Some religions have a holy book that tells them what to believe and how to behave. Some of the believers from these religions take the book to be the final word of ultimate truth, while other believers just take the general idea as true and try to lead a good life without really paying attention to the details. Then there are other religions that have come about from folk tales and family traditions which have no holy book to speak of. Some people of these religions find ways to be dogmatic anyway, while others simply go on what they feel is right and try to live by the few golden rules handed down through the ages.

This said, I move on to where these types of religions clash. The believers who have a holy book backing them up tend to believe there is only one ultimate truth, and that they've got it right there in a leather cover. Conveniently, this book says that all other religions, any other ways of believing, are the work of a devil or some other evil being. That any evidence we find that something in the book isn't true was put there by the Devil, and not to believe it. (For example, some people say their Bible disproves evolution, and that dinosaur bones and any other skeletons or remains that point toward evolution are the trickery of Satan to try to dissuade us from the truth.)

So of course, if this holy book is truth, anyone practicing something contrary to its fundamental teachings is doing the dark work of the Devil without even realizing it. Because this Devil is devious, and has tricked the unbelievers with earthly rewards to blind them from the truth. And no matter how much these people of the "other" religions protest that they don't even believe in an evil being, they are not to be trusted by the people with the holy book, because only their book is truth.

I just don't get it.

This is probably going to come off irreverant at best, blasphemous at worst, but I just don't see how a book that tells you to ignore all evidence of the truth of other beliefs, a book that tells you that your own feelings are fickle because you are flawed, can be trusted as the only possible truth. I'm not attacking the beliefs in the book; I'm only speaking out against the assertion within that you must interpret the world through the lens of this book. Of course the book is going to tell you that only it has the truth, and the best way to get you to follow it is to tell you to ignore anything that says otherwise, to take its truth on faith, at which point faith becomes its own virtue. That's the best way to close your mind, and to transfer your trust in your own mind to the words of a book, a book that may have contradictions and outdated information at that (many religious texts do). I'd be more open to believing something is "God's Word" if I see evidence of it in my life, if I feel that a higher presence is speaking to me through something that happens to me. To put experiences like this aside because a book claims to be the only truth, to me, would be the true blasphemy.

MattyW: Oh! I know exactly what you are talking about (somehow it's easier to grasp the all-encompasing hypocrisy and stupidity than it is to express it in words.)

I wrote a very interesting short story on this subject--a confused boys meets several different people, and when he first meets one of them, they proclaim that they are the only one that speaks the truth about life, etc.

Um...anyway. Yes.

Kamal Jones: wow this is the 4th comment i'm getting addicted to your essasies. just wanted to say i'm christian but i'm skeptical sometimes because now i've come to realize that the bible and religion and general was created by man...

Veggy: "This is probably going to come off irreverant at best, blasphemous at worst, but I just don't see how a book that tells you to ignore all evidence of the truth of other beliefs, a book that tells you that your own feelings are fickle because you are flawed, can be trusted as the only possible truth."

Of course, by 'Holy Books' you mean one of the three monotheistic faiths. I've never knew an instance where the idea of "Your feelings are fickle because you are flawed" was called in a particular faith, since some of the books encourage science and show that the world was "created" by God for Men. It would make little sense if Men shouldn't look further into where they should.

Modern western science was encouraged due to the idea that the universe is tangible and understandable--though infinitely vast and complex--, was created by God. Did Christianity encourage science? Hell yes!

How about the claims against that? Greek science was obstructed. Edward Gibbon said it's because of Christianity's oppressive rise, but then again--A closer reading reveals that the Greek beliefs in Fate and in a myriad of fickle gods who altered reality at a whim partly undermined their ability to study the natural world. Some philosophers emphasized intangible spirit as perfection and matter as corrupt. Not only did Aristotle's natural philosophy state that a heavy object will fall faster than a light one, a vacuum is impossible, the universe is eternal and the earth is at its centre, but he went so far as to claim that these things had to be so. In fact, Aristotelianism (highly influential on the medieval scholastics) proved to be a hindrance to the development of experimental science in the West. The medieval debates about God's ability to create alternate worlds (Aristotle's teachings said no, the Church said yes) were not pointless theological nit-picking but in fact were highly significant to the birth of science.

(source: http://www.bede.org.uk/hieronymus.htm )

Of course, some Christians go, "OMG NO" and just make a mockery of their history, but that's in all the faiths.

"I'm not attacking the beliefs in the book; I'm only speaking out against the assertion within that you must interpret the world through the lens of this book. Of course the book is going to tell you that only it has the truth, and the best way to get you to follow it is to tell you to ignore anything that says otherwise, to take its truth on faith, at which point faith becomes its own virtue. That's the best way to close your mind, and to transfer your trust in your own mind to the words of a book, a book that may have contradictions and outdated information at that (many religious texts do). I'd be more open to believing something is "God's Word" if I see evidence of it in my life, if I feel that a higher presence is speaking to me through something that happens to me. To put experiences like this aside because a book claims to be the only truth, to me, would be the true blasphemy."

Depends on what is your "lens". Some people find contradictions, and some people don't. If the text does contradict itself, take another perspective. If there isn't, there is a problem I have not yet faced.

I generally pick up the notion to go ask those who are known to be the pinnacle of their said faith and question them, and not people who feel strong bitterness about any faith and constantly call those who believe morons.

But you're right. Your points are valid and are highly accurate. There should be a less tension between science and religion--who knows why that came out. I personally blame extremists from both sides.

Wolfgang: This gets even more awkward within religions. Muslims believe that the holy Qur'an must be interpreted in the original Classical Arabic, which is all well and good, but then you get Christians who assert similar this about the King James Bible, despite the fact that it's not how tha Bible was originally written. And before The protestant movement you had the belief that the Bible, an amalgam of books in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, could never be translated out of the original... Latin.