List of false things various religions claim (or use to claim) to be true

[Eliminator]

Here is a list of FALSEHOODS that religions currently or used to claim to be true

1) Creationism. Human beings were created by God in his image. This is not true. Evolution is the truth.


2) The age of the Earth. It is 6000 years old. This is not true. Earth is actually 4.54 billion years old.


3) Visions, inspired writings, and the like. God worked through various prophets to spread his word. This is not true. These prophets were likely suffering from schizophrenia or any of the other similar mental disorders that have been established over decades of research.

4) Homosexuality is an abomination, a sin, and not natural. This is not true.


5) People dying through sickness is God's will. This is not true. Sickness is caused by bacteria and viruses, and has nothing to do with God.


6) The sun is God. This is not true. The sun is a star.

[cleanhippie]

1. Believers tend to get agitated over using the word "truth", perhaps saying that

the empirical evidence overwhelmingly supports (Evolution, or other scientifically verifiable claim) while there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to support the claim of (creationism, or other religious claim).

Just a thought. Its more specific and does not allow for the "wiggle-room" the proponents of religious claims need to move the goalposts.

[pokerfan]

2. I always liked the way Indiana Jones phrased it

Giving a lecture in class:

Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.

You can pretty much substitute any science for archeology in that quote. The religious tend to have a big problem with this distinction and point to scientific revolutions (geocentrism, relativity, quantum theory) as evidence that scientists don't have a clue what's really going on. But here's the thing: In science, all knowledge is provisional. If you can't handle that, then one should indeed take up philosophy or theology.

"I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me."
-Richard Feynman

[cleanhippie]

3. That is a great distinction. Facts are much more important.

[skepticscott]

4. Must have been hard

to stop at 6.

[Boojatta]

5. "Sickness is caused by bacteria and viruses, and has nothing to do with God."

If God is a prion, then recent scentific discoveries have shown that your reasoning is unsound.

[cbayer]

6. I have never seen anyone here assert the "truth" of #'s 1, 2, 4, 5 or 6.

Actually, I've never seen anyone anywhere assert #6, but I could have missed that one.

As to #3, I would love to see the evidence that anyone who has had visions or issued inspired writings were all suffering from some major psychiatric illness. Can you provide me with links to the decades of research that supports this?

Interestingly, there was recently a thread about how 70% of the population believes in a very loosely defined concept of angels. In the thread, many people talked about their personal experiences that they could not explain. Things like having a premonition or feeling the presence of a recently lost loved one. Most of the people sharing these things did not relate them to religious experiences nor did they consider themselves religious believers.

[MarkCharles]

7. Does that matter that posters here have not stated any or all of...

these misunderstandings of facts?

Most DU members have been exposed to enough of the world, or can access a religious channel on their cable TV where most if not all of these assertions have been and still are being made.


Must one only post here about the beliefs of fellow posters, or are we free to discuss, (for example) the religious beliefs of major Republican Presidential candidates, who, to this very day, consider gay folks marrying to be against their religion. Rick Perry, for example, openly associates his campaign with Dominionists, who believe in the necessity of a fundamentalist Christian religion overtaking the government. These people are out there, and I believe, (based upon my knowledge of our Constitution) that these religious ideas are a threat to our freedoms in this nation.

To most members of DU, I would imagine, ideas like these are anathema, but they are widely held ideas.
Should we not discuss them and share with each other the irrational nature of such beliefs?

As for number 3, I would think it would be a matter of those asserting that they have had visions or whatever to substantiate their sanity, not the other way around.

[tama]

9. Insane until proven sane?

By all means, substantiate your own sanity...

[MarkCharles]

11. I'm not the one claiming visions or divine inspirations.

I'm not even claiming sanity at all times and in all places in my life.

You are free to draw your own conclusions. But please don't claim that any and every vision and apparition ever seen by every human being was always a moment of sanity. I have a list of hundreds of mental hospitals and prisons where the residents of those places won't prove that accurate. Let's start with the most egregious cases like the Texas mother who killed her several young children because she was convinced by god to do so.

