Hello again Sredlums, and thanks for addressing my statements.
You are right in searching for the truth, and indeed I played it a bit too fast and loose in my post. Let me clarify.
In anything we do, we look at evidence and decide what is true or false for ourselves. We may be right or wrong -- seeing the real reality or not -- but ultimately our worldview shapes is shaped by these beliefs. I'm drawing a similarity with religion. You look at the evidence and decide for yourself what to believe. I went this way because of the comments on "forcing" someone to believe in your religion (an impossibility IMHO).
But, as you say, that's not an entirely accurate answer.
There is belief, and there is TRUTH. I do agree with you: a religion is true or false (one caveat: I think seeds of truth exist in religions that are not true, but that's a different discussion!).
But how do we get to the truth? To ANY truth? For brevity, I'm going to ignore the philosophical dilemmas implied here.
In science, we look at evidence, take observations, apply the tools of logic and reason (the two imperatives of science), and even sometimes filter them through our beliefs (oops, said I was going to ignore the dilemma). These are the only tools we use to find the truth.
Why do you think God is any different? To get to the truth, you need to apply the tools of science -- more accurately, philosophy since it's meta-physical rather than physical.
Take a religion, look at its tenets. Do they make sense? Are they consistent with themselves? Are the consistent with the world? Do they accurately explain humanity? Is there evidence supporting the tenets? Etc., Etc.
Works for science. Works for religion too.
Oh, and there's a TON more I could say here in regards to "TRUTH" but I'm leaving it off... ;)
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Hello again Sredlums, and thanks for addressing my statements.
You are right in searching for the truth, and indeed I played it a bit too fast and loose in my post. Let me clarify.
In anything we do, we look at evidence and decide what is true or false for ourselves. We may be right or wrong -- seeing the real reality or not -- but ultimately our worldview shapes is shaped by these beliefs. I'm drawing a similarity with religion. You look at the evidence and decide for yourself what to believe. I went this way because of the comments on "forcing" someone to believe in your religion (an impossibility IMHO).
But, as you say, that's not an entirely accurate answer.
There is belief, and there is TRUTH. I do agree with you: a religion is true or false (one caveat: I think seeds of truth exist in religions that are not true, but that's a different discussion!).
But how do we get to the truth? To ANY truth? For brevity, I'm going to ignore the philosophical dilemmas implied here.
In science, we look at evidence, take observations, apply the tools of logic and reason (the two imperatives of science), and even sometimes filter them through our beliefs (oops, said I was going to ignore the dilemma). These are the only tools we use to find the truth.
Why do you think God is any different? To get to the truth, you need to apply the tools of science -- more accurately, philosophy since it's meta-physical rather than physical.
Take a religion, look at its tenets. Do they make sense? Are they consistent with themselves? Are the consistent with the world? Do they accurately explain humanity? Is there evidence supporting the tenets? Etc., Etc.
Works for science. Works for religion too.
Oh, and there's a TON more I could say here in regards to "TRUTH" but I'm leaving it off... ;)
-Pie