On both a personal and a collective level; what would it take to convince you that your current belief system is wrong? What landmark or exceptional act do you think could occur to disable the entire strands of your chosen religion and relegate it to the pages of history?
Is the some form of evidence, occurrence, act or archaeological find that could undermine your personal relationship with your faith? Is there some writing, some uncovered documents that could shake your convictions, some new evidence capable of casting a dubious shadow over your beliefs and that could perhaps compel you, however unwanted, to change your mind? Or are your current beliefs so ingrained, so solid and necessary to you that they would ‘roll with the punches’ and adapt to meet any potential changes or actions that would happen to jar with them, without damaging the core convictions you hold?
On a more global level; what revelation do you think would be capable of ending a current world religion for good, if anything? Religions have died before, fallen out of fashion and lost all committed adherents. It’s usually a long, multi-generational process, one generally started by it being superseded by a newer, ‘better’, more palatable belief system or enforced at the end of a sword. Can you foresee the future fall of your particular belief system, or does your adherence to it compel you to be absolutely assured in its continued and eternal correctness?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Perhaps evidence is the wrong word; it would perhaps need to be a more personal experience to allow for internal reflection and rejection of a strongly held core ideal.
The Lord Jesus has shown me so much, and it matches scriptures exactly, I have experienced and lived exact aspects of Paul’s, Job’s, Jonah’s, and the Lord’s life (as man). I have been directly persecuted and imprisoned for the gospel and was told that I would have to give up my faith to be released. I have seen people healed by the power of God, and demons cast out. I have also seen the true illusion of our world and how much of God and His power is hidden from people who are not surrendered to Him.
In my own strength, even with all that and much more, I’m sure that given time and brainwashing and mind altering drugs I could be made to abandon my faith but to the glory of God this is NOT how it works, it’s not me holding onto Jesus, but Jesus holding onto me. It is God’s job to keep me, and His promise to hold onto me is among the strongest in the Bible.
Jesus alone holding onto me should be more then enough in itself, but He adds another level of protection, totally over and above what is needed, that I am also held by the Father.
I will admit that this could allow a temporary falling away, but the promise of salvation is a irrevocable promise of God, even if I run from Him, I may destroy my earthly life but will be saved.
Several things, really. First, I would have to be convinced that my own life experience has been a dream, or fantasy, or illusion, or something along those lines. Second, I would have to be convinced that God’s existence isn’t possible, because if it is, then His actual existence is an inescapable conclusion. Third, I would have to be convinced that the universe is real, and not just a probability distribution. Fourth, I would have to be convinced that God is a synthetic claim, as opposed to an analytic claim. And finally, I would have to be convinced that existence is not a predicate. I believe Miller and others in modern philosophy have very effectively argued against Kant’s dogma.
One or two of those would be insufficient. I’d need them all, I think.
To me, on first reading, all these would appear to be similar in the sense that you would require overwhelming evidence to dispute the non-existence of God. In the context of what it was I was attempting to suggest, this is perhaps a side issue. Assuming the universe is real and your belief in “A God” was intact; would anything be capable of suggesting to you that the system in which you currently choose to worship or understand that God is flawed? Could you consider another method of interaction with your God, or does the God in question, for you, have to be the one described and understood via the Bible?
Note: This reply may not be *specifically *relevant to you Lib, as from what I have read here you seem to have a very personal and somewhat unique interpretation of religious dogma and practice that no doubt works for you, but may differ for the standard, perceived structure of that particular faith.
I was raised as a Christian, so I feel entitled to share how and why I abandoned that faith:
(1) It didn’t make logical sense. When I “gave my life to Christ”, I listened to several different mentors from different sects of Xtianity. ALL of their teachings were inconsistent, and disagreed on basic principles such as when the Rapture will happen, what the “unpardonable sin” means, and whether or not you really need to turn the other cheek or give 10% of your gross income to the church. Seems to me, the closer you get to the “Truth” of Christ, the more these different denominations will begin to agree with each other (like the oft-told analogy of several blind men feeling up an elephant) but the reverse was true – the further I went up the ladder, the more different these dogmas became.
