(July 7, 2015 at 4:16 pm)robvalue Wrote: Sure, there is that. But then it may be the case that whatever God wants you to believe in contradictory gibberish, even if it isn't actually possible it could all be correct. There's no accounting for taste.
It's pretty easy to demonstrate there is a zero chance any "religion" is correct. All you need do is add an extra possible criteria. Does the God want you to worship him 4 or 5 times a day? Get it wrong, and you lose. Now pick another, anything. Does he want you to pray for 20 seconds, 30 seconds? 50 seconds? Gotta pick the exact time (potentially) or you lose.
There are an infinite number of extra criteria you could pile on. There isn't enough time in this life to even examine them all, let alone pick them all right. Even if you got every single one right so far (and you can't know that you have) there's still infinitely more criteria to potentially satisfy. It's impossible. You have to make unfounded assumptions that the God will be "happy enough" with a certain range of actions/beliefs.
And all this is assuming there is just one God... You get the idea.
The thing is, you can eliminate entire groups of religions all at once. For example, the problem of evil shows that all religions that involve an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly benevolent god are false, because such a god is incompatible with the world as we know it. So an infinite number of possible religions are eliminated with that one argument.
Now, if there were a god that wanted you to believe in contradictory gibberish, that would be an evil being. You would then be likely screwed no matter what.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
