Posted by alexandra_k on October 2, 2006, at 20:00:56
In reply to I had a similar reaction » SLS, posted by gardenergirl on October 2, 2006, at 19:08:24
> Dr. Bob, I don't understand that at all.
I agree.
> Many religions teach things that are completely incompatible with the teachings of other religions. How can they all be true, if one says that X equals Y, and others say that X does not equal Y? I draw no conclusions about whether X does or doesn't equal Y, but surely it's not unsupportive to say that either X equals Y or it doesn't, but that X can't both equal Y and not equal Y?In fact many religious texts say X at one place and notX at another. How can both those statements be true? It doesn't have to be a between religion comparison, a within religion investigation delivers the same result.
Maybe you consider it unsupportive to say so, however?
Science makes truth apt claims about the world. Scientific claims can be investigated for truth and falsity and the aim of science is to make true claims about the world.
Religion either makes false claims about the world since when you have two claims that contradict each other then one or the other or both must be false (so it is bad science) or it is best read as not even trying to make truth apt claims about the world. My understanding of faith is that it is supposed to be applied to things that aren't capable of being supported or falsified by the world. That is what makes faith faith as opposed to a rational investigation.
> There is truth in all religions, but not all religions are all true.
The logic of the latter doesn't rule out it being the case that there isn't even one religon that is all true. It doesn't explicitly rule that out.
But it does entails that there is one or more religions which contain a falsehood.
Here is an example:
the bat is a bird (Lev. 19:19, Deut. 14:11, 18)
and on internal consistency
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html
> The author has, in effect, made the statement that his religion is the only true religion and that all other religions are not true religions.I'm sorry SLS. I don't think that follows...
I'm sorry you are having a hard time :-(
And I'm sorry you read things that way :-(
But I really don't think... Your conclusions follow from what was said.
And I'm really not sure that they were meant that way.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:690942
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20060918/msgs/691317.html