how can any one religion make a valid claim to be the fundamental truth?

actually it was dopamine (my Bad..), here's the post Message 8 watch the talk it's very interesting.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-24-2005 19:24 AM

Sorry riVeRraT, but it seems you truly do not understand, the concept of what I am saying.You seem so blinded by your dogmatic attitudes that you fail to see that even though you admit religions could be wrong and that the truth is not what you and I believe, you still assert that god is the single undeniable truth without any possibility of error in that assertion. And you do this without seeing that, that very assertion is your concept of reality and so, as open to error as anything else anyone asserts.In saying this I also have to point out that despite my assertions that ‘no mater what anyone asserts there is a chance it could be wrong’ this too could, in fact, be wrong.I believe with all my heart I am a good dancer, that I can strut my funky stuff better then most, but there are many who would laugh and utterly dispute that fact. Hell I have seen video evidence that they could be right, but I still believe I have some moves. Whether my belief is true or not doesn’t matter, because I have to believe it to be true else I couldn’t dance. However I still accept my belief in my ability could in fact be wrong.You say Does this mean, however distasteful to you and your own position, that you do actually accept there is a possibility, however slight, that you could actually be wrong about any and all the things you hold to be true, up to and including the existence and infallibility of God?To all other posters, if I am being unfair to Ratty on this point, please point out where and how.

Thankyou. Conceded. If I may: As you can see a religion can be either an institution like the Catholic Church or a set of personal beliefs in the nature of the divine. So you have to realise that as you have a well developed set of ideas and beliefs as to the nature of the divine you do have a religion, a personal one. And as both you and I have said that no religion can hold claim to the truth, you have to see that this means that your religious views as to the nature of God do carry the possibility of being wrong.This isn’t about whether god exists or not, it truly isn’t.It’s about whether any religious viewpoint (and thus a religion) can make an undeniable claim to be true, to the exclusion of all others. In truth, this not only applies to religion but to all areas of human thought and concepts.You have already admitted that no religion can make a totally accurate claim to the truth, and yet not see that this also applies to your religious view points as much as it does to the big organised religious institutions. I know what you are trying to say here but, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a religious point of view and as such forms part of your own personal religion and thus as open to error as anyone else’s region.--Edit-- Altered some spacing forclarity --This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-25-2005 12:00 AM

I apologise, for interrupting an interesting conversation but this is off topic and I thought we were gonna wait for a new topic to be started. One I would be happy to participate in.However as this thread is rapidly running out of space I’d prefer it if the remaining space was used for the OP topic.Sorry.

You can’t pick and choose what words you want to haul out just to prove your point,
You pick Conscientiousness: (Def: governed by or done according to somebody’s sense of right and wrong)
But miss Archaic: (Def: used to describe a word or phrase that is no longer in general use but is still encountered in older literature and still sometimes used for special effect or no longer useful or efficient. And so does yours.If we had a poll here on these forums that asked the question does riVeRraT have a religion then I would bet that the vast majority of the votes would be for ‘YES’.Remember, that the tortoise can believe he’s an eagle all he likes, but every one who sees him will say look, there’s a tortoise.If you were truly without religion, you would stop using that book as a crutch. And while we are at it, swinging back to the point about religions and truth, what gives the bible any valid claim to the truth over the religious texts of all the other religions? This is an important point as you claim the bible is what gives your faith, belief, religion validityYou claim to use all the versions of the bible to illuminate your life as to the existence of god. I hope this means you include the NWT and the book of Mormon. Why stop there? If all the versions of the bible are valid in your eyes then why not use the texts of Baha’I, Buddhism, Confucianism, Jainism, Judaism (oh, silly me you already do with this one , Doh!), Hinduism, Islam, Paganism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism. And so on. If you claim not to follow a religion then there is no harm in seeking wisdom and truth in these texts as well?If you deny the validity of any of these religions and their texts in favour of the bible then you are choosing one religious system over all the others, and thus choosing a religion. It may be your religion, which is heavily based on the Christian religions but it is still a religion.Claiming you don’t follow a religion is simply ridiculous, considering your stated views. Ah but what if the destination you should be heading for is London England? What if you have the wrong destination?This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-26-2005 09:07 AM

Schrafinator Wrote: thankyou for that,
was beginning to think it was me going mad.I also found this one quite funny. -- Blinks--Then And you are right claiming the bible has no connection to any specific religion is truly risible.--Edit--
BTW: it's ohnhai, I know I get it wrong sometimes but, I do like to correct it when I see it spelt wrong (pronounced "on high" but spelt ohnhai, long story not worth telling)This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-27-2005 10:38 AM

No worries.As to our friend I can forgive him the recent posts as, with our help, he does seem to have backed himself into a corner.On one hand agreeing that no religion can hold claim to the fundamental truthAnd on the other suddenly trying to distance himself from the very obvious Christian views, teachings and texts which he openly confesses are the core of his belief structure and religious outlook.I’m not inclined to push him any further on this matter.If he is desperate enough to try and disassociate the Bible with Christianity to avoid his beliefs falling under the banner of ‘religion’, and thus an already agreed notion that religions can’t absolutely claim to have the only truth( meaning his beliefs cant make a valid claim to be 100% true either) then the notion of admitting that there is even the slightest chance he could be wrong as to the nature of god must fill him with such anxiety and anguish that I don’t want to be the cause of that kind of conflict in someone else. Mainly cause I’m not a cruel person, and secondly, if it’s causing that much trouble for him to say that "yes I could be wrong" then I don’t have the right to inflict that kind of torture on anyone.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-27-2005 20:18 AM

