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What persuades me the most is the fact that 99.99% (or however else you want refer to "essentially everyone") of members of every organized religion are members

What persuades me the most is the fact that 99.99% (or however else you want refer to "essentially everyone") of members of every organized religion are members only by chance of birth. Every Christian is only a Christian because he/she was born and raised Christian. Every Jew is only a Jew because he/she was born Jewish. Every Muslim is only a Muslim because he/she was born Muslim. Yet how many wars and killing has taken place in history because these "members" claim to be "devout" in their beliefs? ... when the fact is that every Jew who had instead been born Muslim would hold entirely opposite views (and vice versa for the Muslims ... and Christians). So, if membership in every organized religion is based solely upon what his/her parents believed and has nothing to do with anything else; and that every member of every religion would in fact hold entirely different beliefs had he/she been born into a different religion ... then ... how can such a belief system hold up to scrutiny of any kind? And then consider the violence that has been perpetrated by members of organized religion ... and put it into the context of the odds of birth generating such violent beliefs. My own path moved from there ... to wondering why a Loving and Just God would reward people being born into one religion and not another (each claiming to the exclusive word of and path to God. Common sense provides the answer. Organized religions do not - indeed, logically cannot - have anything whatsoever to do with God. Organized religions are manmade institutions that have to do with one and only one thing: power by virtue of their ability to control large groups of people. In my view, if there is a Just, Loving God, the first and certain condemnation of such a God would be people and institutions falsely claiming some special connection to God for the purpose of obtaining earthly power. There could be no higher evil.

jfengel 3y ago
You're especially correct when it comes to the Jews: they actively discourage converts. They don't believe that their deity condemns people for believing wrong, and Judaism is a duty rather than a reward. They are also, unsurprisingly, by far the smallest of the three groups you mention. But if you're trying to understand the impact of religion, you should also look outside of the Abrahamic faiths. They do comprise about half the religious believers in the world, but you're missing a lot of people if you exclude the Hindus and Buddhists. There are also a great many Shintoists, Sikhs, Jains, etc. Each religion is comparatively small, but they represent a very wide diversity of what "religion" can mean. The Christians and Muslims do seek converts and do think that people who don't convert are punished. (Depending on sect; there's a wide variety of approaches.) A lot of people outside those religions would see that as self-serving, but it does hold a certain internal logic: "God wants everybody to be this religion to avoid whatever punishment, and sent me to make sure it happens." That's not a particularly compelling argument to me, but it does attract billions of adherents, so it's can't be dismissed trivially.

jfengel 3y ago

You're especially correct when it comes to the Jews: they actively discourage converts. They don't believe that their deity condemns people for believing wrong, and Judaism is a duty rather than a reward. They are also, unsurprisingly, by far the smallest of the three groups you mention. But if you're trying to understand the impact of religion, you should also look outside of the Abrahamic faiths. They do comprise about half the religious believers in the world, but you're missing a lot of people if you exclude the Hindus and Buddhists. There are also a great many Shintoists, Sikhs, Jains, etc. Each religion is comparatively small, but they represent a very wide diversity of what "religion" can mean. The Christians and Muslims do seek converts and do think that people who don't convert are punished. (Depending on sect; there's a wide variety of approaches.) A lot of people outside those religions would see that as self-serving, but it does hold a certain internal logic: "God wants everybody to be this religion to avoid whatever punishment, and sent me to make sure it happens." That's not a particularly compelling argument to me, but it does attract billions of adherents, so it's can't be dismissed trivially.