Philosophy Now Forum

Religion is not one claim. Therefore it cannot be reduced to a simple right/wrong.

Let's say religions involve only 2 claims.

So here are three religious positions :

1. There is one god and there is an afterlife.

2. There are several gods and there is no afterlife.

3. There are no gods and there is no afterlife.

If one can determine the actual reality of the situation ,in some way, and it turns out to be :

There is one god and no afterlife.

Then all three religious positions are half right and half wrong.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 4:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 2:45 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 2:14 pm I do not see the "necessary" truth that YOU have "offered" me.

If you don't see the points I've shown you as neccessary, as self-evidently true now, then we should go back over them. Which point do you doubt?

So far, all have depended on nothing but the Law of Non-Contradiction. Basically, they are:

1. Mutually contradictory claims (genuine ones) cannot be true at the same time.
2. Religions all make claims that genuinely contradict each other.
3. All religions and ideologies are ultimately contradictory to others.
This was illustrated with reference to the three possible positions on the question of the existence of God: Atheism, Polytheism and Monotheism. So we have at least one very clear, concrete case proving 3 beyond a reasonable doubt.
4. More contentiously, but equally unavoidably, we saw that this proves that the majority of ideologies and religions must basically be wrong. We left open the question of whether any is basically right, because so far, we haven't gotten there. Logically, the Law of Non-Contradition tells us that one may be right, but it's possible that none is...except in cases in which the available alternatives cover all possibilities. Then, one HAS to be right.

That's the groundwork. It's all logically necessitated by the Law of Non-Contradiction itself.

What step is unclear to you?

All of the above steps are unclear to me. I'm agnostic. (edit: I've highlighted in red all the things that are problematic to me.)

"Agnostic" isn't the issue. The issue is, "Are we going to attend to logic or not?" You don't have to have any view of the existence or non-existence of God, even uncertainty, to know that the following statements are logically the only ones possible.

Now to the responses:

"Genuine ones" means statements that are not just apparent contradictions, but actual ones. "Gary is a man," and "Gary is tired" are not contradictory. "Gary exists" and "Gary does not exist" are genuinely contradictory. Clear?

That's numbers 1 and 2.

#3. Any religion or ideology always contains basic statements that others refuse to accept. There are no exceptions. For example, Atheists say there's no God; Orthodox Jews say there is. That's a contradiction of each other. But here's the tricky bit: even so-called "inclusive" religions and ideologies are not actually inclusive: they exclude all exclusionary religions and ideologies. So, for example, the dogma that says "all religions are one" is contrary to every religion that claims to be special or unique, as well as to an ideology like Atheism, which insists "religions are delusions."

Still with me?

#4. When you make a set of contradictory statements that are comprehensive of all possible options, one must be true and the others must be false. There is no other possibility, logically speaking.

If you think about those statements, you'll find they're all necessarily true. And you won't need anything more than the basic laws of logic, particularly the Law of Non-Contradiction, to know that.

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 4:57 pm Then all three religious positions are half right and half wrong.

That isn't the serious objection you might suppose.

An ideology is always made up of statements or claims. Some may indeed be true, and some false. Fine.

But we're talking right now only about individual claims, not about whole religious packages of claims. Look at the individual claims each makes, and you find contradictions.

So, if Islam says there's a God, and Atheism says there's not, that's a contradiction. Am I giving carte blanche approval to either side? No, of course not: I'm neither of those things, anyway. Is one of them right about that claim, and one of them wrong? Certainly. Inevitably. Do we have to decide which one is right, in order to know that one is? No. We know it anyway. We know it by pure logic.

The Law of Non-Contradiction tells us that whenever this happens, not all can be right. Only one can be, at most. Both may be false, unless the claims offered cover all alternatives; then one must be right, and the others wrong.

@IC

1. Mutually contradictory claims cannot be true at the same time.
2. Religions all make claims that contradict each other. [my response: maybe]
3. All religions and ideologies are ultimately contradictory to others. [my response: maybe]

I will accept #1.

Can you show me that #2 and #3 are "necessarily" correct? (or for that matter just plain "correct"?)

