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All humans has an inherent "heat-seeking-missile" within the DNA blueprints to seek out a religion or the likes to resolve an inherent unavoidable existential dilemma.
You're not exactly wrong but you're overthinking it. What I think is fairer to say is that humans have a strong innate tendency to elevate the simple fact of their mortality to an existential dilemma that threatens personal annihilation, and hence the appeal of religion, among other immortality projects. However ... it is not a statement that's equally true of all comers. There are a minority of people for whom it presents no real issue at all, and a minority for whom it presents a five-alarm crisis of the first order, and they tend to grope at anything that might keep them from going under -- sometimes in the process drowning people around them and bringing down the human race generally -- very similar to a drowning person threatening the safety and life of a would-be rescuer. And we have everything on a continuum in between those two.
What is increasingly true today is that the minority who do not see an existential threat to paper over with whatever denialist ideology they can concoct, are no longer repressed as dangerous outliers. And this allows their voice of reason to have some influence beyond that small group, to the next group of people who are able and willing to override the programming of natural selection and modify their thinking accordingly. And over time, faith is exposed for the failed epistemology that it is, the scientific method continues to demonstrate success in better understanding and interacting with reality, and more and more people enjoy a better mental and emotional climate in between their ears, now that tradition and dogma and other forms of fear-mongering are not making religious claptrap the slam-dunk that it once was.
But even Muslims trust Messiah Jesus as one of their saviors (along with police-people and fire-fighters, etc), with Muhammad as their prophet of what trusting Jesus as one's Last Messiah means.
Actually, they claim him as a prophet--not Mesiah. And they deny that he died on a cross.
Pressuring to convert might be a poor way of phrasing it. I will clarify that he is doing no more than most door to door Mormon missionaries that I have met, and I haven't tried to dissuade him. The only ground rules to our conversations have been mutually agreed to. We both get an opportunity to present our beliefs to the other, and the we strive to give each other equal time to present our case. Not much different than many of the debates on this forum.
Well, I guess that sounds fair enough. To me, there is nothing much more frustrating than arguing with an atheist -- unless it's arguing with a Jehovah's Witness.
Religion is nothing more than the world's oldest long con and grift. It relies on both subtle and overt social pressure to foster fear of not belonging to the group. It relies on this fear in order to survive.
Actually, they claim him as a prophet--not Mesiah. And they deny that he died on a cross.
That is a fair characterization. Islam would not have a reason to exist if it affirmed the divinity of Jesus or the necessity of his substitutionary atonement.
I always look for such distinctives when considering the claims of various religions. For me this epiphany came in a discussion with a charismatic pastor who was arguing for pentecostal theology on the basis of a questionable interpretation of a half a verse in the book of Acts. Eventually the man admitted he was on thin ice, but protested that "we wouldn't be charismatics if we didn't believe this!" He wished he hadn't said it as soon as it came out of his mouth. But I realized there that each religious denomination / dogma has a strong component of "we're not those others" based on things like this: miracles are or are not for today, Jesus is or is not the Savior, etc. Once you get past the conceit that you, of all this rabble, have the CORRECT interpretation, are somehow objectively correct, or somehow can unambiguously demonstrate better outcomes (morally, say, or in terms of enjoying god's unmerited favor or whatever) then your subjective beliefs are no better than anyone else's other than that they are familiar and comforting to you personally -- and that is just a function of the accident of birth and other circumstances.
That is a fair characterization. Islam would not have a reason to exist if it affirmed the divinity of Jesus or the necessity of his substitutionary atonement.
I always look for such distinctives when considering the claims of various religions. For me this epiphany came in a discussion with a charismatic pastor who was arguing for pentecostal theology on the basis of a questionable interpretation of a half a verse in the book of Acts. Eventually the man admitted he was on thin ice, but protested that "we wouldn't be charismatics if we didn't believe this!" He wished he hadn't said it as soon as it came out of his mouth. But I realized there that each religious denomination / dogma has a strong component of "we're not those others" based on things like this: miracles are or are not for today, Jesus is or is not the Savior, etc. Once you get past the conceit that you, of all this rabble, have the CORRECT interpretation, are somehow objectively correct, or somehow can unambiguously demonstrate better outcomes (morally, say, or in terms of enjoying god's unmerited favor or whatever) then your subjective beliefs are no better than anyone else's other than that they are familiar and comforting to you personally -- and that is just a function of the accident of birth and other circumstances.
There can be only one correct, or accurate interpretation of a passage, right?
Either Jesus is God, or he isn't. Either Jesus is the Messiah who died on the cross for us, or he isn't. We can't both be right.
Either Muslims are right, or Christians are. We can't both be right.
There can be only one correct, or accurate interpretation of a passage, right?
Either Jesus is God, or he isn't. Either Jesus is the Messiah who died on the cross for us, or he isn't. We can't both be right.
Either Muslims are right, or Christians are. We can't both be right.
My point is that there can be no accurate interpretation of dogma -- only claims and counterclaims. You are assuming way too much: that a passage in a particular book is inspired, that it has an objectively determinable interpretation, etc. When in fact the very basis for most of what is derived from scripture is based on the unfalsifiable proposition that there is an invisible, personal, interventionist god. I can't prove nor disprove that, and neither can you.
So it is a fallacy that there is a "one True interpretation" that one can fight one's way to. Holy Writ is vague enough for anyone to project their pet theology onto it. That is how Catholics and Orthodox and Protestant and high and low church and charismatic and non-charismatic, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and even Muslims, derive very different and mutually exclusive dogmas from the very same document.
I do not see your claim to happen to have the correct dogma from that document to have any more standing than anyone else's.
I'm not an atheist, I have a private and personal relationship with the Father in Heaven, which I keep to myself and do not push on anyone else. I think if you have faith you should have it to yourself. Over the years I've also been subjected to social pressures to conform to the beliefs of religionists, and in each case I could see it would be a pretty bad idea. All of the churches and organizations I looked into proved to be dogmatic, based on myth and superstition, and full of outright hypocrites judging each other and using religion to guilt trip and manipulate people. God and I get along with each other just fine without that bunch, and I am content to keep it that way.
I'm not an atheist, I have a private and personal relationship with the Father in Heaven, which I keep to myself and do not push on anyone else. I think if you have faith you should have it to yourself. Over the years I've also been subjected to social pressures to conform to the beliefs of religionists, and in each case I could see it would be a pretty bad idea. All of the churches and organizations I looked into proved to be dogmatic, based on myth and superstition, and full of outright hypocrites judging each other and using religion to guilt trip and manipulate people. God and I get along with each other just fine without that bunch, and I am content to keep it that way.
That is fair enough. As an atheist I have often said that you are the sort of theist I have no issue with. Your faith is personal, subjective and non-binding on others and you make no claims otherwise. You are a fairly rare bird in this space however.
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