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Religion falls under Dogma (the greek word - δόγμα). I believe in it because it is right, and it is right because I believe in it. Religion doesn't follow log

Religion falls under Dogma (the greek word - δόγμα). I believe in it because it is right, and it is right because I believe in it. Religion doesn't follow logic. It follows belief. It is like saying "the team that I support is better than the team that YOU support". Even if "my" team hasn't won anything for the last 100 years. Even if "your" team beats us 100-0 on every game. Just bad luck, the referee didn't see things clearly, the coach made a few untested last minute changes, the list is endless. But the dogma remains. MY belief/idea is better then YOUR belief/idea, and that is that. And this is why many people (including me) are rejecting religion/"The Church". I want people to have the freedom to believe whatever they want, but I cannot get into a dialogue on religion. I remember from the music video of Van Halen - Right Now [1]: Right Now, god is killing moms and doges because he has to (the clip displays this in all caps, I will respect everyone's eyes) [1]: https://youtu.be/rMV-fenGP1g?t=48 https://youtu.be/rMV-fenGP1g?t=48

garmaine 8y ago
That didn't use to be the case historically, for what it's worth. The idea of religion being a matter of faith is only about 150 years old, dating to the time when naturalists put the final nail in the coffin of expectation of science validating religious beliefs.
- ajuc 8y ago
  > The idea of religion being a matter of faith is only about 150 years old Nah. > Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29 > He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20 Christianity at least was always about (blind) faith. And I'd argue all abrahamic religions were like that. Let's not forget the start of the all these religions - Abraham blindly believing god so much that he tried to kill his son. Or maybe try Hiob's story (I believe in English it's Job?). God killed his family to win a bet with the devil, and Job was supposed to keep his faith because he will get a new better family in the end. Or the wife of Lot who was changed into a salt pillar because she dared to look back at the cursed city (damn LGBT, it ruined Sodom ;) ) instead of blindly believing the god and going away. There's lots of such stories in the Bible - the message of "shut up and believe what you're told" is clear.
  - foldr 8y ago
    Fideism has been repeatedly condemned by the Catholic church, FWIW. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06068b.htm http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06068b.htm
    - ajuc 8y ago
      > A philosophical term meaning a system of philosophy or an attitude of mind, which, denying the power of unaided human reason to reach certitude, affirms that the fundamental act of human knowledge consists in an act of faith, and the supreme criterion of certitude is authority. That's a different position than "religion is a matter of faith". IIUC it's more like "everything is a matter of faith". And in matters concerning religion - at least the Catholic church still believes in papal infallibility.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > And in matters concerning religion - at least the Catholic church still believes in papal infallibility Papal infallibility is actually a rather new dogma (and, on the age scale of the Catholic Church, even somewhat new as a general belief), and it means a lot less than a lot of people (especially outside the Church) think it means, because it applies only on special circumstances and only on specific subject matter; there's a very small number of pronouncements to which it is generally held to apply (and I believe only two that are absolutely unquestioned), and several more to which it has been argued to apply (as well as one very frequent act to which it has been argued, but is not generally accepted, to apply: canonization of saints.)
      - foldr 8y ago
        I think you may have misread. It's clear that fideism is being discussed in the context of Christian belief in the article I linked: >... before we believe in a proposition as revealed by God, we must first know with certitude that God exists, that He reveals such and such a proposition, and that His teaching is worthy of assent, all of which questions can and must be ultimately decided only by an act of intellectual assent based on objective evidence. Thus, fideism not only denies intellectual knowledge, but logically ruins faith itself. See e.g. the following for further discussion. https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/67580/what-is-the-fideism-rejected-by-the-catholic-church https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/67580/what-...
