Judaism - Christianity - Islam

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by Steken

I vote for Yazidism. Because, you know, peacocks.

Is Yazidism eligible? It's not exactly Islam as it is part Zoroastrian.

[Steken]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

The Ophites, a sect dating back from the time of early christinity, believed exactly that.

If those guys ever really existed, that is. The author of Adversus omnes haereses claimed that they did, and that they honored the Edenic serpent and even, somehow, used a snake in their eucharistic services. Later on, Epiphanius of Salamis added the sexy detail that they kept a real, live snake in a basket, letting it out in time for their eucharistic services to coil up among loaves of bread, which were then eaten by the believers. (Kinda cool, right?)

There might have been a connection between the Ophites (or "Ophians", as Origen called them; Theodoret uses both terms) and the Peratae, probably named after their leader Perates (though Hippolytus had another interpretation, as "those who claim to move beyond - perasai - the realm of corruption"), who according to one source similarly worshipped the serpent.

Whether or not those groups really existed back in the day, though, the thing is that if you jump forward into the modern era - say 1800's 'til today - you can find plenty of people who believed what the Ophites were accused of believing way back then: Namely, that the serpent of Eden was the good guy.

ETA: I just realized this is all, uh, kind of a hijack. Sorry 'bout that, and feel free to ignore! ;-)

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by DocCathode

IIRC Al Quran teaches that Jews and Christians are "people of The Book". They both have valid covenants with Allah. These covenants aren't bad. They're just incomplete. A Jew or Christian who follows the laws of their faith is deemed righteous and can enter paradise. Outside of the other two Abrahamic faiths, there is debate on who if any one are "people of the Book". Hopefully, some Muslim (or is it spelled Moslem- I mean no offense if I got it wrong) Doper will stop by and enlighten us.

In that case, your best bet would still be Catholicism. If Catholics can get into Islamic heaven, but not the other way around ...

[Johanna]

A little touch of fuzzy logic and the OP premise goes away. The fuzzy logic is a better match for the real world of actual humans. Attesting to that are all the Christian Kabbalists, Sufi Jewish Kabbalists, and syncretic Sufis of all stripes. Theology is far, very very far, from being an exact science.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by Trinopus

I sorta see what you mean, but I think the non-overlapping model of the OP is what the OP intended: no two of the major Abrahamic religions can be "true." They all accept that God spoke to Moses; but two of them have gone on to set aside what God said to Moses.

Right. They agree that God gave Moses those rules, which are in J. The part about God changing his mind about the rules are in I and C. If they had claimed that God never gave the rules to Moses, then J would not be a proper subset of I and C, and my argument wouldn't work.

[DocCathode]

While we're mentioning sects, I'd like to bring up the Karaites.

Short version- They don't believe in the oral law and stick to a very literal meaning of the Torah.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by RabbitRun

It means most or all scientists in that particular field accept it to be true. Those of us who are not scientists in that field accept it to be true based on our faith in those scientists. We trust that they are duly following the scientific method etc. I think that we have very good reason to have faith in them at this level. The general reliability of science is itself a type of evidence that we use in order to accept a particular claim as fact. But, again, that level of knowledge is not the same for you and I, nor for a scientist, as it is for someone who actually witnessed/experienced the fact first-hand (i.e., the scientists conducting the experiment, or the astronaut).

You should not accept the results of science based on faith in any scientist or group of scientists. That is a really bad idea. If you have faith in anything, it should be in the process, and as you mention the results of the process demonstrates it works. If a groups of scientists accept something, you should provisionally accept it because there is a real incentive for scientists to prove other scientists wrong. But, like Newton's Laws, even the most fervently held principle might not be perfectly correct.

As for the earth, the ancients knew the Earth was round without a space program. How things disappear on the horizon (like the masts of ships) is the classical example. The Earth's shadow on the Moon is another. We can pick up other evidence. When I flew from Chicago to Copenhagen, the plane took a route which would have been stupid for a flat earth but reasonable for a nearly spherical earth.

[Steken]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Contrarily to most previous posters, I'm willing to say that one of those religions makes even less sense than the two others : Christianity. On the basis of the two following beliefs :

-That god had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to allow himself to change the rules he had made.

-More importantly because it has only one god, but there are three of him.

OK, so for the sake of argument I propose that the OP agrees to kick Christianity out of the competition based on clairobscur's two excellent points, thus setting up a Judaism vs. Islam finals. What say you, OP?

[Guinastasia]

Originally Posted by Malthus

Judaism (or at least, many varieties of it, and certainly traditionally) had an afterlife it is true, but you aren't excluded from the good aspects of it by not being Jewish. Judaism has also traditionally held that non-Jews who adhere to the "Noahide laws" are fully as righteous as the most observant Jew. In Catholic Christianity, traditionally you could not get into heaven unless you were a believing Christian; dunno what the modern position on that is. Thus, if having a good afterlife was your goal, your best bet would be to be a good Catholic - you'd qualify under both traditional Judaism and traditional Catholic beliefs.

Can't speak to Islam.

The basic Catholic position is that it's up to God who gets into Heaven, and that no one can know for certain. Being Catholic is your best bet -- but that's about it. It's not for the rest of us to say.

Of course, there's more to it than that, but that's the Reader's Digest version.

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by Guinastasia

The basic Catholic position is that it's up to God who gets into Heaven, and that no one can know for certain. Being Catholic is your best bet -- but that's about it. It's not for the rest of us to say.

