In order for a religion to be true, its teachings must be consistent with reality. Science is the intellectual tool used to find out what reality is and used to be. Thus, any religious doctrine that contradicts modern science is false. That discredits any form of Biblical literalism. We know the creation stories in the Book of Genesis couldn’t have happened; they are just like all the other creation myths that were made up by primitive peoples before science as a means of discovery was invented.
Likewise, the flood myth of Noah is impossible. It too was a product of prescientific thinking, and has no input from reality. The Babylonians had their own flood myth, as did the Greeks, the Indians, and other peoples. Because…..flooding happens all over the world, but only for a short time and on a local basis. The notion of a worldwide flood lasting for several months is completely unfounded. So we can throw out many of the stories in Genesis.
Credible stories in the Bible seem to start with Abraham. But aside from those stories, we know nothing about him. Shockingly, that is also true of Moses. Did you know there is NO direct evidence that the ancient Hebrews were actually enslaved for centuries in Egypt? NO direct evidence that they wandered in the Sinai desert for decades after leaving Egypt? Archeology first records evidence of them only after they arrive in the land of Canaan and conquer it.
So we can throw out the entire Torah and with it, the ancient Jewish religion and its modern descendants.
Christianity? Started as an effort to reform Judaism under first Jesus and then Peter, but then got hijacked by this upstart known as Paul who also claimed to be an apostle but began teaching the Christian faith to Greeks and Romans. The result was a different religion that was more Pagan in form than Jewish.
Islam began as a means of making a religion that was for Arabs, but the conquests of the Arab Muslims resulted in many non-Arabs converting to Islam. The Quran has many stories that are similar to the ones in the Bible.
The Babi Faith began when the Bab proclaimed himself to be a new Messenger of God. He was killed for this.
The Baha’i Faith began with Baha’u’llah declaring himself to be the future Messenger of God the Bab had foretold. But if you can’t believe in the Bab……in Muhammad……in Jesus……in Moses……or in Abraham……how can you believe in God?
For me, the final solution with regards to religion after looking at ALL of them was to decide that NONE of them were objectively true, but that because people do have different spiritual and emotional needs, there needs to be many different religions in the world. And that means:
- Stop trying to convert the entire world to only ONE religion! That is unrealistic.
- Attempting to convert the entire world to NO religion by FORCE is also harmful. As long as human beings have free will, there will be a diversity of thought.
So I invented the concept of “Spiritual Orientation” as a means of explaining why there are different faiths and how people leave certain religions and convert to others. And here it is:
If we leave a religion, it’s because it clashes with our spiritual orientation. Let us respect religious diversity and freedom for all!