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:07 pm @IC

1. Mutually contradictory claims cannot be true at the same time.
2. Religions all make claims that contradict each other. [my response: maybe]

Not "maybe," Gary. Certainly.

I gave you three: Atheism, Polytheism and Theism. If you believe they don't contradict, show how there can be multiple gods, only one God, and no gods.

3. All religions and ideologies are ultimately contradictory to others. [my response: maybe]

Again, your own ideology is contradictory to at least the exclusionary ones. If it's not, if it doesn't disagree with exclusions, then you're exclusive. If it contradicts exclusionary ones, then it's exclusionary of them itself.

I will accept #1.

Can you show me that #2 and #3 are "necessarily" correct? (or for that matter just plain "correct"?)

Done.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:18 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:07 pm @IC

1. Mutually contradictory claims cannot be true at the same time.
2. Religions all make claims that contradict each other. [my response: maybe]

Not "maybe," Gary. Certainly.

I gave you three: Atheism, Polytheism and Theism. If you believe they don't contradict, show how there can be multiple gods, only one God, and no gods.

#2 says "RELIGIONS". ATHEISM IS NOT A RELIGION. Polytheism and theism are not "religions", they are types of "religion". When you get your terminology into something consistent that I can understand, I will proceed.

But we're talking right now only about individual claims, not about whole religious packages of claims. Look at the individual claims each makes, and you find contradictions.

Then you are being very sloppy and inconsistent in your language :

All religions and ideologies are ultimately contradictory to others.

Based on only one claim, many ideologies will be the same. They are only contradictory when several claims are compared.

More contentiously, but equally unavoidably, we saw that this proves that the majority of ideologies and religions must basically be wrong.

Again, based on only one claim, they would not be wrong.

The Law of Non-Contradiction tells us that whenever this happens, not all can be right. Only one can be, at most. Both may be false, unless the claims offered cover all alternatives; then one must be right, and the others wrong.

This is trivially true for binary logic and only one claim.

At one point I wanted to add to these 3 claims,

1. Monotheism: there is only one God
2. Polytheism: there are many gods
3. Atheism: there are not any God nor gods

another claim,

4. Agnosticism: it is not possible to know which of the first 3 claims is true.

On further thought, I withdraw the above because 4 is not a genuine contradiction. 1, 2, or 3 could be correct and 4 could be correct at the same time. For example, there could be one God and it could be impossible to know that there is one God.

I am sitting on a limb here, wondering if anyone can saw it out from under me

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:37 pm At one point I wanted to add to these 3 claims,

1. Monotheism: there is only one God
2. Polytheism: there are many gods
3. Atheism: there are not any God nor gods

another claim,

4. Agnosticism: it is not possible to know which of the first 3 claims is true.

On further thought, I withdraw the above because 4 is not a genuine contradiction. 1, 2, or 3 could be correct and 4 could be correct at the same time. For example, there could be one God and it could be impossible to know that there is one God.

I am sitting on a limb here, wondering if anyone can saw it out from under me

It would depend on what would happen if someone sawed the limb out from under you. Are you sitting on the limb in a tall tree, sitting on a limb lying on the ground...?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:37 pm At one point I wanted to add to these 3 claims,

1. Monotheism: there is only one God
2. Polytheism: there are many gods
3. Atheism: there are not any God nor gods

another claim,

4. Agnosticism: it is not possible to know which of the first 3 claims is true.

On further thought, I withdraw the above because 4 is not a genuine contradiction. 1, 2, or 3 could be correct and 4 could be correct at the same time. For example, there could be one God and it could be impossible to know that there is one God.

I am sitting on a limb here, wondering if anyone can saw it out from under me

Binary logic says that statements are true or false.

But many-valued logic has more cases.

For example 4 value logic has true, false, neither true nor false and both true and false.

That covers situations where the statement cannot be evaluated as true/false because of lack of knowledge or a paradoxical nature of the statement.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:27 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:18 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:07 pm @IC

1. Mutually contradictory claims cannot be true at the same time.
2. Religions all make claims that contradict each other. [my response: maybe]

Not "maybe," Gary. Certainly.