I understand all that but would you really want to keep kicking someone when they are down?Though I may be wrong, I feel ratty has got him self in an un-defendable position.He is clearly a Christian and follows that religion. He even admits to being religious, going to church, that the message of bible is the at the core of this belief system, and that God, Jesus, and the holy spirit are the ultimate truth, and you can’t get much more Christian than that. He has also stated no religion can hold the truth absolute. Thus it follows that his Christian views on the nature of God can’t make the claim to be absolutely true as they are clearly of a religious nature and more specifically pertaining to the religion of Christianity, which as has been agreed by both parties can’t claim to hold the absolute truth because it is a religion, and thus open to error.Now to avoid accepting this conclusion and the ramifications of that on his personal views he twists and turns making some extremely tenuous claims as to the nature of the bible and his beliefs Such as claiming the bible isn’t a Christian text, or claiming that believing in a god doesn’t make you religious.I can’t see he has any where to go other than accepting his views are religious and thus carry the possibility that they could be wrong, or retracting the agreed statement that religions can’t make a claim to hold the fundamental truth.He doesn’t want to admit the first because that would mean he could be wrong as to the nature of God. He doesn’t want to do the latter because it means any of the other religions out there could be the truth. After all if it is possible for a single religion to actually have the absolute truth at the exclusion of all others then there is no guarantee that is going to be his.

Indeed, indeed. The belief in the god/s either way has no relevance as to their actual existence. Believing in the existence of the divine doesn’t prove the divine to exist. Same as the lack of belief in the existence of the divine doesn’t prove the divine’s lack of existence. Again, true. The God/s and their religions are separate entities. To question one isn’t to implicitly question the other. Unfortunately, for many religions I would have to say yes, especially for monotheistic religions, whose main tool for maintaining validity is the total denial of the existence of other gods.Polytheistic religions on the whole tend to be a bit more flexible (but not much) because as they have many gods they can’t very easily deny the existence of yet more gods can they? After all what’s one more god when you have a few hundred already? When Polytheistic structures clash is it not the case, that an argument for equivalents gets made, such as the merging of the English and Roman deities of water to create Sulis-Minerva? In other words Hey! We both have a god of water they are probably the same god so let’s lump them together, but worship her in our modern way.Monotheistic Religions on the other hand DO have a problem with the existence of other gods, as this does tend to undermine the validity of their claim to know the one true God. This is more pronounced if one Monotheistic Religion bumps heads with another, as you then have 2 gods both claiming to be THE only God both with the three Os. What do you do? Typically what you do is end up arguing the toss for thousands of years occasionally resorting to killing each other when things get over heated.All things considered it would be a whole lot better if the religions had a ‘believe and let believe’ policy, but that tends to be tricky when you are teaching absolutes to your followers.

Do you know what. I don’t CARE if god exists or not that is not the issue here.
Nor do I care what you believe or not believe as to the nature of god.So what is the point? That you know the real truth and we don’t? Is that it? That we are simply deluding ourselves in not seeing the truth in what is so evident to you?The nature and existence of God is utterly a separate issue from religions or beliefs in god. Belief in God and the resulting religions are a man made entity that have little bearing on the god/s should they in fact exist. Belief in god doesn’t make him exist, lack of belief doesn’t deny him existence. I am not asking you to flat out deny the existence of god, nor would I. If you say I admit that, despite my 100% certainty on this issue, I could in fact be wrong I’m NOT gonna jump up and down as say you denied the existence of god.ANY human notion concept or idea is open to error, that’s human nature. This applies to politics ,science and religion. Any human concept or notion regarding the existence or nature of the God/s is also open to error. There are truths in all religious views there are also fallacies in all religious views, you can t escape this Thus NO religious view is 100% right nor 100% wrong.You say you are a Non-denominational Christian. Do you not see that this and the statements you make as to the nature of god are just as human as any others and thus open to error?Let’s make this easy.Do you, in your non-denominational Christian faith, accept that there is even the slightest chance you could be wrong in your ideas and beliefs as to the truth and nature of God? Yes or No?

(my emphasis)Excuse me?Message 201Message 229 examples of me admitting error Message 28 me admitting I could be wrong?. I’m not asking you to say you ARE wrong, just to recognise the possibility that you COULD be.Big difference.

Ok so you know the truth and it knows you, please answer the question.

I only made a claim for religions.

From what you say I can only assume yours claims to. who knows, If God existed i would expect he has email by now.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-29-2005 08:46 AM

They are gullible twa fools? That or they are willing to do and say anything to get the preacher to ‘shut the hell up’?Just because some people believe in god, or that people have the capacity to be convinced in the existence of god doesn’t prove the existence or power of god. God is separate from the belief in god. Why should you care what I think about god? Wouldn’t that be between me and the big guy? Are you 100% absolutely sure of that? Are you convinced in your mind that this is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?