Of course, there's more to it than that, but that's the Reader's Digest version.

I'm confused. I thought the official position was 'no salvation outside the Church.' I, of course, defer to your expertise since you happen to be Catholic.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by DocCathode

I'm confused. I thought the official position was 'no salvation outside the Church.' I, of course, defer to your expertise since you happen to be Catholic.

The phrase "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus", (outside the Church, no salvation), has certainly been used on many occasions by various theologians and the occasional pope to declare that one must be Catholic to be saved, but the general understanding has always had a bit of latitude in it and it has never been a doctrine of the church. The current explanation follows the thread that the Church is the realization of the Body of Christ and that no one is saved without Christ. However, that statement is tempered by the notion that people want to do what is right and to follow God's will, even if they happen to get the methods wrong. Basically, the current expression says that if one knows that the Church is the true way to God and one deliberately chooses to follow a different path, then that person is deliberately moving away from God, but if a person is not fully aware that the Church is the best path and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, (even if unaware of that inspirationm), follows other paths in the belief that he or she is doing right, God is going to credit their effort and accept them. And the church does not simply extend those ideas to people on the far ends of the Earth who do not happen to have heard the Gospel preached. The church also recognizes that people who are raised in other faiths or no faith or whose life experiences preclude them from looking favorably on the church are equally not held to have chosen to turn their backs on the church out of spite.

Karl Rahner had a number of essays discussing the ways in which he believed atheists would find salvation. His efforts were not aimed at persuading atheists to become Christian, (or Catholic), but aimed at Catholics to get them to not take a condemning attitude toward those who did not believe.

Of course, there are a lot of Catholics and a lot of ideas floating around. I would not be surprised to still find a few Catholics, (even outside the Pius X organizations), thinking only Catholics will get to heaven, but they are not echoing actual church teachings with that belief.

A reasonably brief treatment of Catholic attitudes toward others can be found in the Catechism from sections 836 through 848.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p3.htm#836
The statments are pretty Catholic-centric, but it is, after all, the Catholic catechism.

[DocCathode]

Thanks, that clears up a lot.

[Ibn Warraq]

Originally Posted by DocCathode

IIRC Al Quran teaches that Jews and Christians are "people of The Book". They both have valid covenants with Allah. These covenants aren't bad. They're just incomplete. A Jew or Christian who follows the laws of their faith is deemed righteous and can enter paradise. Outside of the other two Abrahamic faiths, there is debate on who if any one are "people of the Book". Hopefully, some Muslim (or is it spelled Moslem- I mean no offense if I got it wrong) Doper will stop by and enlighten us.

That's correct. One can find passages in the Quran which would seem to contradict this, but that has been the traditional Muslim view of Christians and Jews.

[Johanna]

Originally Posted by Ibn Warraq

That's correct. One can find passages in the Quran which would seem to contradict this, but that has been the traditional Muslim view of Christians and Jews.

Then there's the Sabians, but nobody can quite figure out who the heck they are! The Qur’an calls itself a "clear book" in "clear Arabic," but then it goes and uses a word whose meaning nobody knows. Anyhow, if you do happen to be a Sabian, relax, you're in the clear, according to the Qur’an.

[MyFactCheckBounced]

Isn't Yazidism the sect where you know the benevolent deity isn't out to get you, so you concentrate on mollifying the malevolent one?

I suppose that's a good old-fashioned rational impulse. Good choice. Neville Chamberlain similarly offered a rational response to Hitler's Germany, while those big emotional windbags Churchill and Roosevelt were itchin' to fight him. Neanderthals.

In any event, the project of a movement that denies the significance of subjective experience -- the western rationalist tradition -- seeking to sort and measure three large areas of subjective belief and experience by their objective faces is doomed to begin with. And what's with the "three" thing? Is that trinitarian or aristotelian?

In any event, I agree with Doc that this should be kept to the universalist offspring religions, and would leave the more particular religion of Judaism out of it. We have here the "if you were trying to convince someone of your religion, what would you offer as your evidence?" question. In Judaism, there's no concern with convincing everybody else. If G-d wants you to believe, he'll handle that. Why judge the argument that nobody is making, at least not to you?

There's a hole the size of the sentient universe in the rationalist tradition, and it's called subjectivity.

So come back to me when you have an explanation of how I became aware that I am me. And not some behaviorist mumbo-jumbo about how I can't be sure I am. That ain't right.

[Steken]

Alright, so Judaism is out because it isn't universalist, and Christianity is out because the Trinity don't make a lick of sense. Islam wins. End of thread.

(See, that wasn't so hard now was it?)

[TonySinclair]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

So we're picking the best of three wrong answers, having no correct answer to compare it to?

So I guess you won't like my new thread, "Which Is Truest, Greek or Norse Mythology?

[Stratocaster]

Originally Posted by RabbitRun

For example, Christians of all denominations believe that belief in Jesus as savior is required for salvation.

John is correct. The largest Christian denomination in the world does NOT believe that salvation is only possible through a belief in Christ. Worded differently, Catholics believe that pious and virtuous Jews and Muslims can achieve salvation. So, at least this part of your "irreconcilable differences" is a bad foundation for your syllogism.

ETA: Oops, I posted after finishing the first page, thinking I was at the end of the thread. Sorry if this has been covered and resolved.