[ POLL ] Weird Question Regarding Religion & Education.

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A man grows up learning only the doctrines of his religion.  When he becomes an adult, he goes out into the world to bring enlightenment to the pagans.  He runs into trouble almost immediately because he understands nothing that is not written in his holy scriptures, nor anything relevant to the outside world.  Everywhere he goes, people are curious about him at first, but they soon grow tired of his lack of understanding of science, technology, social skills, and the culture in which he now lives.  To him, everything around him is either blasphemous or irrelevant, and he does not understand why the pagans are not clamoring for enlightenment.

He staggers back to his home, hungry, tired, and confused.  He relates his experiences to his teachers, who can only shake their heads and mutter.

"They hate us."

"They don't understand us."

"They refuse to learn the truth."

"We're too good for them, anyway."

"We were right to isolate ourselves."

"Yes, we are right and they are wrong."

"Tsk, such prejudice."

"Yes, prejudice ... they are bigoted against us and our ways."

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So, here is the weird question: If it is obvious that a religion's doctrinal teaching are simply wrong, invalid, or just plain untrue, and we don't believe it, does that make us bigots?

You may select only one answer from the poll, but you may change your selection at any time.  Please vote AND explain why you voted that way.

Thank you.

Mostly no

The group in the story you give seem to have a kind of victim complex. They see themselves as rejected because people do not take to their proselytizing. This seems more to be that their conversion attempts lack extrareligious perspective. It almost sounds like the allegory of the cave. In the original, the idea is that someone emerging from the cave would be wiser because he would use his experiences outside the cave to give himself new perspective. In your allegory, instead of embracing the world outside the cave, the person still believes, and actively advertises the beliefs they have because of what they had seen in the cave. The latter feels unjustly rejected because he cannot fathom how people could not believe them upon hearing them. If they were more open to new, different perspectives, they would be able to change their beliefs based on new evidence, and they would be able to present their arguments in a way that is more compelling and true to the reality of those outside the cave. They don't sound so much like they're persecuted as much as they sound like they're bad salesmen.

I only say mostly no because there are instances where religious out-groups are rejected for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with what they believe. Eg: non-European polytheism being seen as ridiculous by Europeans.
Religion is often used as an excuse for people to be persecuted--but also as an easy explanation for people to feel persecuted when they really are not. Certain American Christians consider themselves persecuted even though the US remains a de facto Christian country, because the expansion of secularism in America makes them feel dismissed and irrelevant. (It doesn't help how much Christian scripture calls attention to how they once suffered at the hands of their non-christian overlords). I strongly disagree with that assessment but I understand it sucks to feel left behind by society.

When Jehovah's Witnesses come to my house and try to convert me, I don't refuse to convert because I think they're inferior to me or even that their beliefs are particularly ridiculous--they just don't sound compelling to me personally. The same goes every other religion unless it seems to be grounded in immorality/exploitation (I guess I'm bigoted against scientologists?) I'm open to hearing people out who want to try and convert me as long as they aren't obnoxiously insistent on it.

"If religious doctrine is false is it bigoted for us not to believe in it?"

Its a meaningless question.

If you're a Baptist then by definition you dont believe in Catholicism, nor in Sunni Islam, nor in Shintoism.
But that doesnt make you a bigot. Its just means that you're a Baptist.

Likewise if you're a Catholic who doesnt believe in Baptism, nor in Judaism, nor etc.

If you're an atheist then you believe in one fewer religion than do most people- zero instead of one (out of the zillions of sects out there). So the same applies. Everyone on the planet fails to believe in the doctrines of most religions.Ergo all religions have what most of the world thinks to be "doctrines that are false".

If you mean "if a religion has a doctrine that is SO far out that it would be considered immoral by most folks is it then 'bigoted' to be intolerant of that religion?" then that would be a better question.

If you tried to revive the Aztec religion and began to proselytize that it was OK to have human sacrifice (cutting out human hearts and offering them to the sun god)then I think it would be justified to outlaw that practice in your religion (even if that practice were SO central to your faith that banning that practice would in effect be a ban on your religion itself) despite the fact that I generally believe in freedom of religion.

