Re:Why religion is not going away and science will not destr...
by beojan on Wednesday September 13, 2017 @01:53PM
(#15240752)
> One way is to say no religion is any more or less convincing than any other
Of course some religions are more convincing than others. The Graeco-Roman pantheon for instance, is trivially disprovable. The Abrahamic religions as a whole are more credible than the others.
> Alternatively we could demand a higher standard and require proof. None of the religions is able to prove any of their theological beliefs or tenets. Therefore we reject every single one of them. That leaves you with Atheism
You're still stuck at agnosticism, I'm afraid. Atheism is the positive belief that no god exists. If you require proof (or strong evidence, I suppose, since things can only be proven in mathematics) of your religious beliefs then this belief too needs proof.
One way is to say no religion is any more or less convincing than any other, therefore any of them could be true. Also man of them share common features, so maybe they do encapsulate some underlying truth. That leads to Agnosticism.
Alternatively we could demand a higher standard and require proof. None of the religions is able to prove any of their theological beliefs or tenets. Therefore we reject every single one of them. That leaves you with Atheism, because all religions and theological positions are discarded as having no reliable explanatory power, leaving you with no theology at all.
Arguably the atheist position is just more rigorous and demanding, but I don't see how you can claim it is more arbitrary.