# The main problem with faith-based religions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 28, 2001, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588 "2001-04-28T02:15:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AndyKeats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@AndyKeats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndyKeats)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/1 "2001-04-28T02:15:05Z")
Let me pose this to you: Randomly choose five faith-based religions from all over the world. Find one person in each religion who believes strongly in that religion. This person believes that his (or her) religion is the one true religion. He believes this because of personal revelation, a confirmation from “God”, a feeling, or some other intangible reason. We can assume that the majority of each respective religion’s members have the same or similar beliefs. So we have five different people who believe their religion is the one true religion, based on essentially the same reason. So, how does an outsider know which religion really is the true one? How does an insider know HIS religion really is the true one? Obviously (to me) faith is not a good indicator. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/2 "2001-04-28T04:35:44Z")
\*\*AndyKeats wrote: Find one person in each religion who believes strongly in that religion. This person believes that his (or her) religion is the one true religion. He believes this because of personal revelation, a confirmation from “God”, a feeling, or some other intangible reason. We can assume that the majority of each respective religion’s members have the same or similar beliefs.\*\* I think the problem here is that you insist that all religions believe they’re the **ONE TRUE** religion, which is not the case. If pressed, I’m sure most people would agree that their faith is right for them and a different faith is right for other people. Only the most extreme fundamentalists really believe their faith is the **ONE, TRUE** religion. If you’re asking which religion is best for you, do some research and find the one that feels right for you, the one that you believe is best for you. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/3 "2001-04-28T04:59:57Z")
How do people know which religion is “right” without doing a comparative study of all possible religions? Most people in the West choose Christian-based religions simply because they happened to be born into a society and/or family where most people also believe that religion. They never “think outside the box” and look at alternatives. It’s like someone going around saying that Brand A is the best soft drink, having never even considered sampling Brand B. In the process of “picking” a faith, how many people actually research the issues rather than simply adopting the gobbletygook fed to them as youngsters? Even among Christians, how many catholics actully studied the differences and made a reasoned choice between catholic, baptist, episcosomethingerother, mormonism, jehovah’s witnessism, protestantism, etc.? I have no idea where I’m going with this now, so I’ll stop here. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/4 "2001-04-28T05:02:10Z")
I think that the thread is specifically meant to deal with religions that do lay claim to the one universal truth. In every religion that I know of, there are some who believe that they have the only way and others who are more accepting in their analysis. But I’m not convinced that “most people”, or at least most religious people, can understand that describing a particular faith as the only one is completly illogical. ---
**Author:** ![Ned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Ned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ned)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/5 "2001-04-28T06:00:09Z")
> [@](#): > > In the process of “picking” a faith, how many people actually research the issues rather than simply adopting the gobbletygook fed to them as youngsters? Even among Christians, how many catholics actully studied the differences and made a reasoned choice between catholic, baptist, episcosomethingerother, mormonism, jehovah’s witnessism, protestantism, etc.? Is it possible to make a rational choice between religions? ---
**Author:** ![Ned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Ned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ned)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/6 "2001-04-28T06:02:44Z")
By the way, isn’t faith based religion a bit redundant? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/7 "2001-04-28T06:08:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ned \* > \*\*By the way, isn’t faith based religion a bit redundant? \*\* All religions may be based on faith to some degree. However, not all of them require faith in the way that most Americans think of it. All our western religions require us to believe in some supernatural being(s) without direct evidence of their existence. Followers of Confucius don’t need to believe in any supernatural being, although they do have faith in the man’s beliefs and ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Ned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Ned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ned)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/8 "2001-04-28T06:24:26Z")
Thanks for responding so pleasantly ITR. Once in a while I really wish we had a couple minutes to delete stupid posts. This time I needed it twice in a row. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/9 "2001-04-28T06:41:24Z")
I used the term “reasoned” instead of “rational” because there may be a “reason” for picking one religion over another, but that reasoning may not be totally “rational.” This may be a distinction without a difference, and, yes, applying that distiction in terms of religion is difficult. I guess a person could say that the REASON that person chose Unitarianism over Catholicism was that Unitarianism more fully meshes with that person’s concept of faith and that person’s philosophical view of the universe. Whether that person’s concept of faith or view of the universe is RATIONAL or not doesn’t matter… the point is they choose that particular faith based upon some sort of comparative REASONING. ---