[cbayer]

14. There is absolutely no doubt that psychiatric disorders can cause hallucinations.

There is also no question that many people with severe psychiatric illness have religious themes running through their delusional systems

That's not the question. The question is, has everyone who has ever heard a voice or produced an "inspired writing" plagued with such an illness. The assertion was made that that is the case.

[cleanhippie]

16. Do you not think that anyone who "hears voices" is not in some way, insane?

The term "insane" brings up the picture of someone in a padded cell, but it is a much broader term than just that extreme.

But the question of whether someone who is "hearing voices" is insane or not I think would qualify, at least minimally, as insane, no?


"inspired" in the way you used it is a very, very ambiguous term and need clarification for a reasoned reply.

[cbayer]

17. I associate insanity with psychiatric illness.

If I encounter someone who is hearing voices because of, say, a brain tumor, I would not use the term insane. So definition does matters here.

The term "inspired" was used by the OP. I agree it is very ambiguous, but according to him, there are decades of research to back up that ambiguous assertion.

Again, in my differential, the possibility that someone who said they were hearing the voice of god was actually hearing the voice of god would be very, very low on the list. But I would not presume to rule it out entirely, as I just don't know how to do that. I certainly have no way of assessing historical, religious figures for psychiatric illness.

Have you ever had a discussion with someone who has had an experience that they could not explain? Someone who you knew to be perfectly sane?

[tama]

25. Can you

explain the experience of the need to explain everything? Or prove that it - let's call it for example "obsessive-compulsive rationalizing and definitionism" - is either sane or insane experience?

[cbayer]

26. I am assuming that your question is rhetorical and not in need of an answer.

Hello, tama. Very nice to make your acquaintance.

[tama]

23. I don't think so

even minimally so. The mutual help organizations for people "hearing voices" don't think so, nor does even standard psychiatry. Certaintly, together with other symptoms hearing voices can lead to a psychiatric diagnosis, but not alone. And the prejudice you together with lot of society are showing, is anything but helpful.

Whether what the voices are saying should be taken seriously by the listener, is wholly situation dependent.

[tama]

21. I think

we are all part of collective insanity.

But the point was the "insane until able to prove oneself sane" claim about any and all with experiences that don't fit in to some norm, which does not stand up to rational nor ethical scrutiny. It's been empirically tested, in one study ordinary people signed in mental hospitals and many often ending up falsely diagnosed and even having troubles getting out of the system. It's very very difficult and even impossible to prove that you are sane, even by normal standards and practices - regardless of what you have or have not experienced. And as the modern society is quite insane (suicidally so), the standards of sanity that it holds up can be quite insane also.

[cbayer]

10. Where did I say that it shouldn't be discussed.

I was merely clarifying that these kind of fundamentalist beliefs are not held by all religious people and particularly not by liberal, activist left wing religious people. It's important that that distinction be made, imo.

I agree that there are people whose religious beliefs are a threat to this nation and that we have to do whatever we can to lessen their influence. One of the ways to do that is to support those who reject their bigotry and there are many here who would describe themselves as believers who do just that.

I don't think most of the people who have been referred to in #3 are around to substantiate their sanity. The statement was made that decades of research has proven that they were all insane and I asked for some evidence of that decades of research. Certainly, as someone who shares your high regard and respect for scientific proof of things, I should be able to ask for this.

[Eliminator]

12. If anybody, in this day and age, claims to hear God speaking to him...

Would you believe him? Or would you think he had some kind of mental disorder? Why is it that people believe it when it was claimed to happen centuries ago?

[cbayer]

13. Is that your decades of research.

I can tell you with great certainty that I would not assume they had some kind of mental disorder, as there are lots of reasons one might claim to hear god speaking to them. They could be making it up to gain something, they might have an underlying physical disorder, they might be intoxicated, they might have a brain tumor. Or they might actually be hearing god talk to them, though that would be low on my list of suspected causes. But I couldn't prove it wasn't true.

Still interested in all that research about historical and religious figures that proved they all had psychiatric disorders.

[MarkCharles]

18. "It's important that that distinction be made" why?

I think the OP stated "various religions" which, of course, leaves the door wide open for those who wish to claim that this is not part of "their own" religion. But what is religion, then, a Chinese menu kind of buffet?
Do we get the right to reject anything we want, and embrace only what "feels" right, according to our ethical and moral and political views?


This is a major problem I see here quite often. The "we are different from them" type of thinking. How would we know this? Where is the proof? Are liberal Christians out there fighting every day against the Pat Robertsons of the world? I don't see nor hear of that. Instead I see them fighting atheism, fighting the war for Christmas, asserting a moral superiority over someone else at every turn. Never verifying that their rational grasp upon reality is greater than that of anyone else. I don't wish to accuse them of not having a grasp upon reality, far be it from me to say something that outrageous. I'm just saying the "we versus them" phenomenon I have seen often among religious believers.

My personal opinion is that this same kind of magical thinking, this "belief" in the supernatural, this turning over one's self to a god, this surrender of rational thought to some higher power than one's self, this is an OPEN DOOR INVITATION to those who may have serious psychological issues to surrender their rational thinking and allow any form of magical thinking to take over. Andrea Yates is a prime example of how a system of religious thought can invite a "devil in the details" approach, no pun intended.

This is a major construct of religious thinking: namely, the "we are NOT in control of our destiny" type of thinking. Of course we are not in control, none of us knows if we might be hit by lightning or run-over by a bus tomorrow. But surrendering our rational minds to a super-natural force is equivalent to opening that same gate as allowing our mind to flow wherever, and to be influenced by any image, any thought, any command we "feel" we have gotten from someone or some force or some divine inspiration or simple coincidence in our lives. It is, therefore, a dangerous path to walk down, in my personal view.

Now, I know and respect many people who hold religious beliefs. Don't get me wrong. My beliefs need not be the same as your own. But I hold my skepticism as to what kind of mental tricks and games the religious mind-set can enable upon us simple, easily deceived and easily confused humans. Leaving ourselves open to this kind of thought regimen, I just have to say, it doesn't sit easily with me.

[cbayer]

20. If you know and respect many people who hold religious beliefs, it certainly

isn't substantiated by what you post here. I don't think describing religious people as easily deceived and easily confused shows much respect at all.

[MarkCharles]

33. Do you have any studies to prove otherwise?

I would like to see studies of what you assert, namely that religious people are NOT the ones easily deceived.

If you find that insulting, prove otherwise with studies of all those atheists so easily deceived, and all those religious people NOT easily deceived. Shall I start a list of deeply religious people who killed their loved ones because they were told by their god to do so?

Which name shall I start with?

[tama]

8. I have also

problem with the claim #3. The symptoms of what shamanic cultures consider 'shaman's disease' and what Western psychiatry diagnose as schitzofrenia, bipolar syndrom, combination of those, psychosis etc., are very similar or inseparable. Obviously both diagnoses are culturally dependent views, not objective universal truths. There is lot of internal and external criticism against Western mainstream psychiatry, for good reasons.

[MarkCharles]

15. All forms of psychosis, bi-polar, schizophrenia, etc. are..

biochemically definable. We can actually measure these phenomena, the science is in!

Yes, we can criticize from the inside and from the outside our "Western mainstream psychiatry", mainly because few of the proper diagnostic procedures are used by so many people with MD next to their name.

But no, people who have schizophrenia or bi-polar disorders, depression, depression with psychotic features, etc. are ALL biochemically recognizable disorders, just as Cancer, or pneumonia, or diabetes can be so precisely biochemically diagnosed. Mental illnesses are verifiable illnesses, not some religious visioning.