(2) Artistic expression. Not just heavy metal music (which was greatly reviled at the time, yet I was a big fan) but also things like Mapplethorpe’s infamous Pisschrist. Sure, it’s tacky, but I firmly believe people should be able to express themselves artistically however they want, and their soul shouldn’t be in jeopardy because of it. (I was told directly that using the word “fuck” in one of my poems would endanger my soul to HELL…yes, I swear I’m not making this up!) Strike number two.
(3) The Apocalypse didn’t happen. That sucked, I was really looking forward to nuclear armageddon…
Of course, I’ve never been able to *dis-*prove the existence of the Christian God. I merely made a moral decision to follow my own path, and if doing so condemns me to Eternal Hell, so be it. I would rather spend eternity outside of God’s presence, than one single second in heaven – mainly because of those annoying Christians, especially the ones who raised me and filled my young mind with all these disgusting, vicious lies about how the world actually works.
Chesterton once described his conversion to Christianity as the moment when “the universe turned over and came out upright”. I found that to be a near-perfect metaphor. Back when I was an atheist there were some things that made good sense, some that made some sense, and some that made no sense at all. But once I learned Christian doctrine, everything suddenly made sense. This included not just the resolution of the main metaphysical question–why are we here?–but also countless things I wondered about concerning history, science, art, ethics, politics, economics, psychology, and a great deal more. Equally important, it clarified a great deal in my personal experience, and all the assertions corresponded with what I observed in the world around me.
So asking “What would it take to convince me that it’s all wrong?” is a question that’s tough to answer. Asking, for instance, what would convince me that humans don’t have souls is like asking what would convince me that humans don’t have legs. It’s not possible for me to imagine some evidence that would come in and prove the point. Asking what would convince me that God doesn’t exist is like asking what would convince me that space or time don’t exist. Asking what would convince me Jesus was not real is like asking what would convince me that my neighbor Sharon is not real.
D’oh! :smack: Well, Mapplethorpe was definitely stirring up controversy at the time, I remember that much…
There are numerous non-Christian religions that believe in the existence of human souls. Belief in one factor doesn’t necessarily require faith in the whole enchilada, just thought I’d point that out.
In any discussion about the future of Christianity, the first thing I think of is the past of Christianity. There have been many occasions when Christianity looked to be on its last legs. Yet each time, Christianity as an institution not only survived but emerged much stronger. So I again find it hard to imagine any future event that would topple Christianity. I believe that the Christian faith is uniquely designed to help Christians meet changes and overcome challenges.
On a more specific level, all of the reasons offered for why religion must collapse have been based on a misunderstanding of what it is. Marx believed that religion was a means of subduing the poor, and thus it would vanish once the revolution took place. Freud felt that religion was popular because of subconscious longing for a father figure. Max Planck thought that people used religion to explain what they couldn’t understand, and it would thus vanish as science shed light on the natural world. All three of them were wrong, because there explanations for why religion exist were wrong.
Similarly with those scientists today who are trying to explain away religion as a result of neural hard-wiring or pattern-detection modules or that sort of thing. They don’t understand where religion comes from, so they also can’t successfully predict where it’s going to.
To explain “what turned be around”, I would have to write a whole book, and indeed I’m always toying with the idea of doing so. It was really a long process that started when I left for college as a militantly atheist and left-wing freshman. (Really I was a walking cliche at that point.) But as the years went by, I noticed that many of my atheist talking points simply failed the reality test.
Christianity was supposedly used as a means of oppressing women and racial minorities. Yet, in fact, most churchgoers that I met were women or racial minorities, while outspoken atheists were almost all rich white men.
Christians were supposed to be greedy and uncaring, yet a remarkably high percentage of charity work that I saw was done by Christians. Meanwhile, the proudly secular people and groups at my college seemed really interested in grabbing money for themselves.
Christians were supposed to be lame-brained, uneducated, and anti-intellectual. Yet I met many who were extremely intelligent and educated, and I learned that the churches–particularly the Catholic Church–spent tremendous energy on intellectual work.
