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Why do theists believe in their book without reading every book?

Why is a theist so adamant that their religion/belief/book is correct when there are 1000s of other religions / beliefs /books out there ( and a lot of them with similar stories too)

I can safely say there is no way they've read all the books. So how can they be so sure their one is correct.

Rock1 4 Mar 31
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2

There is no anwer to your WHY that will satisfy either you or them. These, even with books, are unprovable subjects.How much fiction do you see in a library? Have ypu ever WHY cannot people just say believe as you wish and let others alone? Most Americans settled here for freedom of religion. The only American religion is MORMON. The founder of ormonism was wandering arojund in the forsts of New York and found some tablets.The Native American Belief Systems belongs to their tribes.

"Found some tablets" should be "claimed to find tablets" as the church can not produce them. Also, the (nearly extinct as most have been indoctrinated into whatever Christian based church the government paid the church to (Educate) them) traditional Native American religions are largely comparable (based on?) Shintoism. I find their traditional "religion" vastly superior to any Abrahamic religion.

@NoMagicCookie The original Native Americans Indians before abuse by the white man, have a very naturalistic approach. They are very spiritual. I admire their ability to say so much with so few words. Like: ' Know the power that is peace.' Black Elk. That is on the side of a ranger building on indian reservation land in Montana.

2

They base it on their faith, which is the ONLY weapon they need.

3

You do not have to read all the books. It's just a matter of brainwashing and training as a child. Each area of the world has its own religions. If any of the religious books were true, evidence for that particular god would stand out like the Grand Canyon.

3

Becasue they were brainwashed as a child.

2

I doubt most of them have read the Bible. I also doubt that a large number of them can read anything above an elementary school level.

4

They proceed with sturdy blinders that keep them looking only in one direction, and thus suspect of any other possible way of thinking ! Mustn't ever think for yourself ...

5

I think the main draw of religion is actually to gain a sense of belonging. We evolved as animals in groups for safety, and instinctually we still tend to put ourselbes into groups, because to be surrounded by others makes us feel emotionally safer.

So, in this case, a person finds a group who accepts them. They have a book they claim to follow. (Although few of them have actually read it and at best have read it selectively.) So, they already feel safe, and they feel no need to read other books. Espeically when their group will ostracise them and hey will lose standign int he group if they read other religious taxts.

Most people who read other religious texts, may keep a belief in god, but usually lose their faith in a particular religion, or in other words lose standing and acceptance within their current group. Instinctually that summons up fears, which can drive tham back into their religious group to feelo safe againg.

The actiosn humans take are guided by or driven by animal instincts a lot mroe than mos tpeopel generally acknowledge.

4

You don't need to read all the other books to believe in something a book says. You need critical thinking skills. That's the best antibody for such delusions. Reading all the other books is tantamount to vaccinations.

2

“I think all the great religions of the world – Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism – both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true.” Bertrand Russell in Why I am not a Christian

Your belief system is your right, so allow others to have theirs.

4

Childhood indoctrination.

2

the old saying never judge the book by its cover

Rosh Level 7 Mar 31, 2018
4

To do that would violate the doctrine of so many religions. The Abrahamic religions are notorious for this - namely if you don't believe in the account given in the book then you deserve to die on the spot, or you will suffer eternal torment of the most horrible sort. This is enough for many people to buy into. It is the old fright game. From a practical point reading all the thousands of "holy" books be they illustrative or intructive would be a religion in itself. As for me I will ocassionally dable into a book or so of these types but I always draw the samd conclusion.Namely it cannot be true what the book says - even more so it the book says you will be damned if you don't believe its contents.

Yep, yep, yep ... believers truly think they will burn in the flames of eternal hell because their books tell them so. The "holy" books can have some words of wisdom .... but they also have a lot of B.S. Being a woman, of course, I do not love the anti-woman stuff in these "holy" books.

3

I don't know

6

They don't even read their own Bible, much less any other book.

Yes - ever try to dig into the bible of your own volition? Unless you are in some type of instructional class I defy 99.9% of people to read it all the way through. Vonnegut says it better anyway

@GeorgeBedford I began reading through the entire Bible when I was eight, even though my missionary parents weren't particularly religious, being United Methodists. I read it so many times I almost had it memorized.

