What should religion be based on?

[mickthinks]

Hobby: What do you mean god?

LOL Don't try to blame me for the circle you keep taking us round here, Hobby! For now, I just mean the entity (or entities) that priests and their followers believe in and call "God". When you say that religious promises are false, it seems you somehow know the promises don't come from such an entity.

How do you know that?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobby: What do you mean god?

LOL Don't try to blame me for the circle you keep taking us round here, Hobby! For now, I just mean the entity (or entities) that priests and their followers believe in and call "God". When you say that religious promises are false, it seems you somehow know the promises don't come from such an entity.

How do you know that?

I'm not pretending to "know" anything.

You are chasing your own tail. You keep using the word "god", but cannot say with clarity what you mean.
As far as I can tell, your use of the word seems to match the priests: some sort of fantastical mythical construction employed to falsely bring explication to life. The only difference between you and others, priests included, seem to be the degree to which you truly believe or have doubts.
You seem to be presenting this idea as an empirical fact with epistemic validity. But until you say what you think "god" is, you will not be able to challenge the truth of what I have said.

Different priest have different gods; different gods have different promises; different promises come from the same god; and the same promises come from different gods: the priests need to get together and get their story straight first, then we can talk.
But the best interpretation is that the whole thing is a massive fantasy. This it ably demonstrated by history and anthropology.

[sthitapragya]

Hobby: What do you mean god?

LOL Don't try to blame me for the circle you keep taking us round here, Hobby! For now, I just mean the entity (or entities) that priests and their followers believe in and call "God". When you say that religious promises are false, it seems you somehow know the promises don't come from such an entity.

How do you know that?

I have to agree with Hobbes. Even you don't know what the entity that priests and their followers call God. So how do you know that the promises did come from such an entity? You cannot attribute any characters to an entity you know nothing about. Unless you know the God they are talking about, in which case you need to define him, or introduce him.

[mickthinks]

I have to agree with Hobbes.

Then you can't have been following the discussion and you misunderstand the point at issue.

Even you don't know what the entity that priests and their followers call God. So how do you know that the promises did come from such an entity? You cannot attribute any characters to an entity you know nothing about. Unless you know the God they are talking about, in which case you need to define him, or introduce him.

I agree with nearly everything* you say, but note that I don't claim to know that the promises come from God. Hobby, though, has claimed that the promises don't come from God, and everything you've just said applies to his knowledge claim, unless his claim derives from an implicit claim that God does not exist.

I think you have explained why he cannot make that claim, and I am grateful to you.


*I think one can know God without having "a need" to provide anyone else with a definition or introduction.

[mickthinks]

Hobby: I'm not pretending to "know" anything.

You have claimed that all the promises ascribed to God are false and I think that is a knowledge claim. Perhaps you'd like to change it now?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobby: I'm not pretending to "know" anything.

You have claimed that all the promises ascribed to God are false and I think that is a knowledge claim. Perhaps you'd like to change it now?

Nope.
You need to engage with what I said above. There is not set of promises from priests that are coherent and in agreement. There is only a confusion of different gods and different promises.

[mickthinks]

There is not set of promises from priests that are coherent and in agreement.

Yes, I agree that conflicts exists between them and thus not all religious promises can be true. But you must know that the logical step you want to make from "some promises that religions are based are false" to "all religions are based on false promises" is invalid.

You have claimed that the promises ascribed to God on which every religion is based are false and I think that is a knowledge claim. How do you know that without denying that God exists?

[sthitapragya]

There is not set of promises from priests that are coherent and in agreement.

Yes, I agree that conflicts exists between them and thus not all religious promises can be true. But you must know that the logical step you want to make from "some promises that religions are based are false" to "all religions are based on false promises" is invalid.

You have claimed that the promises ascribed to God on which every religion is based are false and I think that is a knowledge claim. How do you know that without denying that God exists?

I think if the promises ascribed to God were true, there would be only one religion. The fact that there are so many religions means that even if the promises came from God, they were obviously lost in translation which means that what we have is the various translations of what God might have promised and these translations could only have come from humans since they all differ from one another. If every promise in every religion were a faithful translation of God's promise, it stands to reason that they would all have said the exact same thing. This would have made differences in religions redundant and we would end up with one religion. Since that is not the case, we must assume that all the promises that we read are translations which carry subjective biases of human translators which resulted in various religions. In any case, they must necessarily now be promises of man and not God anymore.

[Hobbes' Choice]

There is not set of promises from priests that are coherent and in agreement.

Yes, I agree that conflicts exists between them and thus not all religious promises can be true. But you must know that the logical step you want to make from "some promises that religions are based are false" to "all religions are based on false promises" is invalid.

You have claimed that the promises ascribed to God on which every religion is based are false and I think that is a knowledge claim. How do you know that without denying that God exists?

What do you mean "god"?
I do not have to deny anything that is not defined or evident.

[mickthinks]

The promises are evident, Hobby. What is not evident is that all of them are false promises rather than God's promises. You claim they are false, but how do you know that?

[mickthinks]

sthitapragya: I think if the promises ascribed to God were true, there would be only one religion.

Why? Cannot God have made more than one promise to more than one set of people at more than one time? Do you believe all religious promises have to apply to everyone everywhere? It's certainly not a logical necessity.

[Hobbes' Choice]

The promises are evident, Hobby. What is not evident is that all of them are false promises rather than God's promises. You claim they are false, but how do you know that?

State the following:
1) What is "god"
2) What promises does God make?

[sthitapragya]

sthitapragya: I think if the promises ascribed to God were true, there would be only one religion.

Why? Cannot God have made more than one promise to more than one set of people at more than one time? Do you believe all religious promises have to apply to everyone everywhere? It's certainly not a logical necessity.

No, what I mean is, that the promises made to one set of people would not conflict with the promises made to another set of people. There would be harmonious relationship between the two sets of promises. There would also be harmony in the different messages God would have given to different sets of people. Since the promises and messages conveyed by different religions are different and conflicting, it makes sense to assume that the difference arises from the different interpretations and the interpretations would necessarily have to be human. I am going under the assumption that theists ultimately believe that there is one God. In such a case, the conflict in religions can arise only because of error in interpretation, be it in messages or promises.

[mickthinks]

Yes, I guess most theists believe that there is only one god and that other theists have the wrong idea about Him or Her. But the belief that an apparent conflict between doctrines is irreconcilable is itself sometimes an error in interpretation, and the capacity of humans for error is not sufficient reason to dismiss the possibility that some religious promises are God-given.

[mickthinks]

Hobby: What is "god"

For now, I just mean the entity (or entities) that priests and their followers believe in and call "God".

Hobby: What promises does God make?

I don't know which religious promises come from God. But you claim to know that none of them do.

How do you know that?