Does religious belief limit options or alternatives?

[Zzyzx]

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From another thread:

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He further removes the availability of further quest as in the creation of his false dichotomy he limits himself while the non-theists are still unlimited in options.

It is only in actualizing his hope or faith that he limits it. Not only has he limited his options to a theistic explanation but he has limited it to one theistic explanation among and almost unlimited number of theistic and non-theistic options.

EXCELLENT point -- limited options -- confined by theistic beliefs.

Not only does this apply on the philosophical level, but on the personal level as well -- even to include mate selection. A young couple that I know comes to mind -- strongly mismatched and acknowledged to be unhappy -- BUT they "married within the faith" as commanded by their religious group. Both are appealing and pleasant people -- separately. Both could have had numerous alternative choices had they not felt restricted. Now they have two children and feel "trapped" in a marriage that makes them unhappy.

Career choices are also limited or hindered by religious beliefs. In my observation, comparatively few people of Fundamental Christian belief preferences were comfortable entering the fields of natural sciences, particularly Earth science, geology, anthropology, genetics, etc. They may not have considered those fields "off limits", but their religious beliefs often conflicted with study and research in such areas (i.e., Young Earth Creationists and Biblicists / Literalists / Fundamentalists are is unlikely to accept ideas upon which modern geology, anthropology, genetics, etc are based (and thus eliminate themselves). Thus, most (not all) abandon either their earlier beliefs or abandon the field (perhaps to avoid cognitive dissonance of believing one thing and practicing another)

Questions for debate:

1) Does religious belief limit options or alternatives?

2) How does / can religious belief limit options or alternatives?

3) Is this important or significant in individual lives?

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

1) Does religious belief limit options or alternatives?

Surely it'd hamper their leading atheist organizations. Some folks call Dembski a brilliant man, so I don't know if I'd say there's a whole lot of limits.

2) How does / can religious belief limit options or alternatives?

There's that whole no sex without marriage deal. If for that alone, I'm bound to die a non-worshiper.

3) Is this important or significant in individual lives?

Only important as one's beliefs. I'm a tree-hugging hippie who has done my share of overseeing the destruction of beautiful lands to build monuments to man's hubris and waste. It tears me up to know the hypocrite I became in search of a career.

[Slopeshoulder]

Well, it makes pimpin' kinda hard to justify. Drug smugglin, hoin', extortion and thieving are also difficult career options.

Other than that, IMO healthy religion does NOT limit options, but silly unhealthy narrow religion that is itself limited and closed does limit options. What the balance is these days taken all together and globally, I couldn't say.

I do know that when I was in school the following things were part of my awareness:
- we had jesuits and other clergy with ph.d.'s in MANY fields, and they were not in the business of being apologists; they were moderns.
- to study religion deeply is to challenge oneself to have endless knowledge in all fields. This is where I ultimately crashed (too damn stupid).
- at my school, several students did dual degrees in religion and medicine, law, business, politics, forestry, etc.

Does it? Yes. Should it? No!

[Cathar1950]

Just to be fair I made the comment in the context where we were being told there where just two optiions God and Non-God. I tend to think there are more and he has limited them to give his unfair advantage. There are really his option and an unlimited amount of other both theistic and non-theistic options. Like his dislike of where other paths lead after he has limited himself to one path.
For every given option there is an unlimited number of options that are only limited when you pick one. Not only has he limed his options he wants to limit others to even less.