Religion invites more misdiagnosis, proper use of medicine verifies the opposite.

[cbayer]

19. Much of what you assert is just patently wrong.

While we can say that many forms of psychosis respond to a chemical intervention, leading us to presume that there is an underlying, measurable phenomena at play, most psychiatric illness are not biochemically definable. Essentially, we hit them with sledgehammers when the problem most likely needs a very, very small fix in a very limited place. And then there are psychoses and other psychiatric disorders that don't respond to anything we currently have available.

And where in the world do you get the information that few people with an MD next to their name use proper diagnostic procedures? Please provide me with the precise biochemical diagnostic tools for the psychiatric disorders you list. We could make a fortune and probably win the Nobel Peace Prize in medicine were we to publish these tools.

[MarkCharles]

27. No, actually, we can measure about every aspect human illness, while we cannot cure

everyone, we can measure illness.

I am sorry if your biochemistry training is about 30 years our of date.

I am reporting your post as a violation of the TOS here. and asking that you be banned from further insults to fellow posters.

[cbayer]

29. I would greatly appreciate it if you would post the results of your alert.

[MarkCharles]

30. I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop harrassing fellow posters and stop...

accusing us of lying when you do not have the medical training nor the tact to stop insulting posters with whom you disagree.

It has become obvious to many that you are not up to the job you have been honored with. Your bias is only too obvious to most here.

There are no results to report, as of yet, but when they are in, I am sure you will not longer be able to log in here to see them..

[rug]

37. Got those results yet?

[petronius]

38. Can't help with the other one, but if you're curious, here are the results from the

alert on this post (#29):

At Sun Jan 8, 2012, 10:51 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

I would greatly appreciate it if you would post the results of your alert.

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

Personal messaging, bullying, harrassing, and generally exercising opinion over facts, see previous alerts. Harassment is against the terms of service...

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Jan 8, 2012, 11:22 AM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: There's nothing wrong with this post. (-- Petronius)
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: I did not see the insult or bullying in this post - and I don't see anything in cbayer's posts here that are even close to personal insults, let alone TOS violations. MarkCharles, on the other hand, seems to be bullying and harassing.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: I know this is a TOS alert and there's some past history I'm unaware of, but tempers in the thread seem raised and people should step away and cool off.

When it comes to this post, if someone posts that they've alerted on another post in the thread, I don't think it's disruptive for someone to ask for the results to be posted. The person being asked isn't under any obligation to post the results, and would be wise to just ignore the request if they don't want to do it.

[tama]

22. I'm sure

you know the maxim: coincidence does not equal causation, biochemistry is in and offers one valid viewpoint, along with others, but there is whole lot more than reduction to biochemistry (and big bucks for big pharma selling pills).

Reduction to biochemistry (only) is a religion called scientism, not science according to scientific ideals.

[MarkCharles]

31. Next time you have appendicitis, come to think of it as coincidence that your

white blood cell count is extremely elevated.

And go home and pray.

I am seriously tiring of anti-intellectualized statements like yours appearing in a forum of rational adults.

[tama]

36. Yes

proselytizing any religion or dogmatically held belief system, including Scientism, can be mentally and physically stressing exhausting. But like it or not, Scientism does not equal science, and reductionism of all mental phenomena to biochemistry and biochemistry only is "not even theory"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism:
"2. To refer to "the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry,"[11] or that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective"[6] with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience."[14][15]

The term is also used to highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism in all fields of human knowledge.[16][17][18]"

.

[skepticscott]

24. Ah, yes...

No religious person I know is like this. Therefore none are.

Where have we heard THAT before?

[cbayer]

28. C'mon Scott. While I clearly made the first statement, I certainly did not make the

second one. I fully acknowledge that there are lots and lots of religious people that believe these things (except for that sun thing, but I have just never heard that before).

