Religion invokes a One-sided World View

[Heat]

From what I've observed, I believe that religion invokes a one sided world view.

This is not true for all religious, but a large majority, you can see it prominently in the US. 

For the religious, let's say there's a christian for example. This Christian likely views the world by religions, or identifies them, but most likely he will have little knowledge of what Muslims believe[for ex.]. This creates a distance between those two people. I can garuntee most religious see the world as whatever they believe, and then some other weird people that believe something else. That's at least what I observed in my Bible class. It creates a one-sidedness, where you pay attention to those who follow your religion, and it's not that you don't like the others, but you disregard them because you don't understand their beliefs, this is what believing one religion over another creates, it creates this gap of understanding, whereas Atheists and others see all religions as equal reason to believe based on the lack of evidence for all of them, a religious person won't see it that way. They will see it as people who believe what they believe, but fail to understand how someone can believe something else because of their pre-conceived bias and communal acceptance of their religious preference, not considering other religions as equal reason to believe in.

Thoughts?


(PS: Sorry if I generalized. Normally I can always find the right words, but I kinda lost track of where I was going after feeling like I knew what to say at the start, and wasn't really feeling it, so go easy on me, hopefully you understood what I was saying.) 

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Since all religions demand complete fidelity a person can't be religious unless he's a bigot. The point of being a believer of any religion is to disregard, or hate, all other religions as being wrong and evil. Therefore, a really firm believer in any religion doesn't give a damn about understanding the other folks' favorite religious fairy tales.

Just because a group of people might consider themselves to be members of an umbrella religion (Judaism, Christianity, Judaism, etc.) if they are not all members of the same sect they generally regard the others as deviants and almost as evil as non-believers.

[Heat]

Since all religions demand complete fidelity a person can't be religious unless he's a bigot.  The point of being a believer of any religion is to disregard, or hate, all other religions as being wrong and evil.  Therefore, a really firm believer in any religion doesn't give a damn about understanding the other folks' favorite religious fairy tales.  

Just because a group of people might consider themselves to be members of an umbrella religion (Judaism, Christianity, Judaism, etc.) if they are not all members of the same sect they generally regard the others as deviants and almost as evil as non-believers.

I wasn't just talking about the devout, but moderately religious as well, they just develop this failure to understand the justification for anyone believing in a religion different from theirs.

[robvalue]

Certainly they are often able to dismiss in all of five seconds the devoutly held beliefs of people from other religions as "wrong" yet will utterly fail to notice the exact same flaws in their own beliefs.

Christianity and Islam particularly have a very clear divide between the in and out group. The out group will receive worse treatment after death, and not only that, they deserve it, just for not picking that particular religion out of the infinite number available.

[Heat]

Certainly they are often able to dismiss in all of five seconds the devoutly held beliefs of people from other religions as "wrong" yet will utterly fail to notice the exact same flaws in their own beliefs.

Christianity and Islam particularly have a very clear divide between the in and out group. The out group will receive worse treatment after death, and not only that, they deserve it, just for not picking that particular religion out of the infinite number available.

It adds to this instant dismissal, that even though this effects all religious peoples a majority of the time, the fact that christianity is most prominent in the US, and Iraq in a few different countries but that these religions are almost on opposite sides of the world, or might as well be, means that the average christian will not hesitate for a second before dismissing the validity of a muslims belief.

[robvalue]

Indeed. What this actually points to is two distinct gods with limited areas of influence. That's the only sensible way to reconcile the very high correlation between geography and religion.

Actually, there are two even more sensible ways:

1) There is only one God, but all religions contain woefully inaccurate representations.

2) There are no gods outside of people's minds.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Since all religions demand complete fidelity a person can't be religious unless he's a bigot.  The point of being a believer of any religion is to disregard, or hate, all other religions as being wrong and evil.  Therefore, a really firm believer in any religion doesn't give a damn about understanding the other folks' favorite religious fairy tales.  

Just because a group of people might consider themselves to be members of an umbrella religion (Judaism, Christianity, Judaism, etc.) if they are not all members of the same sect they generally regard the others as deviants and almost as evil as non-believers.

I wasn't just talking about the devout, but moderately religious as well, they just develop this failure to understand the justification for anyone believing in a religion different from theirs.

If a person is religious at all it's stupid for him to believe in any other religions or to give them any credibility.

[Heat]

I wasn't just talking about the devout, but moderately religious as well, they just develop this failure to understand the justification for anyone believing in a religion different from theirs.

If a person is religious at all it's stupid for him to believe in any other religions or to give them any credibility.

No, obviously he won't be believing in any other religions. However, it does create a gap of understanding.

He doesn't have to give them credibility either. For instance, as Atheists, we don't give any religion credibility, because there is no credible evidence behind any one of them. However, the difference is, we at least understand why people will choose those religions. Most religious peoples, however, fail to understand the reasoning behind people choosing different religions, and chances are if they did, they would start to question the reasoning that they use to justify believing their own religion, and come to the conclusion that there is nothing in particular that justifies believing one over the other. However, we are talking about the people who haven't questioned this, the average religious person does not usually stop to question or ponder over the authenticity of their belief, and for their own lack of understanding about the reasoning of their own belief, the biproduct is a lack of understanding of reasoning for anyone else's belief.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Certainly they are often able to dismiss in all of five seconds the devoutly held beliefs of people from other religions as "wrong" yet will utterly fail to notice the exact same flaws in their own beliefs.

Christianity and Islam particularly have a very clear divide between the in and out group. The out group will receive worse treatment after death, and not only that, they deserve it, just for not picking that particular religion out of the infinite number available.

It adds to this instant dismissal, that even though this effects all religious peoples a majority of the time, the fact that christianity is most prominent in the US, and Iraq in a few different countries but that these religions are almost on opposite sides of the world, or might as well be, means that the average christian will not hesitate for a second before dismissing the validity of a muslims belief.

Christians were fighting each other within three minutes of the founding of Christianity about which had the right beliefs.  Muslims were fighting each other within two minutes about which sect was the right one.  The reason for that is religions offer con men the opportunity to be the king of the con men if he can eliminate opposing groups of charlatans.  The New Testament gives several examples of this.  The Koran mentions the division of Islam into several competing sects, even when Mohammed was supposedly alive.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

If a person is religious at all it's stupid for him to believe in any other religions or to give them any credibility.

No, obviously he won't be believing in any other religions. However, it does create a gap of understanding.

He doesn't have to give them credibility either. For instance, as Atheists, we don't give any religion credibility, because there is no credible evidence behind any one of them. However, the difference is, we at least understand why people will choose those religions. Most religious peoples, however, fail to understand the reasoning behind people choosing different religions, and chances are if they did, they would start to question the reasoning that they use to justify believing their own religion, and come to the conclusion that there is nothing in particular that justifies believing one over the other. However, we are talking about the people who haven't questioned this, the average religious person does not usually stop to question or ponder over the authenticity of their belief, and for their own lack of understanding about the reasoning of their own belief, the biproduct is a lack of understanding of reasoning for anyone else's belief.

Religion is a lot like music appreciation.  People generally like what they were initially exposed to more than what they hear later on in life.