that it isn’t RELIGIONS which make such proclamations, it is INDIVIDUALS who claim to represent religions who are arrogant about them, or not.
In the early days of my business, I had a couple spend a considerable amount of money with me. They were happy with the outcome and I was happy with the income.
As they were about to leave, the man turned and asked that I join hands with them for a short prayer. I was shocked. At no time had religion come up, nor was it part of the service I’d provided.
I asked, “what makes you think we have any religious beliefs in common?”
There’s the arrogance of automatically assuming that if someone answers “yes” to the question “Do you believe in God?” the only possible deity under discussion has to be theirs.
edited to add: And if you ask “Which God?”, the look on their faces is just priceless.
I disagree. What the OP is ultimately about is hubris - believing you know more correctly than other Humans. One’s hubris can be based on religion, science, philosophy - it’s the “I know better” part that’s the problem.
Using a philosophical term, it is epistemic arrogance.
