Belief is Insufficient

 A common argument for asserting the veracity of religion is belief. "I just believe" is a common retort I hear when challenging the veracity of Judaism. I don't think this is sufficient justification Judaism's veracity.

Basic Counter-Argument

Assumptions

  • Judaism's veracity is mutually exclusive to some set of other religions (further referred to as false religions)
  • Any false religion has adherents that justify their religions veracity using belief 

Argument

With the above assumptions, if:
  • belief is sufficient to assert the veracity of a religion
then both:
  • Judaism is true as it has believers
  • the false religions are true as they have believers
In other words, if belief is sufficient, then mutually exclusive belief systems are concurrently true. This cannot be. Therefore, belief does not cause a religion to be true. 

I think this argument should remove belief from consideration when attempting to establish if a religion is rooted in truth. This argument should also be a wakeup call for those who use faith instead of evidence when considering their religions veracity.

Does it matter what belief is?

A common retort I get to the above argument is I don't just baselessly believe:
  • I experienced gods presence
  • I had a dream where god spoke to me
  • The torah is too divine to be created by man
  • I experienced a miracle
I group these all under advanced beliefs. The same argument applies to these claims:
  • Is experiencing gods presence exclusive to Judaism and not found in false religions?
  • Is having a divine dream exclusive to Judaism and not found in false religions?
  • Is judging sacred writings as too divinely inspired to be human sourced exclusive to Judaism and not found in false religions?
  • Is experiencing a miracle exclusive to Judaism and not found in false religions?

TODO

Bring evidence that false religions have occurrences of each of the advanced beliefs:
Christian feeling of presence (I assume Christianity is mutually exclusive with Orthodox Judaism)
Majorities of U.S. churchgoers say that when they’re at religious services, they “always” or “often” feel a sense of God’s presence (80%)

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/08/01/why-americans-go-to-religious-services/ 

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