- cjf4 8y ago
  The entire Gospel is centered around salvation by faith in Christ, which of course is much older than 150 years.
  - sb057 8y ago
    No it isn't; while the years is more like 500, it is nonetheless a recent innovations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide
- TheOperator 8y ago
  >The idea of religion being a matter of faith is only about 150 years old I think I know what you're driving at but what you literally said is wrong. I've read many Christians from over 150 years ago jawing on anout faith.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Yeah I should have said "solely a matter of faith." Many early scientists and alchemists were driven by a desire to discover through theory and experiment the mind of god. Archeology as a field was largely formalized by members of christian societies hoping to find the historical sites of miraculous events, to bolster their faith. Even as these searches strike out in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, religion still clung to the near universal belief in material of life being different from inanimate matter. The proof in the existence of god was as simple as looking in a mirror--you were made in his image, and so obviously different from the mechanical substances that made up the rest of the world. The discovery of evolution as a mechanism for the explanation of life, and the later elaboration of life's mechanical nature really closed off the final possibility of there being everyday real-world proof for the existence of god. It was then that the philosophy was adopted that ALL of religion was a matter of faith alone, untestable by science.
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    Faith does seem to be a Judeo-Christian-Moslem thing though, rather than something inherent in religion. As far as I can tell, the Indo-European pagan religions were more about practicing the correct rituals, rather than believing the correct things.
TheOperator 8y ago
Christians have been growing as a movement nearly uninterrupted for 2 millenia. So much for the religious always losing. What I've seen consistently is the ability of the secular to debate and convert is trumped by the ability of the religious to reproduce. Church attendence is going up in many western countries driven by immigration. Religion does follow a belief structure that differs from logic but it sure as shit is a robust and resilent belief system.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  > the ability of the secular to debate and convert is trumped by the ability of the religious to reproduce. Perhaps that’s true in a global sense, but that doesn’t mean Christianity is devoid of individuals who can clearly and logically defend their position in debate against secularists and atheists. William Lane Craig comes to mind, among several others. You might not like listening to him, but he certainly doesn’t rest his case on an assumed moral authority or any other fallacious logical grounds.
  - TheOperator 8y ago
    I'm not saying Christians are dumb but atheist > christian conversions aren't as common as christian > atheists. They aren't the greatest at converting people.
    - TimTheTinker 8y ago
      Atheism is merely the current world zeitgeist. In a while, maybe a century, it’ll be something else. There have always been people who were “Christians” but who eventually left. The apostle John even wrote about it happening in the 1st century —- so it’s nothing new. What matters is whether it’s objectively true. Christians may be failing in certain ways at evangelism, but as scripture says, “The natural man does not understand the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned.”
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Do you have some numbers to back this up? Everywhere in the west I look, christianity is losing grounds. People practice less, they still have the belief on the paper but don't go to church, don't pray, baptize kids only due to pressure from older generations etc. Most I know come up with their own version of religion based on christianity - picking up what they like, ignoring rest. Which is a sane and fine solution and practically transition to agnosticism over few generations, but it sure ain't the same christianity branch they claim to adhere to. It could be still adding numbers due to remote missionaries wiping out local religions and overall increasing numbers (I sure as hell hope not), but I can't imagine this trend in western democracies. Immigration you mention should be 0-sum game - yes more immigrants in their new home country go into church, but they left their home country. Other religions, especially islam might be another story.

