Thursday, August 31, 2006

What we know for sure about God, Judaism and Religion

In my quest for truth, I decided to write a list of all the fundamental things we know for sure about God, Judaism and Religion in general. Here it is. Please let me know if I missed anything off the list.

1. Homo Sapiens (mostly) have a sense of spirituality (that there’s something out there greater than us). In various times and places, this has been translated into beliefs about various types of god or gods. (see http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/gods.htm for a partial list).

2. Homo Sapiens have cognitive problems with visualizing or accepting certain concepts: These include: Infinite chains of regress, things happening with no prior cause, more than 3 dimensions of space/time, and many others. In order to explain the things we cannot explain by reason and evidence, Homo Sapiens often turn to fantasy and imagination.

3. Homo Sapiens have created many hundreds of thousands of religions and sects over the last ten thousand years (and many before that too).

4. There is currently not one single piece of good evidence for any god, gods, spiritual entity or anything at all of that nature.

5. Billions of people throughout the world all passionately believe that their personal religion is the ‘one true religion’, and that all the other religions are patently false. These beliefs are based on faith, not reason or evidence.

6. Due to the fact that billions of people all believe in contradictory beliefs via ‘faith’, the only logical conclusion here is that ‘faith’ is an entirely unreliable methodology to produce truth.

7. Homo Sapiens also usually require meaning in life, motivation to be good and moral guidance. Religions provide this in good measure. No other realm of human activity (with the possible exception of some philosophy) provides this as well as religion.

8. The Jewish people have had an incredible history and have also had a major influence on western (and even global) civilization.

9. The Jewish religion is a very varied and rich religion. In common with all other religions, its adherents like practicing it.

Anything else?

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