how do you know you picked the right religion?

first off let me start by saying im an atheist. i truly dont believe in god or the supernatural. i dont consider people who believe and have faith to be misguided because religions in general spread a positive message and bring people together (and at the same time divide them) so being positively misguided is generally speaking ok in my book...

i have always been interested in why people have such faith and what makes them believe in something that i could never accept as anything but brainwash through repetition and group identification. (same could be said for my atheism im from a former commie country we had no religion so i could be a victim of brain wash with my atheism too)

now my #1 problem with having "faith" is that there are so many religions: christianity/islam/ budda/ shiva/ jewish/ hare krishna / greek god of wine ect ect..

my #2 problem is that within one religion there are several sub-domain religions like in christianity theres the catholics,orthodox,protestant,jehovas witness (sp?) and so on... even in sub domains like the orthodox for example you have russian orthodox or greek orthodox ect ect...same goes for islam they have sunnii and shiite (sp?) sub categories...

now mathematically speaking, and under the presumption that there is only 1 right god/religion (atheism included), how can one be sure he made the right choice as far as religion is concerned? how do you know you are not praying to a false god ?

keep in mind that we are discussing the mathematical chance/probability of one person being right! being born in a certain place and under a certain belief means nothing because ,obviously, somebody born in the vatican will have a strong connection to the roman catholic branch of christianity and will be less inclined towards hare krishna for example. the same goes for a person born in saudi arabia he has a very strong chance of leaning towards the muslim faith...

now if we take away geographic location keeping in mind that theres christians in saudi arabia as there are muslims in china as there are hare krishna is america ect ect, we are left with the following conclusion:

that many people are, statistically speaking, misguided because their chances of picking the "right religion" are not very good considering how many religions there are and how many sub religions.

how do you know you made the right choice?

 

That only works if you picked the right god. You can believe in god and still go to hell apparently.

 

Exactly. Most religions have a rule saying "don't worship any other gods", So if i were a betting man (and i am) you would be safer to pick no god rather than the wrong one (assuming one believes pascals wager is logically sound, which i don't).

Spending your life worshiping yaweh is going to really piss allah off if he is the real god.

I have a 50/50 chance of being right (based solely on number of options). But with the thousands of religions that are out there there isn't much chance that a religious person has picked the right god.

No doubt the religious will now claim to "know" that they have picked the right one without offering any kind of rhyme or reason.

 

You start out with the assumption that all religions have a supreme being. Buddhism does not.

 

Most religions (Muslim/Christian/Jewish) all have one thing in common, they believe in God, it's all of the other crap they believe in that causes problems. Who cares how you do it? I was raised catholic and am married to a muslim, I don't practice any religion now because I am tired of all the hypocrisy that comes along with practising any religion. My catholic parents wouldn't come to my wedding because I was marrying a muslim. Now my muslim husband won't go to my parents house because they drink alcohol. RIDICULOUS, each of them is a stong believer in God - WHO CARES About everything else?!!

I bet God Is sitting back in his big armchair in the sky, shaking his head, wondering what the hell is wrong with these people -

I have to add, I don't think there is any right religion.

I think a lot of people believe that their religion is the right religion - these are the people that criticize other religions and start wars and kill for their religion.

 

so you basically do not practice religion because others are practicing it wrong, what makes you better than they?

 

I think what makes her better is she is trying to live this life the best she can instead of letting the possibility of the next life dictate who she can and can not be around and limiting what she is able to do.

Many religious people are so preoccupied with the next life that they forget to live this one.

 

There is a difference between not believing in God and the next life, and believing in God but not practicing a certain religion (or God's teachings or living according to God's will)

where do you fall in this? you do not believe in God, God does not exist for you? or you believe in God but not in religions.

whatever your answer was, it takes us to the same question by the OP which is, how do you know you made the right choice? in not following or practicing any religion, or not believing in God?

 

Because I have no doubts, there are no things i don't understand regarding it and also there are many miracles/amazing things inside one book that a human could never know or write.

 

Where did that come from, can you point out where I said I was better than them? If anything I am confused. I believe in God. I pray, I don't lie, cheat, steal or commit adultery. I give money and food to the poor. I take care of my house and husband. I've tried going to church (I went all my life) I've tried going to Mosques - when one starts critisizing the other - I get frustrated and just stop going to any religious service.
I just don't think religion is meant to divide and cause so much hatred between groups of people.
I don't think it matters what religion you are as long as you believe in God and are a good person, this is very simplistic but I am habing a hard time expressing my feelings.

 

this is the best thing I've heard from a believer in a long time.

you are definitively better

 

I apologize, I did not mean it in that way, of course people have different beliefs, an honest person who do not lie, or steal or cheat .. etc is better than a person who do these things no matter what both religions are, at least this is what I believe,

what I meant the people you mentioned are practicing two different religions and both believe that their belief is the truth, while they might be not following God teachings, and God might be upset at them as you mentioned for what they are actually doing, you from seeing those people decided not to practice any religion even though you believe in God and some of his teaching like do not lie, do not steal...etc, what makes you know that you are not upsetting God by believing that religion does not matter, or what makes you think you are in the correct path.

what made you reach such belief as I understood from your post, is religion when practiced by some people. So I think you too did not understood the religion good enough, or did not learn both religions good enough.

I do not think religions which are meant to be God's teachings, divide people, but people do, even if there was no religion, there will still be people who divide according to color for example, does that mean we all should have the same color to solve this?

 

some religions are very specific about not worshiping false gods/idols.

so another question that poses itself is:

if i am a atheist and the "real god" is the greek god of wine (just for arguments sake) is it my fault i was born/raised an atheist and that i truly and out of the bottom of my soul do not believe in god? if god created me then he created me this way so it is also his responsibility that i turned out an atheist? why should i be to blame for feeling what i honestly feel? if the "greek god of wine" wanted me to believe in him should he have not arranged that i be born in greece before christ?.

 

Who do you call atheist ? someone without a belief in God, or someone who believes that God does not exist ?

 

What else can you say?

It must be nice to go through life without thinking.

 

I do not know about all other religions but in Islam it says it won't be your fault if you did not know, so in the case you mentioned you simply did not know and you were just following what you believed was the truth,

it will be your fault when inside yourself you know the truth very well, and deny it, like when you are convinced that God does exist but keep denying it by saying God does not exist.

God created you and gave you a mind to think, and distinguish the right from wrong, its your responsibility to use what God has given you, if we to accept what you said about its being God who created you like that, then we also should accept that criminals been created as criminals, and its not their fault.

 

I got baptised as a Sikh just over a year ago and knew it was the right religion for me. Hard to explain but everything makes soo much sense, there has not been 1 thing that I don't 100% agree with. Its all about love, peace and unity. It gave equal rights to women since it began it 1469. It does not look down on other religions. In fact, the 9th Sikh Guru actually gave his life for the Hindu Faith in 1675. Honestly, the more I learn about Sikhism, the more I find myself loving it.

This is the sort of great things Sikhism says, and sums up the bit about the right or best religion... This is quote from the Sikh Scriptures, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.

 

Thanks gworld but the no doubts come from alot of thinking and research, as you couldn't prove anything wrong in the other thread, imad gave a rebuttal and you couldn't respond.

 

Just to answer the question: you don't.