I gave you three: Atheism, Polytheism and Theism. If you believe they don't contradict, show how there can be multiple gods, only one God, and no gods.

#2 says "RELIGIONS". ATHEISM IS NOT A RELIGION.

That depends on your definition of "religion," of course. It's certainly a position relative to the God question...that is "religious" about it. But more than that, it's also a belief system that falls afoul of the accusation Atheists make themselves about "religion": namely, that it is a position taken on the worst kind of faith, meaning "belief without evidence." That's Atheism. So it's pretty religious.

But let that be as you please. You'll find the same applies if you use Polytheism and Monotheism. And you certainly can't say they aren't "religious" positions, can you?

Polytheism and theism are not "religions", they are types of "religion". When you get your terminology into something consistent that I can understand, I will proceed.

They are not themselves "religions," but clusters of religions views, it's true: but the important thing about them is that they all are premised on a very distinct truth claim, and one that contradicts the others clearly. So it doesn't matter if I substitute "Yoruba" for "Polytheism," and "Judaism" for "Monotheism," and "Materialism" for "Atheism:" all my statements about the logic of their conflicting claims are still true and obvious, logically speaking.

So, Gary, do you get it yet?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 6:18 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:27 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:18 pm
Not "maybe," Gary. Certainly.

I gave you three: Atheism, Polytheism and Theism. If you believe they don't contradict, show how there can be multiple gods, only one God, and no gods.

#2 says "RELIGIONS". ATHEISM IS NOT A RELIGION.

That depends on your definition of "religion," of course. It's certainly a position relative to the God question...that is "religious" about it. But more than that, it's also a belief system that falls afoul of the accusation Atheists make themselves about "religion": namely, that it is a position taken on the worst kind of faith, meaning "belief without evidence." That's Atheism. So it's pretty religious.

But let that be as you please. You'll find the same applies if you use Polytheism and Monotheism. And you certainly can't say they aren't "religious" positions, can you?

Polytheism and theism are not "religions", they are types of "religion". When you get your terminology into something consistent that I can understand, I will proceed.

They are not themselves "religions," but clusters of religions views, it's true: but the important thing about them is that they all are premised on a very distinct truth claim, and one that contradicts the others clearly. So it doesn't matter if I substitute "Yoruba" for "Polytheism," and "Judaism" for "Monotheism," and "Materialism" for "Atheism:" all my statements about the logic of their conflicting claims are still true and obvious, logically speaking.

So, Gary, do you get it yet?

Yes. I get it.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 6:19 pmI get it.

Great.

The importance of all this is that we now realize that it's totally illogical for us to resort to relativism or universalism, when it comes to religions and ideologies. We should know, just by the laws of logic, that it is a confused belief when we imagine that all such ideologies are secretly on the same page.

We should also get over our squeamishnes about saying so, if we need to. It's just how things are: we need not apologize for that.

So now we're left with a whole bunch of religions and ideologies, each having different (and often contradictory) claims about God. What are we going to do?

We're going to have to sort them. That's obvious. And maybe we should begin by eliminating those that have no chance of being true. So let's take any of them that you have reason to believe are false, and let's cut them out, so we can narrow the field to whatever plausible options are left.

What shall we eliminate, and why?

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:51 pm That covers situations where the statement cannot be evaluated as true/false because of lack of knowledge or a paradoxical nature of the statement.

That's an error of amphiboly, though.

It mistakes the term "what is known to be true" for the term "true." And they're not the same concept.

The former is merely epistemological (that is, a claim about what humans happen to know at a given moment in time), and the latter is ontological (i.e. a statement about what really IS, even when people don't know it.)

True and false are ontological terms, not epistemological terms. (The equivalent in epistemology to truth and falsehood would be "known" versus "unknown") A cliff will exist ontologically even if I, epistemologically, do not know it is there and step over it. So the claim, "There is a cliff there," is ontological, not epistemological.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 6:42 pm What shall we eliminate, and why?

My time on the Internet. I have work to do.