Is religion inherently flawed?

Question

1. God is omniscent, omnipresent, etc., basically, infinite and all-powerful. (generally accepted by most religions)

2. Man is not. (duh)

3. God is not revealed to man... man must have faith in his existence. (again, faith is a tenet of most religions)

4. Man has no quantifiable experience with something infinite and all-powerful (follows from #3 - he must rely on faith).

5. Man, as an imperfect and finite being with no quantifiable experience, expresses something infinite and perfect through religion. (follows from 1-4)

6. Therefore, organized religion is inherently flawed. (progression 1-5).

Questions: are there flaws in this logic? is there any form of religion that is not inherently flawed?

Answer 1

Christians believe that man was originally created perfect, so we could live with God and see Him (Garden of Eden). In this situation there is no blind faith necessary. After man sinned, God still spoke with Moses, etc., and a "quantifiable experience" was possible because God can "quantify" His infinite existence to whatever level humans can understand. That covers #2, 3, and 4. You could say that man expresses perfection through religion, but I could say that God expresses perfection through man. After all, He told us our religion in the first place and allows us to sustain our belief in Him through the Holy Sprit. You can say that these are unempirical, illogical claims, but I can say that God knows that you're thinking that, and the real test is to politely ask Him if He's there. Both are equally possible.

Answer 2

The conclusion is correct, although the logic is not. We can conceive of something infinite, even though it is unrealizable. A better approach is to realize that no religious precept is falsifiable: that there is no way to demonstrate that such a precept is not true. It can be proven that the predictive power of any theory obtains exclusively from its refutability. It immediately follows that no religious precept can make any prediction which is of use in the real world.

A previous responder alludes to virtues of faith. I, however, claim that faith is the ULTIMATE evil. Faith means to believe in something, in the absence of evidence or in the face of contrary evidence. But such belief is not logical. Since the distinguishing characteristic of H. Sapiens is the ability to use logic, this means that someone who professes faith has deliberately rejected the essence of his humanity and is nothing more than an animal. If you can think of anything that more evil than this, please let me know.

Answer 3

Religion is man's tradition. Christianity is about having a personal relationship with the Father as a son, or daughter. It is about knowing him, not just reading about him.It is about following his wisdom, not because we have to, but because we want to.It is about loving him, and trusting him. Yes man has done many wrongs and some churches have even went bad., but that doesnt change the fact that God has not changed. The flaw is man's rebellion against the truth.But God loves us enough to give us all free will.

Answer 4

Religion, the corporate structure of religion, is inherently flawed. Absolutely. Corrupt to the core.

However, Faith and Spirituality is not flawed when one is a child of God, has accepted Christ as their Savior, and is filled with the Holy Spirit. Those are not flawed. However, because of our sinful natures, our lusts of the flesh, our hatred for our neighbor, and our selfish, self-centered desires, we continue to sin.

If we keep the scriptures in our hearts--memorize them, know them by heart---then we have more defense against temptations that would lead us into sinful situations.

Answer 5

Yes.

Flaw 1. You presuppose a single god, and then attribute him omniscience/ potentence.

From that flaw the whole argument is useless.

Part 2.

Yes.

Wiccan : Presupposes a mulitude of powerful beings, beings are supernatural / beyond humanity , but not neccesarily perfect / omnipotent. each creature has "human" charecteristics. But some are beyond human ( example.... nymphs super beautiful... but ungrounded)

Or, anton le vey's version of satanism. its all about material possesion. and survivial of the fittest . no diety only other men to compare to. thus it is not logically flawed. however... there is not much true emotional gain from it.

Answer 6

Yes, flaw number one - God exists.

Answer 7

no, but all religions will try to throw together some proof, some ppl will realize this and give up all together, but i belive everyone must belive in somthing or else they will live a half life

Answer 8

Another guy looking for self validation. Get a life.

Answer 9

First Flaw: We imagine perfection in a being we have never seen and base many theological arguments on our supposition. Perfection is an idea only. So is logic.
Second Flaw: Do humans really need to be perfect or is it enough to have an idea of perfection and constantly improve oneself by reaching toward perfection? Can we not forgive ourselves for not being perfect. And if we learn to forgive ourselves, can we not go on to forgive each other?
Third Flaw: Religions began as inherently local. God lived in nature and nature fed and sheltered its people. It is a nice thing to feel thankful toward the environment for sustaining us. When humans began to make war with one another- right about at the beginning of recorded history- we made God portable. If the people we conquered would accept our version of sacredness, we allowed them to live, but if they rejected our idea of sacredness, we killed them. The same has been going on from that day to this. Religion retains its undertone of "local-ness" even as it tries to spread itself throughout the whole world. The national religions are the biggest threats to international peace that have ever existed. They are promoted by men with weapons. Convert or die. This or that. Black or white. Good or evil. All that is not of God must be of Satan. When a human being must make a quick life-or-death decision, we tend to use the simplest form of dualistic, absolutist thinking. Any animal can think in those terms. Stay or go. Fight or flee. Humans are capable of more. If God exists- which is to ask whether God has survived the abuses of the ignorant people who propigate religion- God would want a human to be more than an animal. There is much about the spirit world that I cannot know and that I cannot even guess about. There is much of the will of God that no human will ever know. But I think we can be assured of this much: God wants humans to be more than animals and the way for humans to do that is by the development of their minds and the loving parts of their souls.
Flaw #4 Not everything that exists as an idea exists as a reality. Infinity and perfection are cool ideas, but nothing shows them to contain any reality whatsoever.
Disambiguation: Faith is important. If not for believing something, how could we face tomorrow? But faith must have a good basis. If we know that the world is going to explode tomorrow, it doesn't matter how much we try to believe otherwise. It is stupid to have unfounded faith and it is useful to have well-founded faith. There is no one simple statement that can tell a person what faith is valuable and which faith is stupid. Only a mature person who can witness the truth can make this distinction for him- or herself. Faith is stupid without freedom to choose. But Choice is not absolute either. We don't choose to be born. We don't choose to have diseases. We might choose to be poor or to have an accident or we might have no choice in the matter. Most of us don't choose to die. In between those things, there are some choices we can make. A suceesful life is one in which we optimize our range and ability of making choices. A life devoted to the many characteristics symbolized by "service to God" is on the upper level of human endeavor. It is not entry-level or animal-level. It is not for the immature.
The thing called "religion" is a horrible perversion of spirituality and human growth. Religion is for small-minded people, gullible people, unskilled social climbers, wannabes, phonies, inferiority-complexed hiders from the truth and politicians.
True human development understands the goals of religions without buying into obsolete dogma.
No hateful person will ever see Heaven. And all of us have an opportunity to learn how to grow beyond hatred. In ancient times, religion might have helped, but now it hinders.
It comes down to who you want to please. Are you living for God or are you living for a religio-political leader?
Sorry for ranting and for not checking my spelling. I wish you luck in your search for truth.

Answer 10

something created by technique of humanity is "inherently incorrect", yet faith became not created by technique of humanity. faith became surpassed all the way down to us from God. John 6:40 seven "I inform you the reality, he who believes has eternal existence."