The Big Idea
This section of the site critically covers every belief system on earth – secular systems, free spirituality, and religion.
It does this through categorization of the religious groups and a strict economy of arguments.
Group Categorization
Imagine there were only ten religions on earth, each with rich histories and great depths of philosophy and theology. You are not a historian; you want to determine whether any of them are true.
Imagine that in four of them, it is absolutely essential to believe the earth is flat. It would be absurd to waste time on each of their unique merits when you could group them by this one premise and reject them wholesale.
Consequently, I have categorized the real world religions based on what they share, not what is unique to each of them. Each grouping has a “home page” explaining the group. The menu puts them in sequence, each discussion laying the groundwork for the next.
Economy of Argument
Once again, say we have our group of religions centered on the earth being flat. The first order of business is, of course, to prove the earth is spherical. But following that with further arguments would be patronizing and distracting. The argument is over, there is no need to belabor it.
Consequently, only the most grave contradictions are presented as refutations. To meet the criteria, a contradiction needs to (1) regard a core principle of the religion or belief in the religion, and (2) be unambiguous. Here are a few of my favorite examples of “grave” contradictions (although there are many, many more) which would not cause adherents any serious trouble with their faiths:
(1) “In the Pentateuch, Abraham changes God’s mind, proving God is not omniscient” (Genesis 6:6). But there are dozens of times the author/s of the Pentateuch use/s anthropomorphizing as a literary technique.
(2) “In the Torah, God commands military conquest and slaying innocents; the Abrahamic God is not good” (book of Joshua). To a Christian, the Old Testament is not the fullness of truth, but a preparatory epoch. Imagine if Jesus had arrived in the time of Joshua preaching nonviolence, cultural acceptance, mercy and meekness. Israel would have been decimated in a week. Or, if victorious in battle, torn apart from the inside by the inevitable rebellion of the military-aged men they had spared. Now the Jews do not believe in Jesus being the Messiah, but I think “we survived, didn’t we?” would be a pretty good argument.
(3) “In the Quran, Allah commands the military conquest and slaughter of unbelievers; Allah is not good” (Quran 2:191-192). But Allah does not command that Muslims haphazardly kill unbelievers; rather, the context shows that “unbelievers” here is shorthand for “people who are attacking Muslims.” Verses like this are easily interpreted as self-defense, especially considering other Surahs which command restrain and prudence in war.
(4) “In Exodus 21:20-21, God permits the beating of slaves, proving that the Abrahamic God is not good.” Again, the Mosaic covenant was a preparatory epoch. Jesus explicitly says it was permissive of certain evils for the sake of gradual correction (Matt 19:8). This would be a better argument against Judaism, but Jews can use the same reasoning. The Torah permits slavery, but does not require it, and essentially establishes human rights in a world which, then, knew nothing of human rights.
(5) “The Quran compares the earth to a carpet in Quran 71:19, but the earth is a sphere. Allah is not omniscient.” But the Quran is a poetic work; this could be a metaphor for a number of things besides flatness.
Religion and Sanity
Recall that this website is dedicated to determining what is sane. All world religions have unique and interesting insights and traditions. But we are on a search for truth. What is artistic is not necessarily sane; what is profound in one aspect is not necessarily profound in another; what appears good may be strange, and what appears strange may be good.
You may not agree with me on every point, but I do hope you leave this section a little – or perhaps a lot – more sane.
The topics covered in this section are existentialism, non-Abrahamic religions and spiritualities, Islam, Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, and Catholicism.