# The Paradox of Religion; Choosing Your Beliefs **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 28, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881 "2011-09-28T14:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/101 "2011-10-13T03:30:34Z")
My planet is my cite. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/102 "2011-10-13T12:52:05Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > You can refute an individual’s assertions, like mine for example, but you can’t refute reality. The statement “there are no gods” is reality, it’s not my opinion. > > […] > > There are no gods, and that’s a Universal Truth, or a Cosmological Reality as I like to call it. Please provide a description of that god whose nonexistence is a “universal truth”. You seem to be making a claim about the nonexistence of a vast category of entities who may share _very_ few similarities (many of which have been explicitly devised to be unfalsifiable). If you cannot describe something well enough, at the very least, to derive some of its implications, then I suggest that your assuredness in its nonexistence is misplaced. But I am genuinely willing to entertain the notion that perhaps you know something that I do not. So I humbly request that you tell me why the statement “there are no gods” is true beyond doubt. What do you know that I don’t? And please don’t merely repeat that it is reality and not opinion; that isn’t an argument. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/103 "2011-10-13T12:56:17Z")
Ignore. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/104 "2011-10-16T16:43:23Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > I made a statement of fact which is true not because I stated it, but because it is. > > You can refute an individual’s assertions, like mine for example, but you can’t refute reality. The statement “there are no gods” is reality, it’s not my opinion. > > Given the results of the past 2,500 years of the human species’ scientific inquiry, it’s obvious and evident that there are no gods, not because any individual human claims it, but because the rules of nature, otherwise known as logic or reason, show that there aren’t any. > > As an individual you can refuse to accept reality, that’s your choice, but reality is there independently of humans. > > There are no gods, and that’s a Universal Truth, or a Cosmological Reality as I like to call it. Facts are not true because you state them, but because they are true. Nevertheless, if you assert something as fact, there is a burden on you to prove it, if you expect someone else to accept that it’s factual. You did not do that. You merely reasserted it in a more longwinded, and even more arrogant “It’s true because I say so!” fashion. Sorry, you haven’t proven a thing. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/105 "2011-10-16T18:08:57Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Now, finally, you would be happy to learn that more or less all educated Christians have not generally believed that those who do not expressly worship God are damned; that is a rather ignorant folk belief, of which you will find many contradictory examples in Christianity. A man who geniunely considers God, but disregards because he honestly does not find the evidence compelling, is not violating his religious duty to worship, though he is very wrong. It does not in any way excuse him from his _other_ duties to man or God. I think you re wrong here, or are at least guilty of the educated Scotsman fallacy. Many Protestant churches teach that salvation is through faith alone. It is one of the differences between Protestant and Catholics. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/106 "2011-10-17T17:50:55Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > I think you re wrong here, or are at least guilty of the educated Scotsman fallacy. Indeed. Although the question of whether lacking faith is a moral failing receives a lot of attention nowadays, that wasn’t always the case — and even _now_ plenty of educated Christians maintain that atheism is sinful. Debates on the subject can be quite lively; see, e.g., [this First Things article](http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/05/13/the-vincible-ignorance-of-atheism/) (and comments), in which the author maintains that atheism is culpable ignorance. In other words: > [@Joe Carter](#): > > Acknowledging the existence of God is just the beginning—we must also recognize several of his divine attributes. Atheists that deny this reality are, as St. Paul said, without excuse. They are vincibly ignorant. This isn’t necessarily to say that atheism implies damnation, but if it’s a sin, well, damnation for the unrepentant still seems relatively popular among Christians. Whatever the case, to claim that “more or less all educated Christians” believe that “[a] man who […] honestly does not find the evidence compelling, is not violating his religious duty to worship”, seems … overstating the case a bit. Or a lot. > [@](#): > > Many Protestant churches teach that salvation is through faith alone. It is one of the differences between Protestant and Catholics. That’s a rather fine distinction; a Catholic would say that faith leads to good works such that, in the absence of the latter, there was no faith in the first place. Faith is still paramount (and good works _without_ faith wouldn’t help you if lacking faith is a sin). ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/107 "2011-10-17T17:54:22Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > That’s a rather fine distinction; a Catholic would say that faith leads to good works such that, in the absence of the latter, there was no faith in the first place. Faith is still paramount (and good works _without_ faith wouldn’t help you if lacking faith is a sin). Or even that Good Works _are_ Faith, in an applied and practical sense. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881/108 "2011-10-17T19:22:51Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > This isn’t necessarily to say that atheism implies damnation, but if it’s a sin, well, damnation for the unrepentant still seems relatively popular among Christians. Whatever the case, to claim that “more or less all educated Christians” believe that “[a] man who […] honestly does not find the evidence compelling, is not violating his religious duty to worship”, seems … overstating the case a bit. Or a lot. They may agree that someone who _honestly_ finds the evidence uncompelling isn’t sinning thereby. But they may stipulate that there’s not actually any such thing as honestly finding the evidence uncompelling. If they think it’s self-evident, then they think that one can’t find it uncompelling unless one is being dishonest. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-religion-choosing-your-beliefs/597881.md?page=5)