(June 8, 2015 at 3:20 pm)robvalue Wrote: @Nestor: By "truth" I meant the truth of which is the correct religion. Other things we are taught usually have justification behind them. It's no coincidence that maths, for example, is the same everywhere. Of course anyone could be taught any bunch of nonsense, sure. But religion is very different to most forms of "truth" in that they require just believing in them despite there being no evidence. I don't think that's particularly true of very much else. Normally we can be given at least some demonstration of why we should believe it, and if it is true it will stand up to investigation. Religion is just not to be investigated!I see. But I'm not sure I would want to argue---and maybe this isn't what you meant---that something is false because a person's belief in it largely depends on accidental circumstances like the time and place they are born. Otherwise it seems like just about every point of view that is not tautological (there is some debate whether math is or isn't) can be dismissed as contingent on facts of happenstance.
But it is true that if you control people's environments, you can control what they think, to a large degree. The more insular the environment, the more this is the case.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza