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[Democracy]

Do scientists and Christians have the same reasons for why people believe in non Christian religions? Do they have the same reasons for how those supernatural beings were discovered?

I’m curious if Christianity can be reconciled with how humans believe and create religions. For instance, I don’t think scientists would say that demons possessed people to create various supernatural deities. But Christians might make that argument. I’m wondering if there’s anything really special to Christianity.

[jimwalton]

Generally scientists are interested in the natural world, and the Christian religion is not part of what scientists study. The only "scientists" who would study religion would most likely be anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists. Those fields belong to the behavioral sciences (not truly "scientific" as are the natural sciences).

I doubt that the behavioral sciences and Christians would have the same hypotheses for why people believe in non-Christian religions. The behavior sciences would attribute it to fear, superstition, need fulfillment, socialization, and wishful thinking. Christians attribute it to spiritual deception—an analysis a social or behavior scientist would not entertain.

> I'm curious if Christianity can be reconciled with how humans believe and create religions.

Christianity is in perfect sync with the Christian hypothesis. Christians would also admit the reality of fear, superstition, need fulfillment, socialization, and wishful thinking and the role they play in our lives. I don't really see a reconciliation problem here except that scientists cannot entertain non-scientific directions or conclusions.

> For instance, I don’t think scientists would say that demons possessed people to create various supernatural deities. But Christians might make that argument.

I guess I've never heard Christians claim this or make this argument. In the Bible, demons are not involved in sin. Their realm is seemingly just stirring up a mess, but I'm not aware of any connection in the Bible of demons with sin. If someone can point that out to me, I'll be glad to discuss it.

The Bible never makes a claim about the source of false worship (that I'm aware of) except in Romans 1 where it is attributed to the willful suppression of truth leading to a mind that doesn't think straight and desires that are distorted from what they were intended to be.

> I’m wondering if there’s anything really special to Christianity.

Yes, there truly is a lot that is really special to Christianity. I'm glad to talk about it, but I'd ask what you mean by this so we can focus the conversation.

[Democracy]

So how do you as a Christian explain why other religions exist with confident members, as confident as, say, you?

Did people create other gods or scriptures?

[jimwalton]

> So how do you as a Christian explain why other religions exist with confident members, as confident as, say, you?

I think we all realize that confidence is not always a function of truth. That would be nice if it were, don't you think? There are many reasons people feel confident in what they believe, besides that it is true (intuition, experiences, upbringing, conviction grounded in false premises, arrogance, brainwashing, deceit, education, etc.). People of other religions are confident in their religions, I would say, for those reasons and perhaps more that aren't coming to mind right now.

> Did people create other gods or scriptures?

Yeah, they do. People make up stuff all the time. They think they have a better idea, or they think they heard the voice of god (Heaven's Gate; Joseph Smith), or they want to be the big cheese (like Jim Jones), or they're loony (Charles Manson). There are rumors about Muhammad having had a mental illnesses (though no Muslim would ever admit it). If you've ever read the Qur'an, some describe it as "the wandering thoughts of a deranged mind." The Hindu scriptures (the Bagahvad Gita et al) are the collective "wisdom" of Hindu sages.

[Democracy]

Right so can you prove that Christians aren’t the same way? Mormons? Jevovah’s Witnesses? If people had good reasons, why wouldn’t they talk about them instead of faith?

[jimwalton]

I think Christianity is distinctively different because Christianity is a historical religion grounded in evidences and corroboration. It's different from Mormonism in that there isn't a single shred of historical evidence for anything the Mormons claim. The difference between Christianity and Jehovah's Witnesses is theological, so that's based on the proper theological interpretation of Scripture, not on historical evidences. In that case, we have to pursue the truth by using valid instruments of textual analysis, linguistics, interpretation, and internal consistency. Jehovah's Witness is just a false interpretation of the biblical corpus. They've distorted the text to suit their agenda.

> If people had good reasons, why wouldn’t they talk about them instead of faith?

We do talk about evidences. "Faith" is a term for the future. It's making an assumption of truth where there is enough evidence to make it reasonable to make that assumption. I have faith the car is going to start, my key is going to open the door, that the grocery store is still on the corner when I'm headed there. I don't know for sure since it's in the future. And occasionally cars don't start or my key doesn't open the door. But I have enough evidence to make a reasonable assumption, and so I believe when I go outside to start my car to go to the grocery store, I believe (have faith) the car will start and I believe (have faith) the store is there and is open. We treat most of life this way. It's knowledge in one sense, but it's faith in another. Christianity is no different. I have enough evidences from a variety of sources that I can make a reasonable inference of truth based on those evidences.

[Democracy]

Great so would you say that all other religions exist because people make stuff up?

[jimwalton]

I would. It seems that Jim Jones wanted status and power. I consider Charles Manson to have been mentally ill. I think Marshall Applewhite (Heaven's Gate) was delusional. I think Joseph Smith, Ellen White, and Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses) were making things up. The ancients with their mythologies were using stories to explain the important things of life (wisdom, death, reproduction, and fertility became gods, for instance). It evolved into mythological religious systems with no historical or life connection. I think Hinduism is a collection of the teachings of Indian sages (the wisdom of their culture). Buddhism and Confucianism are not religions, per se, but worldviews based on the thoughts of Confucius and Siddartha Gautama.