After I began reading it in the original Hebrew and Greek, I realized that 99% of what I'd been taught in church wasn't in the Bible anyway. I felt relieved when I read the Sumerian texts and saw that the Bible was copied from them.

birdingnut - Thank you so much for your commentary and your journey - very appreciative

I was raised Catholic. My parents were believers of a sort but really not all that doctrinaire. I believe we went as a family because that was expected. Growing up I lived in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Those are the most Catholic states in the entire country. The bible is very much a Protestant thing as you know one of the main thrusts of the movement was that all should read the bible. Although of course being a Christian church we held the bible to be a holy book we were not encouraged as lay people to read it.We were not told to not read it but it was really something that a priest should tell you about or at least a nun.There was much more emphasis on the new testament - the old testament was to the Catholic church too related to the Hebrews. All the Sturm and Drang was really for the Protestants to agonize over. We had religious instruction of which I went to until I was a senior in high school. Although most of the mass nowadays is in English when I attended church in my youth nearly the entire service was in Latin. The only English spoken by the priest was the sermon. So the bible is really not a part of being a Catholic to this very day. So my family did say grace but swapping stories from the bible just wasn't part of our reality.. As I've said I have picked it up on my own but found it near impossible to get into.I did know this one old chap growing up who told me the bible is the truth it just isn't factual. Nowadays when a televangelist gets wound up with the bible in hand quoting from the old testament I nearly always disagree with what is being said. I am reading the new testament in conjunction with reading two books by Elaine Pagels - who is a minister of religion at Princeton. She is quite good - she puts Satan - Adam and Eve - the Serpent in context of the times they were written in. How history affected the writing. She has a very interesting discussion on the synoptic gospels Mark - Mattew - and Luke.and points out the subtle differences between the largely identical texts. I might add she is respectful and her goal is for the reader to follow along and see how they got to be the way they have become..

@GeorgeBedford LOL! If you read the Sumerian texts, carved on the walls of Babylon 2000 years before the Bible was written, you'll see that the Bible was copied from the texts. They tell the same stories, similar names, except from the perspective of aliens, who genetically engineered humans by blending their DNA with that of human apes. In the story of Noah, for instance, the Sumerians showed their favorite human, Noah, how to build a submarine, then put the DNA of all the animals in it, instead of the actual animals.

The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts [ancient-origins.net]?

@birdingnut and now you know the real story. Many words do not translate from languages. They improvise. in Spanish, My Colombian friend said his wife thought he was funny because ceiling and roof in Spanish ar the same word. So is ground and floor. For generations it was told mouth to mouth before it was even attempted to be written done. Some of it sounds childish, like where did Adam and Eve's son's get wives? The Bible is a beautiful book in places, but in other places makes no sense. The John that wrote Revelations fasted on an island 2 months. It is all nuts.I have a girlfriend who fasted for 3 weeks in Greece. She was American and woke up about 10 months later in a mental ward. She ask them what she did. They said she sang much of the time..

5

I am sure that most believers in all religions which have a "holy book" have never read the entire thing.They are all selective in taking the parts they want to emphasize.

5

It’s not a fair question to ask of people with no intention to think for themselves, they were told by what they concider to be an authority that had done the research for them... I also have not read the Bible cover to cover but I’ve read enough and I can tell a fable from a fact, that’s like an atheist super power.

6

The old adage -stay with your own kind, marry within your own religion still must exist and be practiced in the more fundamentalist sects in Christianity, Judaism and Muslim communities.

8

Simple indoctrination, brainwashing, geography, family history.

6

In my opinion, it's fear. It's fear of having their beliefs challenged or worse, their mind changed, especially if they've grown up being taught their specific beliefs. I was once in a relationship with a staunch Baptist and i had read an interesting article on Satanism because i really didn't know much about it. After discovering it's not inherently evil and despite the name, has nothing to do with Satan, i tried to explain it to her. She wouldn't let me and basically demanded we change the subject.

7

Most don't read their own book so don't get your hopes up

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