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How many religions do you not believe in?

Published on 61 Comments on How many religions do you not believe in?

This is going to sound weird, but hear me out. There are upwards of 4,300 religions in the world, and even faithful churchgoers don't believe in 4,299 of them. My only difference with them is that I don't believe in 4,300.

Is that really such a big deal?

61 thoughts on “How many religions do you not believe in?”

  3. S1AMER

    I strongly believe anybody anywhere has an absolute right to believe in whichever one of those 4,300 religions he or she chooses.

    But I believe even more strongly that no adherent of any of those 4,300 religions has any right to impose his or her beliefs on any of the followers of the other 4,299 or on those of us who adhere to no religion whatsoever. Period.

  4. different_name

    I've tried that line, too.

    Actually I started off using it to point out the dishonesty of Pascal's Wager. If you get one of the more honest fundies, you can get them to admit they approve of lies like that, on a sort of economic-utilitarian theory of which sins are less bad than others. Which you can have *all sorts* of fun with, if you're that kind of person.

    (I'm not, really, anymore. But I used to be.)

    1. dilbert dogbert

      Pascal really screwed the pooch!~!!
      There are many Glods and all are jealous and will send you to hellfire if you don't obey!!!

    2. Five Parrots in a Shoe

      It's not really Pascal's Wager, it's Ali's Wager, from one of the nephews of Muhammad. He used that same reasoning (basically, "what have you got to lose") trying to convince people to embrace the brand new religion of Islam.

    3. gbyshenk

      The pithiest response to Pascal's (or Ali's) wager:

      "Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're making him madder and madder." - Homer Simpson

  6. D_Ohrk_E1

    Slightly shorter: "It's not that I'm anti-Christian, it's that I'm anti-religion. And it's not that you're pro-Christian, it's that you're anti-everything else."

    1. Buho

      I remember it from my youth as well. It's from a quote by Stephen Roberts.

      "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

      1. Buho

        I just did some light searching and apparently the origins of this quote aren't clear but who said it doesn't affect the concept.

  8. dspcole

    A KD line that I occasionally use as a signature line: “I’ll start believing in religion as soon as someone tells me which one.”

    1. Bobber

      You've never had Mormon or Jehovah's Witness proselytizers come to your door? I guess that makes it which two, though.

  9. bbleh

    But most adherents of each of those 4,300 religions believe that BOTH you AND the adherents of the other 4,299 are wrong, which makes you just as wrong as the rest of them.

    Sorry pal, yer gonna burn.

  10. rick_jones

    And yet, the beliefs of at least some of those 4300 religions/mysticisms are permitted to preclude/trump anthropological and/or astronomical studies.

  12. iokevins

    And that is just the top level. 😉

    Unpacking just the American religions: Please reference J. Gordon Melton's "Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions" (2016, ISBN-13: 9781414406879)--currently in its 9th edition and spanning two volumes for a combined 1,720 pages, covering 2,300 North American religious groups in the U.S. and Canada. 😅

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_American_Religions

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gordon_Melton

    1. lawnorder

      There's a very large difference between "religions" and "religious groups". Of those 2300 religious groups, the vast majority belong to one religion, Christianity.

      2. ColBatGuano

        It's 4300 and I doubt it's a vast majority that are Christian. Also, I don't think all those Christians agree with each other on whose getting into heaven.

    1. kaleberg

      That sounds like the old atheist joke:

      Catholic Atheist: I cannot accept Catholicism, even though it is the one true religion.
      Jewish Atheist: There is only one god, even if I don't believe in him.

  15. tinfoil

    Some religions are more inclusive, believing that "many paths lead to enlightenment/god" (Hinduism, in particular comes to mind), so this is more an argument against monotheistic/exclusive religions, which of course represent the majority in the West. And then you have folks like Einstein who claimed to be deeply religious but against all known organized religions... In other words you may be making certain assumptions and/or need to define your terms more carefully or clearly.

    1. different_name

      In other words you may be making certain assumptions and/or need to define your terms more carefully or clearly

      Not so much. Einstein's response doesn't satisfy the evangelical who is likely the antagonist in this scenario. They don't want religious people, they want more followers of and financial contributors to their particular sect/power structure.

      As far as more inclusive religions, I think you're thinking about this backwards. It isn't that they might not reject beliefs, it is that I reject theirs.

  16. dilbert dogbert

    I believe that the mystery is so large the human brain is not capable of discovering the true origin of the mystery. I am a Mysterian!!!!! So there are really 4301 religions!!!

  17. tango

    Something like a third of Americans (or something like that) believe that you cannot be a good American or a good person if you do not believe in at least one. Although I suspect that their lists of acceptable religions for that criteria is less than the full 4,300.

    But I got zero beef with you, Kevin!

  18. JC

    The big deal is that each one of them is to some degree in conflict with the other 4,299. Those conflicts range all the way from intellectual arguments to genocide. Yup, kind of a big deal.

  19. Cycledoc

    I never could understand why one god was better than many. The 4300 gods sounds right to me though I don’t believe in any of them.

    My disbelief grew as I aged and understood that much of the hatred and atrocities of our world are driven by devout religious belief and “true believers”. Our country included. Kind of pathetic.

    1. bouncing_b

      Yes. Some wise person put it this way:
      Bad people will do terrible things, but if you want good people to do terrible things you must have religion.

    2. Batchman

      Cycledoc: "I never could understand why one god was better than many."

      Beliefs in multiple gods (like Greek/Roman/Norse) have an advantage over monotheism in that you can easily explain the existence of evil or even just bad luck as the result of interdeital conflict. With a single God you twist yourself into contradictions trying to believe that God is benevolent and loving while bad things happen in the world.

  21. dmcantor

    Amen, Brother. What possible basis does anyone have for deciding which of the 4,300 is "right?" It all comes down to listening to someone you trust - parent, priest, lama, guru. Who also doesn't have any basis for deciding which one is right.

    Though to be pedantic, I do know a couple of people who accept 2 or even 3 religions.

  23. shapeofsociety

    Believing in one doesn't necessarily mean disbelieving others. Religions in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition exclude other faiths from being true, but a lot of other faiths do not do this.

    1. Five Parrots in a Shoe

      I used to date a woman who insisted she was Buddhist and Christian. I don't know how she reconciled that, but I know she's not unusual.

  24. Five Parrots in a Shoe

    I often tell religious types that if a god or gods were to appear in public and allow people to measure/record/verify them, then I would become a believer. But in that scenario belief in gods would be science, not religion.
    I'm not anti-god or anti-religion. I'm anti-faith.

  25. Jim Carey

    What you're saying, Kevin, is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You're missing the middle part.

    Here's something you might not have thought about. If you jump to a conclusion, and then you go looking for evidence to convince yourself that the conclusion you jumped to is correct, then you will find it.

    Then all you have to do is ignore evidence that conflicts with your jumped-to conclusion, but then you're not a real Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or scientist, although I can't stop people from calling themselves whatever they want to call themselves.

    1. Jim Carey

      I just thought I'd add a slightly different perspective.

      I appreciate you, Kevin, because you are generally willing to examine evidence that might reveal that you are wrong.

      I used to ask myself the same question you asked in this post. Then I recognized that I was a victim of a self-imposed confirmation bias, which is to say that I was cynically and naively ignoring evidence.

      Bottom line: if someone disagrees with you, and you are not being some combination of openminded and skeptical, then you are violating the most basic principle underlying every legitimate religious tradition, and you're violating the scientific principle, and you're not acting like the pre-Neolithic humans that represent 97% of the history of our species.

      None of that is a coincidence. And there's a wealth of supporting evidence to be reflexively ignored.

  27. bloix

    My parents had a copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian on the bookshelf. For years I thought this meant that Russell was a Jew.

  28. Atticus

    Yes. There a huge difference between being an an atheist and a Presbyterian and being a Presbyterian and a Methodist.

    And I challenge the 4,300 religion fact. Are all of these real religions? Or is it including Festivus? Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are about 80% of the population.

  29. Kalimac

    Wow, is that ever a disingenuous quip. It's the same illogic as saying that there are 8 billion people in the world whom you didn't murder, so why fuss over the one whom you did? There's a huge f'ing difference between a believer and a non-believer, no matter how many other religions they don't believe, just as there's a huge difference between a murderer and a non-murderer, no matter how many people they didn't murder.

    (Now I wait for the people who don't understand analogies to claim I said that believers are like murderers.)

    1. KenSchulz

      I don’t think there is such a ‘huge difference’ between religious believers and non-believers — “without God … All things are permitted” is the moral code of the psychopath, not of the vast majority of agnostics or atheists. Most all of us humans acknowledge a moral code, which is a matter of belief, a commitment, not derived from evidence or pure reason, and is in that sense irrational.

      1. Kalimac

        I didn't say anything about moral codes. The attitude towards belief is what Kevin brought up, and that's what he misunderstands and what I was responding to.

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