[Democracy]

Do normal Christians not have an agenda? Are they incapable of lying? Are they incapable of making mistakes about the text? Is there a way to verify interpretations like running experiments to refine a hypothesis? If no, how can you be confident to any degree?

Do you think faith is a valid method to claim that other religions are true? Your examples all deal with physical evidence- grocery stores exist and so do cars. So are unfalsifiable religious supernatural ideas true by default through faith?

> It seems that Jim Jones wanted status and power. I consider Charles Manson to have been mentally ill. I think Marshall Applewhite (Heaven's Gate) was delusional. I think Joseph Smith, Ellen White, and Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses) were making things up. The ancients with their mythologies were using stories to explain the important things of life (wisdom, death, reproduction, and fertility became gods, for instance). It evolved into mythological religious systems with no historical or life connection. I think Hinduism is a collection of the teachings of Indian sages (the wisdom of their culture). Buddhism and Confucianism are not religions, per se, but worldviews based on the thoughts of Confucius and Siddartha Gautama.

I basically agree. So my question is how would you apply Occam’s Razor to the claims made by Christians when we take into account the fact that we think all other religions are invented by man?

[jimwalton]

> Do normal Christians not have an agenda?

Not normal Christians, no. Just truth-seekers like many other people. But once you have found the information that fits the criteria of truth, you settle into an equilibrium of confidence.

> Are they incapable of lying?

Christians are capable of lying, just like anyone else. We're taught that it is wrong, but some Christians do it anyway.

> Are they incapable of making mistakes about the text?

Christians are capable of making mistakes about the text. That's why we work so hard to study it well and correctly, as objectively as possible, using all the information at our disposal. It's a scholarly discipline, but it's also common sense, and we have to be careful not to look at or interpret the text with colored lenses of bias or distortion.

> Is there a way to verify interpretations like running experiments to refine a hypothesis?

History and literature are not like a science lab. We can run experiments on anything to do with Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. These events are forever gone; they cannot be viewed directly or reconstructed precisely or exhaustively. They cannot be subjected to scientific observation and experimentation. Our knowledge of the past, as in history, comes to us exclusively through incomplete, selective, and even biased sources (like the inscriptions on the tombs of Egyptian kings). It's not possible to "run experiments." Science does science, and not every field is subject to "science."

There are ways to verify interpretations, though the discipline of literary biblical interpretation is complex. It involves paleo-linguistics, study of ancient culture, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, historical studies of artifacts and documents, theology, and literature. By assessing all the data in the templates of the varied disciplines, there are ways to arrive at bona fide interpretations about which we can be confident to a high degree.

> Do you think faith is a valid method to claim that other religions are true? Your examples all deal with physical evidence- grocery stores exist and so do cars.

Christianity also deals with physical evidence. The existence of David, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul. The truth of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, the Israelite return from the exile, and the physical and cultural evidences of Jesus's resurrection. The Bible is evidentiary, and doesn't call for blind faith.

Science itself uses not just empirical evidence, but also theoretical or conceptual reasoning (formulating and articulating questions, developing and clarifying hypotheses, models, and theories) and also analysis (data processing, weighing data, calculating parameters for error, data reduction, data analysis, and data interpretation). It's not all about the physical evidence, ever. Everything needs to be interpreted.

> So are unfalsifiable religious supernatural ideas true by default through faith?

Nothing is true by default. Everything has to go through a grid of criteria for truth.

I read an interesting article a few month ago that had been published just a few years back (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/falsifiability/) about how nonfalsifiability enters even the scientific realm. Falsifiability, it turns out, is not a perfect criterion. But we certainly respect science nonetheless.

> So my question is how would you apply Occam’s Razor to the claims made by Christians when we take into account the fact that we think all other religions are invented by man?

Christianity has a sufficiency of explanation that other religions don't have. There are really only two religions in the world: Judeo-Christianity and Hinduism. Islam is at root a cult (distortion) of Christianity, as are Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism. Buddhism is a subset of Hinduism, having taken god(s) out of the picture. Confucianism is a philosophy, not a religion. We're left with Christianity and Hinduism.

Yet there are many aspects of Hinduism that don't square with reality: Life is an illusion, suffering is an illusion, truth is relative (and not necessarily true), nature (and therefore humanity) is impersonal, etc. We can all see the inconsistencies putting Hinduism against reality. Hinduism is also a philosophical religion, not a historical one. Not an ounce of it is provable.

Christianity, however, fulfills the criterion of truth and has sufficiency of explanation (where even science lacks it). There is a natural connection between theism and causality: intelligence, personality, intent, freedom, power, and laws. Theism has sufficient prior probability (simplicity of explanation) and complete explanatory power. The intrinsic probability of theism is, relative to other hypotheses about what there is, very high. Therefore, theism fulfills the obligations of Occam's Razor as being the simplest and most straight-forward explanation.