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What I was trying to say is that Dawkins believes that religious dogma is false, and he tries to convince people that religion is wrong by debunking religious d

What I was trying to say is that Dawkins believes that religious dogma is false, and he tries to convince people that religion is wrong by debunking religious dogma. But that does not work, see olavk's comment for the reason why I think it doesn't. In other words, in this context, the truth behind religious dogma is irrelevant (which, if twisted enough, may qualify as neither true nor false). And when I said religious axioms, I was trying to compare religious dogma to mathematical axioms, if such a thing makes sense, so I used the mathematical term.

loup-vaillant 15y ago
Ah. I got it: belief in belief (thinking that faith by itself is a good thing, regardless of its truth), wishful thinking, rationalization, and social pressure. In other words, people believe things for reasons unrelated to their truths. That, we may want to address. Then, I suppose religious beliefs would just go away (you might want to keep the weekly meetings, though). > [Religious dogma], if twisted enough, may qualify as neither true nor false. That one I have a hard time with. Sure, we could imagine a situation where, say, Christianity is partially true (Jesus did resurrect), and partially false (virgin birth didn't happen); I assume however that you're not talking about that. Another possibility would be for religious beliefs to be incoherent enough to be "not even wrong"; that would be blocked by my bullshit filter all the same. Or we could muddy the very meaning of "truth"; that's plain cheating (and may corrupt your whole mind if you manage to convince yourself). Or, we could say that what is true for someone may be false for someone else; and that's plain false. I can't think of any other twist, but my guess is, none would stand up to scrutiny.
- tspiteri 15y ago
  I did not mean that religious dogma can be neither true nor false, that would indeed be bullshit. What I meant is that, in this context, if the question is "Is religious dogma true?", the answer will be neither "Yes" nor "No", it will be "That's irrelevant."

loup-vaillant 15y ago

Ah. I got it: belief in belief (thinking that faith by itself is a good thing, regardless of its truth), wishful thinking, rationalization, and social pressure. In other words, people believe things for reasons unrelated to their truths. That, we may want to address. Then, I suppose religious beliefs would just go away (you might want to keep the weekly meetings, though). > [Religious dogma], if twisted enough, may qualify as neither true nor false. That one I have a hard time with. Sure, we could imagine a situation where, say, Christianity is partially true (Jesus did resurrect), and partially false (virgin birth didn't happen); I assume however that you're not talking about that. Another possibility would be for religious beliefs to be incoherent enough to be "not even wrong"; that would be blocked by my bullshit filter all the same. Or we could muddy the very meaning of "truth"; that's plain cheating (and may corrupt your whole mind if you manage to convince yourself). Or, we could say that what is true for someone may be false for someone else; and that's plain false. I can't think of any other twist, but my guess is, none would stand up to scrutiny.

tspiteri 15y ago
I did not mean that religious dogma can be neither true nor false, that would indeed be bullshit. What I meant is that, in this context, if the question is "Is religious dogma true?", the answer will be neither "Yes" nor "No", it will be "That's irrelevant."