Christians were supposed to be cruelly inflicting their will on everyone else by the power of the law. Yet I learned the the size and power of government always tended to shoot up exactly when the influence of Christianity went down.
and so forth.
But even after coming to terms with these facts, I still completely rejected the idea of God and the divine origins of Jesus Christ. I would say that the turning point in my spiritual journey was being introduced to the works of G. K. Chesterton, who opened my eyes both to what Christianity actually is, and to why he thought all of it was true, including the miraculous aspects.
Well, hmmm now that I think of it, if you could show evidence that I did not actually exist and this is all a dream… me reading what you wrote and responding right back to you in a meaningful manner that is. If none of this exists, then I guess I’d have no belief system or faith. Right?
I’m not sure I agreed with this; I’d say that the main reason for the loss of older creation myths was that they became displaced by other, more popular or interesting beliefs. Ones that were considered more advanced, more applicable to the day. Polytheism begat Monotheism and all that. I wouldn’t say people’s perception of what they represented socially, in a general sense, was really a decisive factor in the downfall of older, disappeared faiths.
I’ll be honest; when I was composing the OP I had in mind newer ‘religions’, as I was watching a show about Scientology and was wondering if there was any possible way it could be convincingly discredited in the eyes of its current followers. ( I didn’t want to make this thread about this, but thought it only fair to mention the initial spark.) It seems once something, however lightly held, is attacked, the adherents become more insular and protective of their chosen belief and become more entrenched within the safety and comfort of it all, regardless of its beginnings. It will only become stronger, more respectable and widespread with time. Christianity is a different beast, of course, having already been around in various guises for the best part of 2000 years. But I wondered if it is the weight of the history it carries, rather than anything else, that adds credence to the power it has to compel?
[ I was also wondering how those here, who are so completely assured in the correctness of the structure of their faith, would feel if they had been born in Riyadh, Tokyo or Bangalore? Would they still be as devout, but only the method of interaction and understanding would differ? Or not…? But as personal experience shapes our world and beliefs so intensely, its really impossible to know for sure. That’s maybe a different thread again. ]
I would suggest they are merely trying to understand where it comes from, intellectually or physically, a valid pursuit, rather than just ‘explain it away’. Another level of understanding of the fundamental nature of belief may even act to increase the power of your faith rather than damage it.
I don’t think those reasons listed are wrong. They are just not complete. The mind set and emotions involved in religion is complex and multifaceted and varies from person to person. I can see where the desire to have a father figure plays a role. It did and perhaps still does with me. The emotional need to be a part of a group and see your participation as meaningful in a larger sense. {why are we here} Looking back at my own experience I see that I was drawn because of a powerful personal experience but when I joined a particular group I embraced their doctrine to be a part of that group even though parts of it left a lot of unanswered questions. Being a part of this family was more important than questions about details I assumed would be made clear in time.
I come from a Christian background of about 30 years ago. I was very serious about my service to God and glad to be involved in something I saw as very meaningful and positive. Due to events I won’t go into I drifted away from the church and stayed away for many years. Later a friend rekindled my spiritual side and I started asking questions and doing a lot of reading to make sure whatever I chose fit me intellectually as well as emotionally. I didn’t want to embrace beliefs that I felt were not true. In the process I realized I could be very selective and find what was meaningful to me, continuing my spiritual journey, without embracing any particular doctrine. IMHO religions reflect man search for meaning and truth in many ways and are all filled with flaws and problems simply because we’re human.I believe that science and education as well as cultural awareness will gradually change the face of organized traditional religions.
I’m not sure what could shake the personal faith and belief system I have now. I accept that there are a lot of unanswered questions and the process leads to letting go of preconceived notions as new information and new experiences come around. I’ve known several friends who have a hard time believing because of the evil and pain they see in the world. I struggle with that as well. I’ve wondered if a close personal tragedy might cause me to let it all go. I don’t know and I’m not eager to find out.
I can’t really think of anything. I believe in my religion because it’s the closest thing to truth I can find, and I’ve had many personal experiences that confirm it to me. However, if I wake up dead one morning and it turns out I’m wrong, I will cheerfully admit my mistake.
That sucked, I was really looking forward to nuclear armageddon…