stevenlmeyer,

I have always heard the third was Judaism. Hence my comment. If it is hinduism I'd have to stick to two.

There are many Christians who would also vehemently disagree but the reality (or so it is said) is that they both consider themselves to worship the same God as Abraham. Do you see what I mean as a different take rather than a different God? There is no reason for you to believe me over them. Why don't you ask your Muslim mates if my premise is correct and then use your own logic if it is confirmed?

Dear Belly,

As you well know I was raised as a
Catholic and I shall be one until
the day I die, though I have to
confess I'm probably not a very
good one. I follow my conscience.
I don't seek to convert
anyone and I would never dream of
imposing my beliefs onto anybody
else. I believe in "live and let
live." My faith to me is a private
matter. And I certainly don't have
all the answers - my life's journey
is still a "work in progress."

Of course we don't need religion to be
moral, and I'm aware of the evil that
has been done in its name. However, it
works for me, and that's where I'll leave
it for now.

Yuyutsu: << The role of the physiological appendix was recently discovered. It is to be a store of "good" bacteria, where they can remain and re-inhabit the colon after being lost there by diarrhea and similar conditions. >>

Yup. That appears to have been an adaptive function in our evolutionary past, but has now become largely redundant.

<< Nicholas Vardaxis, an associate professor in the Department of Medical Sciences at RMIT University, says the theory put forward by the Duke University scientists makes sense.

"As an idea it's an attractive one, that perhaps it would be a nice place for these little bacteria to localise in, a little cul-de-sac away from everything else," he said.

"The thing is that if we observe what's been happening through evolution, the higher on the evolutionary scale we are and the more omnivorous animals become, then the smaller and less important the appendix becomes and humans are a good example of that.

"The actual normal flora bacteria within the appendix, as well within our gut, are the same, so we've lost all of those specialised bacteria.

"So it doesn't have that safe house type of function anymore, I don't think.

"It's a vestige of something that was there in previous incarnations, if you like." >>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/10/2055374.htm

Yuyutsu asks:

"…do you actually believe then that some god who was created in man's image have created this world and sent us messages?"

As I thought my posts on this thread made clear, I don’t believe anything of the sort.

To quote myself in my first post on this thread:

"The question is which of humanity's religions are true.

"The obvious answer – NONE OF THEM!"

It is a core Muslim belief that the creator of the universe used an angel called Gibril to transmit the entire koran to a human (of dubious historicity) called Muhammad.

Muslims believe – so they assure me – that when they recite the koran they are replicating that original message word for word, syllable for syllable, phoneme for phoneme. That is not what I believe. That is what every mosque-attending Muslim I've ever questioned tells me they believe. It is also what every Imam I've ever questioned claims to believe and it is what the most heavily trafficked Muslim website say.

Mjpb

Out of a global population that is approaching 7 billion about 14 million are Jews. Most of these are, however, only ethnically Jewish. Less than half of them practice Judaism.

By contrast we have the following numbers:

Christians: 2.1 billion

Muslims: 1.5 billion

Hindus: 900 million

Even Sikhs, numbering 23 million, outnumber practising Jews by around four to one. As a religious force Judaism is negligible.

Yes Muslims and Christians both claim to be worshiping the (non-existent) God of Abraham. However their understanding of that God, and the attributes they attribute to that God, are so different that they may as well be worshiping two entirely different (non-existent) entities.

Two people called Marmaduke may be completely different people. Just so two non-existent entities labelled "God of Abraham" can refer to two different non-existent entities.

Belly asks:
"Would humanity rebuild a different set of rules to live by, what would they look like."

mjpb responds:
“That is a tough question given the small historical sample available to make predictions. I believe that the best guess is the mean based on the sample available. Therefore the best guess would be that it would be like those societies that have completely rejected religion. There have been a few examples. I can think of Cambodia with Pol Pot, the USSR with Stalin, Lenin etc. and China.”

Based on the sample available?

We don't have a sample available as no society has unanimously agreed that god does not exist and then decided to build a different set of rules based on this realisation.

The ideologies and most of the rules of the above (whom many theists just can’t resist the temptation of mentioning despite them having virtually nothing to do with atheism) were not a result of rejecting religion.

For this tired old argument to be true, you’d have to explain how one logically goes from:
“I don’t believe in god”

To:
“The working class must therefore seize political power internationally through a social revolution to expropriate the capitalist classes around the world and place the productive capacities of society into collective ownership.”

Communism is not the result of atheism (or the lack of religion) as there is nothing within atheism to support it.

Stevenlmeyer, that was confusing.

I wrote:

"To measure God by the world, such as by referring to Him as "Creator", or "sending messages" is pretty primitive and trivialising"

To which you responded that "That is precisely what Muslims believe".

Which I understood as "Muslims believe that referring to God as Creator or as sending messages is pretty primitive and trivialising".

Great... I was not previously aware that Muslims agreed with me...

But then you write again, in contradiction, what you must have actually meant:

"It is a core Muslim belief that the creator of the universe used an angel called Gibril to transmit the entire koran to a human (of dubious historicity) called Muhammad"

Please be clearer next time.

Now, "The question is which of humanity's religions are true"

Suppose I asked you to inhale through one nostril, hold your breath, then exhale through the other nostril: would that be true? or false?
Neither of course, it's just a technique. It has beneficial outcomes in some circumstances. Fasting on Ramadan is no different. Similarly, reciting verses under the impression that they are word for word, syllable for syllable, phoneme for phoneme, identical to God's message, can be a very positive devotional technique, an act of love if you like, and quite appropriate at a certain stage of spiritual development.