**Author:** ![Ned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Ned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ned)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2001, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/10 "2001-04-28T07:30:30Z")
Bear, my point was kind of dumb since it wasn’t much more than a repetition of the original question. Its all a bit tautological to me. You pick a religion that fits your philosophy but your philosophy depends on your upbringing and the beliefs to which you were exposed. Beyond that it seems odd to choose a religion based on what you want to do when the religion is supposed to tell you what you should do. I have a hard time distinguishing this from favoring butterscotch over chocolate. It’s a fine way to choose a philosophy but a damn poor justification for a belief in the supernatural. Anyway, I need to stay out of these threads on religion. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/11 "2001-04-29T17:21:11Z")
A bunch of cautionary remarks seem indicated. First, belief that one’s religion is the One True Faith is hardly limited to extremists. Very rational Jews here, very rational Moslems here in the past, and numerous flavors of very rational Christian, including myself, would so maintain. The analytical point here is that, unless you choose to wear blinders to the agreements between tenets of your own belief system and those of other systems, you are forced to realize that there is an underlying partial metaphysic on which they all are based, fleshed out differently according to the social and cultural biases, the semantic/conceptual systems, and so on, in which each set of believers finds itself located. For example, Christianity in Western culture need not explain away the Great Mandala and the cycle of rebirth; they’re not a part of Western civilization, except as recent imports accepted by a relative few. Buddhism is forced to confront those issues head-on, however, owing to the Hindic metaphysic in which it was born and the related East Asian worldviews it has spread through. Zen as the extreme in do-it-yourself enlightment is probably the clear product of the migration of Dhyana concepts from nascent Mahayana Buddhism through Chinese thought to Japanese practicality and self-reliance. Which is why it is the aspect of Buddhism most attractive to most Americans who investigate it. My own stance is that every religion is founded on some valid insight into the nature of God, the ultimate, and one’s proper place in the overall metaphysical structure of the cosmos, overlain by suppositions, imaginings, and pseudo-logical conclusions drawn from this to provide an organized-religion structure “with all the answers.” This includes my own Christianity. However, what Christianity has over the others is that its believers, including me, believe Jesus to have been God incarnate as a human being, walking and talking with other people. In the metaphors He chose to explain His understanding, and in the life He lived and called His followers to live, one finds one’s closest approximation to the True Path to God™. Finally, I get the distinct impression that most people use “faith” to mean “believing what I don’t **know** to be true but for some reason or other, valid to me, accept as the truth.” This is the exact mirror image of the flawed “evolution is just a {sneeringly} _theory_” comment of fundamentalists. Faith in the sense I use it is synonymous with _trust_ – having had some experiential reason to accept God as an entity to and with whom one may have a relationship, one puts one’s trust in Him. The question of relative certitude is in a completely separate dimension here: You might as well ask whether the law of inverse squares or your love for your beloved is truer. The terms are coordinate but skew off when one attempts to relate them, owing to distinct meanings in different contexts. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2001, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/12 "2001-04-30T12:07:03Z")
> [@](#): > > By the way, isn’t faith based religion a bit redundant? Depends on how you define religion. If you define it as I do, a means to control and manipulate people for the sake of your own gain, then it’s not a redundancy, but an oxymoron. Poly: Well said, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2001, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/13 "2001-04-30T12:16:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\* > Depends on how you define religion. If you define it as I do, a means to control and manipulate people for the sake of your own gain, then it’s not a redundancy, but an oxymoron. > \*\* WTF? Are you seperating religious beliefs from organized religion here? I hope you are, considering the arguments that you have given in other threads in favor of religious beliefs, and your expression of your own beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2001, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-main-problem-with-faith-based-religions/63588/14 "2001-04-30T16:39:59Z")
Organized religion? I suppose to be a political machine, it would need some sort of organizing. But I’m talking about the religion politicians Jesus discusses here: > [@](#): > > Matthew 23 > > Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. > > "They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them `Rabbi.’… > > "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. > > "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are… > > "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. > > "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup "and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. > > "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness… > > "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?