What makes them so SURE (religions)?

I posted this in GQ, but Dr. Matrix (I think it was) told me that if a thread here didn’t address it, I should repost it here. So, here it is!

I was talking to one of my friends, and we got to talking about God, as she is a devout, but the bible is open to interpretation, type Christian. Anyway, we got to talking, and I brought up many different points to her, and it got to the point where I asked her if she would admit that there was a chance that she was wrong about it. Even a small one? 1%? .001%? Nope, she said! She was absolutly, 100% sure that she was right.

What is it that makes people so absolutly SURE that the religion that they picked (got indoctrinated into) is the right one, out of hundreds, and that the other 80% of the world is wrong, with no evidence to back up their claim, other then a 2000 year old, oft-(mis)translated book, and the word of their parents and preachers. Doesn’t make sense to me…

Sigh… close this please. I didn’t mean to make it a GQ again

I once knew a woman who believed that the Bible was true because it said so in the Bible.
Maybe that makes a kind of sense to her.

There are two ways of knowing things. One is by reason – by the use of the senses and logic. The other is by intuition. Reason does not follow the method of intuition, and intuition does not follow the method of reason. They are equal but separate ways of “knowing”. One method can be explained logically, the other cannot.

Uncertainty is the scary dragon that most conventional religions promise to vanquish. (i.e., come here and we’ll hand you answers you can be sure of, instead of having to go out into the desert and fast and agonize and cudgel your heart and brain for years on end).

OK. Closed.

DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator