What Do You Mean?

Speak Clearly

Probably more than any other subject we talk right past each other when we speak of religion and faith. Take the most basic religious question that can be asked “Do you believe in God(s)?” Right away I think which god? Shiva and Vishnu? In which order of supremacy? Yahweh? The Old Testament or New Testament version? Zeus? Ra? This question is far too vague and unfortunately in this field vagueness is prominent.

We are severely lacking in the words to even discuss the issues. Taking my cues from others, who speak of "my faith," I have frequently used the word “faith” as a synonym for religion and the expression “religious faith” to denote a religion. This is problematic habit to say the least. Each of these expressions have there own unique definitions and connotations and these connotations are different for different people. And I have learned this the hard way.

The End of Semantics

Beliefs can be justified or unjustified. The object of that belief may be real, imaginary or unknowable but the belief itself should only be discussed in the terms of justification. When trying to demonstrate the possibility of a belief being "incorrect" I used the Flat Earth Society as an example. Yes they are wrong about the truth of the shape of the world and they belief is totally unjustified but their belief isn't "wrong" (they've merely used extremely flawed reasoning to achieve their belief).

I never meant that belief in a religious faith could be "wrong" in the absolute sense (except perhaps extreme heretics) and of course you can't really with disprove anything with certainty, outside of in math, but I thought this merited a final clarification. 

Be particular with your religious words for the wrong words can be your damnation.