garmaine 8y ago

That didn't use to be the case historically, for what it's worth. The idea of religion being a matter of faith is only about 150 years old, dating to the time when naturalists put the final nail in the coffin of expectation of science validating religious beliefs.

ajuc 8y ago
> The idea of religion being a matter of faith is only about 150 years old Nah. > Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29 > He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20 Christianity at least was always about (blind) faith. And I'd argue all abrahamic religions were like that. Let's not forget the start of the all these religions - Abraham blindly believing god so much that he tried to kill his son. Or maybe try Hiob's story (I believe in English it's Job?). God killed his family to win a bet with the devil, and Job was supposed to keep his faith because he will get a new better family in the end. Or the wife of Lot who was changed into a salt pillar because she dared to look back at the cursed city (damn LGBT, it ruined Sodom ;) ) instead of blindly believing the god and going away. There's lots of such stories in the Bible - the message of "shut up and believe what you're told" is clear.
- foldr 8y ago
  Fideism has been repeatedly condemned by the Catholic church, FWIW. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06068b.htm http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06068b.htm
  - ajuc 8y ago
    > A philosophical term meaning a system of philosophy or an attitude of mind, which, denying the power of unaided human reason to reach certitude, affirms that the fundamental act of human knowledge consists in an act of faith, and the supreme criterion of certitude is authority. That's a different position than "religion is a matter of faith". IIUC it's more like "everything is a matter of faith". And in matters concerning religion - at least the Catholic church still believes in papal infallibility.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > And in matters concerning religion - at least the Catholic church still believes in papal infallibility Papal infallibility is actually a rather new dogma (and, on the age scale of the Catholic Church, even somewhat new as a general belief), and it means a lot less than a lot of people (especially outside the Church) think it means, because it applies only on special circumstances and only on specific subject matter; there's a very small number of pronouncements to which it is generally held to apply (and I believe only two that are absolutely unquestioned), and several more to which it has been argued to apply (as well as one very frequent act to which it has been argued, but is not generally accepted, to apply: canonization of saints.)
    - foldr 8y ago
      I think you may have misread. It's clear that fideism is being discussed in the context of Christian belief in the article I linked: >... before we believe in a proposition as revealed by God, we must first know with certitude that God exists, that He reveals such and such a proposition, and that His teaching is worthy of assent, all of which questions can and must be ultimately decided only by an act of intellectual assent based on objective evidence. Thus, fideism not only denies intellectual knowledge, but logically ruins faith itself. See e.g. the following for further discussion. https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/67580/what-is-the-fideism-rejected-by-the-catholic-church https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/67580/what-...
cjf4 8y ago
The entire Gospel is centered around salvation by faith in Christ, which of course is much older than 150 years.
- sb057 8y ago
  No it isn't; while the years is more like 500, it is nonetheless a recent innovations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide
TheOperator 8y ago
>The idea of religion being a matter of faith is only about 150 years old I think I know what you're driving at but what you literally said is wrong. I've read many Christians from over 150 years ago jawing on anout faith.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Yeah I should have said "solely a matter of faith." Many early scientists and alchemists were driven by a desire to discover through theory and experiment the mind of god. Archeology as a field was largely formalized by members of christian societies hoping to find the historical sites of miraculous events, to bolster their faith. Even as these searches strike out in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, religion still clung to the near universal belief in material of life being different from inanimate matter. The proof in the existence of god was as simple as looking in a mirror--you were made in his image, and so obviously different from the mechanical substances that made up the rest of the world. The discovery of evolution as a mechanism for the explanation of life, and the later elaboration of life's mechanical nature really closed off the final possibility of there being everyday real-world proof for the existence of god. It was then that the philosophy was adopted that ALL of religion was a matter of faith alone, untestable by science.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Faith does seem to be a Judeo-Christian-Moslem thing though, rather than something inherent in religion. As far as I can tell, the Indo-European pagan religions were more about practicing the correct rituals, rather than believing the correct things.

TheOperator 8y ago

Christians have been growing as a movement nearly uninterrupted for 2 millenia. So much for the religious always losing. What I've seen consistently is the ability of the secular to debate and convert is trumped by the ability of the religious to reproduce. Church attendence is going up in many western countries driven by immigration. Religion does follow a belief structure that differs from logic but it sure as shit is a robust and resilent belief system.

TimTheTinker 8y ago
> the ability of the secular to debate and convert is trumped by the ability of the religious to reproduce. Perhaps that’s true in a global sense, but that doesn’t mean Christianity is devoid of individuals who can clearly and logically defend their position in debate against secularists and atheists. William Lane Craig comes to mind, among several others. You might not like listening to him, but he certainly doesn’t rest his case on an assumed moral authority or any other fallacious logical grounds.
- TheOperator 8y ago
  I'm not saying Christians are dumb but atheist > christian conversions aren't as common as christian > atheists. They aren't the greatest at converting people.
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    Atheism is merely the current world zeitgeist. In a while, maybe a century, it’ll be something else. There have always been people who were “Christians” but who eventually left. The apostle John even wrote about it happening in the 1st century —- so it’s nothing new. What matters is whether it’s objectively true. Christians may be failing in certain ways at evangelism, but as scripture says, “The natural man does not understand the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned.”
saiya-jin 8y ago
Do you have some numbers to back this up? Everywhere in the west I look, christianity is losing grounds. People practice less, they still have the belief on the paper but don't go to church, don't pray, baptize kids only due to pressure from older generations etc. Most I know come up with their own version of religion based on christianity - picking up what they like, ignoring rest. Which is a sane and fine solution and practically transition to agnosticism over few generations, but it sure ain't the same christianity branch they claim to adhere to. It could be still adding numbers due to remote missionaries wiping out local religions and overall increasing numbers (I sure as hell hope not), but I can't imagine this trend in western democracies. Immigration you mention should be 0-sum game - yes more immigrants in their new home country go into church, but they left their home country. Other religions, especially islam might be another story.