There is no universal, objective way to falsify religious doctrines.
Some claims of a religion may be in contradiction to modern science, but add "in a spiritual sense" to any claim and you're done - I don't intend to devaluate religions by this description, just point out that spiritual beliefs and scientific knowledge are separate domains with different methods of exploration. Falsifiability is a requirement for a claim to enter natural science discourse - however, far from every possible meaningful claim is objectively falsifiable (think of "I love you!") and spiritual systems incorporate mostly concepts outside of scientific exploration.

Long story short: I see no simple and systematic procedure to prove any religion "false", by the very nature of religions.

That said, with what you described in OP, I find the religious group you described bigoted for not willing to learn about the outside world. I don't find it bigoted to learn about a religion and deciding against following it - in modern world, with its diversity and ease of communication, any open minded but sane person needs to do it all the time.

Saying that a religion is obviously false in its teaching, that would imply that its teachings do not line up with objective facts, so I think that it would be fair to say you are not a bigot if you do not believe it.

Of course people can have different opinions of what is an objective fact, so a person could refuse to believe that certain things that another person knows as a fact, this being why they don't believe in it, thus the other person could probably call them a bigot. For instance some religious people might think that same sex relationships are not equal heterosexual relationships because they think that homosexual relationships are only about lust rather than love as opposed to heterosexual relationships, something objectively wrong. If that religious person used that line of thinking to discriminate against homosexual people as being dirty perverts, I think that it would be fair for a number of people to call them a bigot.

No: for disbelief in any given falsified claim is merely accepting that existence is what it is.

No: for disbelief in any given non-falsifiable claim is merely skepticism as to that which cannot be proven.

No: for the of heart bigotry lies in the belief that one’s beliefs make one morally/ethically superior to those that do not share them.

Not a bigot, and if you do play along, you're an enabler. So you're not only not a bigot, it would be morally wrong to play along. It is morally correct to not believe.

A real World example would be faith healing, which is provably objectively wrong.

Yes! Drink the imams spit, you bigot! / sarcasm

It has been said that, "Any sufficiently detailed parody of a religion is indistinguishable from the religion it parodies."

As for 'falsification' ... religions are a lot like conspiracy theories in that any accurate and factual argument against religious doctrine is seen by believers as (a) a Mystery of their faith, (b) proof of a Miracle, or (c) evidence that their religion is under attack by Dark Forces for being both Right and True.

Yeah ... but I prefer 'weird'.

The rest of your post is spot-on!

If a religious doctrine is FALSE,WHY would it then be bigoted not to believe?What person would knowingly believe a doctrine they know for sure is false and how is that possibly bigotry.I'm very confused!

If a doctrine is provably false then your off the hook to believe it and your surely no bigot.

I don't know ... why don't you ask someone who believes that non-belief is bigotry?Ask someone who believes that taking down statues of dead 'saints' is an act of bigotry.There.  You got it.  Thank you.

If you mean Particular Someone On WP, then:
1. I know plenty of people of his religion that don't act nearly like that, including some of the most prominent figures within their religious community
and
2. I still don't get why you're so engaged in this discussion. Just like you said, it's like discussing with a conspiracy theorist. A waste of time unless you find it fun.

Sometimes, it takes only one person to make everyone else like that person look bad.

This sounds more political then religion then,if that's the point of view.

Here is a good youtube video that could shed some light on doctrine,meaning and how to put rejection of doctrine on perspective.

Why Jews reject Judaism? By Rabbi Michael Skobac jewsforjudaism.ca

Actions Speak Louder Than Words.
There Are many People Who Profess a Religion of Love;
And Far Fewer Who Actually Act On Love And Make it Living Peaceful Breath.

So Many 'Statues'; Yes, Including Words;
So Little Love ThaT ACTuaLLY BReatHES.

Religion, Generally Speaking,
Keeps the Folks Who Belong
to It From Killing Each Other in the Streets.

That's the Positive Part.

The Negative Aspect is
Ignorance is A Worst Killer of Breath there is;
All Breath Matters As We Depend on All Breath to even Survive.

Religion By Very Definition is Bigoted for By Very Nature
Religion is Inclusive And Excludes; And indeed This is Part of Nature in Balance too;
Species Cull From Within to Gain Balance Again, When Population Pressures Stress Balance.