Religions I Personally Cannot Believe In and Why (And Why I Do Believe In Christ)
Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2019 3:19 am
Original here:
https://gethn7.blogspot.com/2019/07/rel ... lieve.html
Note: I have gone on record I'm a non-denominational Protestant, yet I do not actively hate anyone of any faith or no faith, but I wanted to explain why I cannot buy into the tenets of several belief systems in particular and why from a personal perspective.
Atheism: While this is technically the absence of faith or denial of a higher power, I'm covering this first just to cover all the bases.
My reason for not buying into atheism is that, if you apply logic, it has a pretty hopeless message. Apparently, we live, die, and that's it. Our memory may exist for future generations, but if humanity as a whole dies out, our existence ceases to matter.
I can understand agnostics a little better than I do atheists, but flat out saying we were born, will die, and that's it for our existence is one of the most fatalistic things I've ever heard, and I refuse to believe human life is that pointless.
Scientology: Let's pretend I don't believe L. Ron Hubbard was a lying fraudster, which I'm absolutely convinced of, so instead, let me just point out the inconsistencies with pure logic.
Scientology was preceded by Dianetics, which was pseudo-psychology invented before it became the basis of religion, and the actual backstory of Scientology itself has no backing whatsoever in any objective historical sense. Most other belief systems at least have some form of objective historical basis, but Scientology does not even have that.
When the foundation is that shoddy, how am I supposed to swallow anything else about it?
Buddhism: Don't get me wrong, I do find some of Buddhism's tenets admirable, and many emphasize virtues many Christians would find laudable. I even admit praise for its emphasis on the denial of vices and folly and rising above that which makes us petty and venal.
My problem again goes back to logic. While it's well and good to follow it on this Earth, if humanity ceases to be, and in fact, Earth itself ceases to be, what benefit arises from its teaching anymore?
Hinduism: It's a great source to mine for mythology and fiction, admittedly, but as a faith, you are required, upfront, to believe a lot of things that have been endlessly retconned over and over again over centuries, not to mention it a pretty India centric faith, Buddhism made better inroads elsewhere because Hinduism was pretty much tailored for one specific geographic location.
Islam: Islam has a problem with basic logic that I cannot resolve. It claims Jews and Christians have an imperfect version of God's revelations, but the inconsistencies pile up fast.
First off, the very beginning of the Qu'ran says humanity was created from a clot of congealed blood, whereas the Torah and Bible cite we came from dust. Also, for a religion that claims Abraham as a patriarch, it sure has a lot of naked contempt of the Jews and a lot of advocacy of putting nonbelievers to the sword, whereas Jews mostly set themselves apart from others on God's instructions, and Christians merely exported the basic tenets of Judaism minus the Jewish specific parts because the religious franchise was made available to Jews and Gentiles equally.
Islam rolls all that back and makes conversion an even MORE exclusive experience than the things it claims precedes it.
Mormonism: Logic makes this one easy to skewer. It's basically the Bible with a lot of fanfiction attached that cannot be backed up by archelogy or any other branch of history, and it introduces a lot of concepts neither Judaism or Christianity ever countenanced or supported.
My late grandfather said he didn't believe it but it had a good backstory, and I agree. It's entertaining in a fictional sense, but I in no way can buy into its legitimacy because all we have is Joseph Smith's word for it, and even other non-Christian faiths bring more to the table for the verifiable historical fact than that.
I could go on about other, more minor faiths, but the short version is that while faith is a key component of all of them when I try to reduce them to logically provable stuff, Judaism and Christianity at least have provable continuity and a high level of consistency.
I won't claim they are perfect and that they don't have mysteries or inconsistencies, that would be arrogant and foolish, but at the end of the day, I'm a Christian besides faith in the creed because it has the least amount of inconsistency compared to its competitors based on the available evidence, and I'm convinced Christianity logically follows from the foundation of Judaism.
https://gethn7.blogspot.com/2019/07/rel ... lieve.html
Note: I have gone on record I'm a non-denominational Protestant, yet I do not actively hate anyone of any faith or no faith, but I wanted to explain why I cannot buy into the tenets of several belief systems in particular and why from a personal perspective.
Atheism: While this is technically the absence of faith or denial of a higher power, I'm covering this first just to cover all the bases.
My reason for not buying into atheism is that, if you apply logic, it has a pretty hopeless message. Apparently, we live, die, and that's it. Our memory may exist for future generations, but if humanity as a whole dies out, our existence ceases to matter.
I can understand agnostics a little better than I do atheists, but flat out saying we were born, will die, and that's it for our existence is one of the most fatalistic things I've ever heard, and I refuse to believe human life is that pointless.
Scientology: Let's pretend I don't believe L. Ron Hubbard was a lying fraudster, which I'm absolutely convinced of, so instead, let me just point out the inconsistencies with pure logic.
Scientology was preceded by Dianetics, which was pseudo-psychology invented before it became the basis of religion, and the actual backstory of Scientology itself has no backing whatsoever in any objective historical sense. Most other belief systems at least have some form of objective historical basis, but Scientology does not even have that.
When the foundation is that shoddy, how am I supposed to swallow anything else about it?
Buddhism: Don't get me wrong, I do find some of Buddhism's tenets admirable, and many emphasize virtues many Christians would find laudable. I even admit praise for its emphasis on the denial of vices and folly and rising above that which makes us petty and venal.
My problem again goes back to logic. While it's well and good to follow it on this Earth, if humanity ceases to be, and in fact, Earth itself ceases to be, what benefit arises from its teaching anymore?
Hinduism: It's a great source to mine for mythology and fiction, admittedly, but as a faith, you are required, upfront, to believe a lot of things that have been endlessly retconned over and over again over centuries, not to mention it a pretty India centric faith, Buddhism made better inroads elsewhere because Hinduism was pretty much tailored for one specific geographic location.
Islam: Islam has a problem with basic logic that I cannot resolve. It claims Jews and Christians have an imperfect version of God's revelations, but the inconsistencies pile up fast.
First off, the very beginning of the Qu'ran says humanity was created from a clot of congealed blood, whereas the Torah and Bible cite we came from dust. Also, for a religion that claims Abraham as a patriarch, it sure has a lot of naked contempt of the Jews and a lot of advocacy of putting nonbelievers to the sword, whereas Jews mostly set themselves apart from others on God's instructions, and Christians merely exported the basic tenets of Judaism minus the Jewish specific parts because the religious franchise was made available to Jews and Gentiles equally.
Islam rolls all that back and makes conversion an even MORE exclusive experience than the things it claims precedes it.
Mormonism: Logic makes this one easy to skewer. It's basically the Bible with a lot of fanfiction attached that cannot be backed up by archelogy or any other branch of history, and it introduces a lot of concepts neither Judaism or Christianity ever countenanced or supported.
My late grandfather said he didn't believe it but it had a good backstory, and I agree. It's entertaining in a fictional sense, but I in no way can buy into its legitimacy because all we have is Joseph Smith's word for it, and even other non-Christian faiths bring more to the table for the verifiable historical fact than that.
I could go on about other, more minor faiths, but the short version is that while faith is a key component of all of them when I try to reduce them to logically provable stuff, Judaism and Christianity at least have provable continuity and a high level of consistency.
I won't claim they are perfect and that they don't have mysteries or inconsistencies, that would be arrogant and foolish, but at the end of the day, I'm a Christian besides faith in the creed because it has the least amount of inconsistency compared to its competitors based on the available evidence, and I'm convinced Christianity logically follows from the foundation of Judaism.