Sunday, June 1, 2003

Religion and Hume's Dictum

Any serious organized religion / cult creates a culture of accepting certain facts without questioning and interpreting everything in the context of someone's divinity, even if it contradicts common sense. E.g. many Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama continues the lives of the previous Dalai Lamas in more than a figurative sense. Many Christians believe Jesus was truly resurrected. The Romans believed that the founders of Rome, Rimulus and Romus were actually carried in a female wolf's womb. The Vietnamese have a legend that the Vietnamese people are descendants of a dragon. The latter two legends seem more preposterous to take literally than the first two. But in reality there is no more reason to believe one legend more than the other. They all contradict common sense and Hume's Dictum

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