Well that faith is primarily based on the belief that there ought to be a god, in order to explain the world in all its beauty, complexity, anthropocentricity or something like that. It’s just that their particular variety of religion seems to them the most plausible description of what said deity might be like, which isn’t incompatible with other, less plausible and outdated, ideas of God existing. Even if the plausibility of one’s religious views can be brought into question, it doesn’t really address the presumed need for a deity to exist in order to explain the world for what it is.
They’re saying “There ought to be no gods other than the one I believe in”, despite the fact that other people believe in other gods. They think that those people are delusional and believe in a god that isn’t there, but that they’re perfectly reasonable to believe in theirs. They think it’s absolutely absurd to think that Lord Vishnu had a flower growing out of his navel which he separated into three parts, creating the earth from one of them. But, they think it’s perfectly reasonable that Elohim created the heavens and the earth in six days.
Not only that, but they don’t even believe that this “Lord Vishnu” exists. It’s not that the Hindus got the story wrong and that he was just standing off to the side while Elohim did the work, they think that Hindus are suckers for thinking that he even exists, and that it’s only their god that exists.
If there’s a presumed need for a deity to exist to explain the world (which is absurd), then why restrict it to just one deity? Many believers throughout time have believed that there are many gods, just that theirs are the strongest. But, modern monotheists somehow believe that it’s a fantasy that other gods exist, but not that theirs exists.
I really feel like that’s a misrepresentation, though admittedly I don’t have the data to back it up. To say any theist believes any other theist from another denomination is delusional just seems absurdly reductive.
And maybe it didn’t come across in my other comment, but to think of faith as some ontological disagreement on which particular version of gods do or don’t exist I think misses the point entirely. Seems rather more like an epistemic disagreement on what we believe this transcendent power to be, which theists are in agreement on regarding its existence. Most theists don’t believe their religious texts to be literal anyways, it’s different stories about the same transcendent power, being religious doesn’t mean lacking any and all nuance or historical understanding. That hasn’t been my experience with religious people at least :)
Well that faith is primarily based on the belief that there ought to be a god, in order to explain the world in all its beauty, complexity, anthropocentricity or something like that. It’s just that their particular variety of religion seems to them the most plausible description of what said deity might be like, which isn’t incompatible with other, less plausible and outdated, ideas of God existing. Even if the plausibility of one’s religious views can be brought into question, it doesn’t really address the presumed need for a deity to exist in order to explain the world for what it is.
They’re saying “There ought to be no gods other than the one I believe in”, despite the fact that other people believe in other gods. They think that those people are delusional and believe in a god that isn’t there, but that they’re perfectly reasonable to believe in theirs. They think it’s absolutely absurd to think that Lord Vishnu had a flower growing out of his navel which he separated into three parts, creating the earth from one of them. But, they think it’s perfectly reasonable that Elohim created the heavens and the earth in six days.
Not only that, but they don’t even believe that this “Lord Vishnu” exists. It’s not that the Hindus got the story wrong and that he was just standing off to the side while Elohim did the work, they think that Hindus are suckers for thinking that he even exists, and that it’s only their god that exists.
If there’s a presumed need for a deity to exist to explain the world (which is absurd), then why restrict it to just one deity? Many believers throughout time have believed that there are many gods, just that theirs are the strongest. But, modern monotheists somehow believe that it’s a fantasy that other gods exist, but not that theirs exists.
I really feel like that’s a misrepresentation, though admittedly I don’t have the data to back it up. To say any theist believes any other theist from another denomination is delusional just seems absurdly reductive.
And maybe it didn’t come across in my other comment, but to think of faith as some ontological disagreement on which particular version of gods do or don’t exist I think misses the point entirely. Seems rather more like an epistemic disagreement on what we believe this transcendent power to be, which theists are in agreement on regarding its existence. Most theists don’t believe their religious texts to be literal anyways, it’s different stories about the same transcendent power, being religious doesn’t mean lacking any and all nuance or historical understanding. That hasn’t been my experience with religious people at least :)