[skepticscott]

32. Then exactly what was the reason

for inserting the qualifier "here" in the title of #6? Why would it matter at all for you to say that people here hadn't made such claims (since the OP clearly wasn't limited to this group) if you weren't trying to imply in some way that that behavior extended to religious people at large? Have you all of sudden repudiated the notion that people's specific words shouldn't be what we judge them by?

And please...you've never heard of a sun god? Apollo's chariot? Sol? Sol Invictus? Ra? Never in your life?

[cbayer]

34. The reason was to make a distinction between different beliefs among different groups.

While some groups hold maniacally onto many of the things listed, most liberal, progressive theists or believers do not. I was attempting to point that out. I can see how I may not have been clear.

You are right about old beliefs about a sun god. I wasn't looking at this from that perspective, but more from what some people continue to currently believe. There probably are still people that believe in a sun god, I just haven't met any of them.

[MarkCharles]

35. "most liberal, progressive theists or believers do not" How do you know?

Do you have studies and proof to offer?

Or is this just your OPINION?

Quite honestly, when one posts so much misinformation about the level of human biochemistry,I have to question where you are getting your information from. I'm not saying you are WRONG, but blatant statements like "most liberal, progressive theists or believers do not" needs some backup data, don't you agree?

By the way, if you had asked for links to the biochemistry of mental illness, I have thousands of links, and tens of thousands of articles in peer reviewed science. But your arrogance was to simply state that I was wrong without any data to back you up.

I think I'm going to investigate if the ignore feature works here.

[skepticscott]

39. That would be credible

if you had actually MADE such a distinction in that post. But you didn't.

[cbayer]

41. You are right. I am not credible.

[skepticscott]

42. Where did I say

YOU are not credible? If you're going to restate my position, you might at least do it accurately. It would save you a few headaches.

What I said was "That would be credible..." if you had done something you did not do. "That" referred to your specific statement in the title of post 34: "The reason was to make a distinction between different beliefs among different groups" made in response to my previous question. What other than a deep-seeded need to play the victim would lead you to think or say "that" referred to you in general, or to every statement you had ever made here?

[cbayer]

43. You right. I have a deep seated need to play the victim, lol.

[skepticscott]

44. Since you seen unable or unwilling to respond substantively

to specific and detailed responses to your posts, and seem determined instead to paint yourself as portrayed in ways you haven't been portrayed, you don't leave much in the way of alternate explanations. And you wouldn't be the first religionist here to take on that mantle, by any means.

[cbayer]

45. I'm a religionist? Can you tell me what I believe and don't believe?

Honestly, scott, I don't think there is anything I could say that would get a pass from you. So, I will just let you think whatever you want.

[skepticscott]

46. Sheesh...still more playing the victim

Do I respond negatively to EVERY post you make? Of course not. Most of your posts I don't feel any need to disagree with at all, so I don't. What is that, if not "getting a pass"? Am I assumed to disagree with you unless I offer up rousing huzzahs?

And if you're not religious in any way, if you never attend religious services and if you don't believe in any gods, please feel free to say so and correct me. Until then, I'm sticking with my outrageous, unfounded, illogical conclusion.

[Quartermass]

40. Atheism is a religion or a faith.

Any ideology or religion that does not teach to worship God is the work of Satan (such as but certainly not limited to Wicca and Buddhism).

There is a war on Christmas and Christians in general.

Christians are special people that everybody must bow down to and obey.

God must never be mocked. God has a sense of humor.

Free will is a lie, there is no such thing as free will in religion.

Christians are the most persecuted group in America despite that they're the vast majority.

Marriage is between a man and a woman only.

Sex is evil and bad. It's immoral sex that is evil and bad.

Women must be made a slave to their biology and must sacrifice their life so that the baby be born if need be.

Abortion is evil period.

God must always answer yes to a person's prayers.

Atheists are bad and evil people because they can't know morality because morality comes only from God.

Morality comes from God.