Im writing this as a non religeous person who never paid as much attention in RE as I should’ve, so apologies in advance if i have any misconceptions about certain faiths and i look forward to being corrected.
As far as I’m aware the are 4 or 5 major (counting major as containing a reasonable percentage of the worlds population) religions and many hundreds of minor ones. During my time if met many different people of many different religions both major and minor in size and when the occasion has arisen Ive enquired as to how they explain all the billions (exageration perhaps?) of people that dont worship their God.
Responses have been varied to say least, the first answer i recieved from a small group ‘sporting christians’ who visited my school and got into an arguement with a classroom of 11 year olds about whether animals had souls which led on to the declaration that anyone that isnt some form of christian is going to hell. At the other end of the scale i was more recently told by someone following one of the major religions (embarrisingly I cant rememebr which) explaining to me the concept that as far as they were concerned everyone was worshipping the same god ad it mattered not in what form (religion) this took place.
Whilst these answers answered my question they werent very explanatory, so I look to this forum to give me a more detailed answer or discussion on how the various religions explain and deal with the existance of the other religions?
My view is that each person’s moral journey is as intensely private and inviolable as his own consciousness. It is entirely possible that we are both right: there is no god for you, and God is necessary for me. Morality is a decision making process whereby we peel away the layers of what we encounter for the purpose of uncovering whatever it is that we seek.
The scholarly approach discusses the discrepancies and/or problems with another religion, less with the intent of attacking it, but to reassure people who already believe.
A proselytizing religion creates a small set of arguments designed to undermine faith of another religion, targeting complex/ambiguous or otherwise disliked beliefs.
A religion may instruct followers to ignore other people/religions when the arguments seem to be compelling, on the assumption that only someone influenced by evil could win an argument with “the truth”.
Most religions don’t bother to specifically “explain” other faiths. (A notable exception, of course, is Christianity having to explain Judaism as its own root faith.) Of course, many religions will dogmatically insist theirs is the right one and others are wrong, but they needn’t EXPLAIN other faiths to say that.
Personally, I like Libertarian’s attitude, and I’ve always practised it. My faith works for me. Yours works for you. If God is as merciful as I claim He is, then it’s only logical to assume He will allow people lots of ways in the door, some of which may not be Christian, or even monotheistic, or even religious.
Jewish perspective: God revealed Himself to to Jewish people at Mount Sinai and other occasions, and told us about our relationship with Him, and that’s what defines us as a religion and as a people.
We believe that He revealed Himself to other people as well at various points in time. (See for example the story of Balaam in Numbers chapters 22-24.) There might be some groups which are faithfully following whatever message He gave them. There might be other groups which have distorted the message He gave them, whether deliberately or acceidentally. There may also be groups which mistakenly think God spoke to them, and they’re following a message that He never gave. And there might also be groups that He did not speak with for whatever reason. Lots of other possibilities as well.
Relevant to the OP is that we have no way to gauge the legitimacy of other religions. We only know what we experienced ourselves. So, for example, God told the Jews certain things about Himself, such as that there is no other real God besides Him. Therefore, if another religion has beliefs which Judiasm considers to be idolatry, then we are confident that the religion in question is mistaken. But if it does not constitute idolatry, then Judaism pretty much has no other opinions to offer. If they claim God spoke to them, fine; we weren’t there and we aren’t in a position to evaluate the accuracy of their claims, nor is it any of our business.
There is an interesting alternate interpretation of the “idolatry commandment”, namely that having other Gods before Him includes subjective conceptualizations.
The Baptist Sunday school teacher explained Judaism like this: Jesus is a Jew. The Jews are God’s chosen people. He has a covenent with them. God gave them laws and they followed, sometimes stumbling, but IT IS NONE OF OUT BUSINESS. God made a pledge, God will keep it.
Then lucky for us, God gave his only begotten son, a Jew, and made a new convenant open to all people of the world. Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish! Jews are welcome to take part too, but it is really none of our concern if they don’t want to, because they already have a deal. No one should be looked down on for obeying the laws of God.
As for the other religions, well, maybe if they hear about the contract they will start following the right God.
There seem to be 2 kinds of responses here: My religion is right according to my religion, therefore your religion is wrong.
or
Everyone’s religion is right for themselves and the differences don’t matter.
Well, the differences do matter. There is only one truth. And the more disagreement there is, the more wrongness there is, and greater the likelihood that your religion includes some of this wrongness–absent any evidence or logic.
All this wrongness right under our noses and yet it’s weasel city.
FTR, I think it’s not altogether illogical to suppose there’s a god, and maybe, just maybe, there’s some form of existence after death. If there is a God, it’s logical to maintain that there’s only one, or one collective entity analagous to the internet. It’s also logical to maintain that visible representations (i.e. “graven images”) are empty and shouldn’t be worshipped.
That’s about it. Limit your beliefs to a few basic suppositions, and you minimize your likelihood of being wrong.
Catholics would say that there’s elements of truth in all religions, but only Christianity (or, more properly, Catholicism) contains the entire truth, or at least as much truth as is necessary for humans to attain eternal salvation. This accounts for similarities between different faiths.
It’s believed that there’s an overarching “natural law” which God instilled in all of us which gives us a common sense about certain matters. For example, “thou shalt not kill” is universally accepted: man simply understands the need not to drive oneself into extinction.
Personally, I’ve never quite understood the rationale behind thinking that a given religion would necessarily have any special need to explain other religions, especially once they already recognize that some people don’t believe their truth. It seems rather obvious that if people aren’t believing the truth, then they might, in the meantime, have other beliefs.
I think the main thrust of the complaint about “other religions” actually lies in the idea that other religions seem to draw their claims and evidence from the same sorts of sources: so the admission that the beliefs of one such religion are wrong could call into question the methods of all such religions.
It could mean something like that, I guess, but the gist of what it means is that a person’s concept of God cannot be definitively accurate; therefore, a person ought not to worship his own concept, but rather God Himself.
Sure, I can go with that. In order to love God, one has to continually try to know and understand Him better and better. Even a prophet who had a personal experience with God is (usually?) not engaged in a two-way dialogue with Him constantly, and must also make this effort to get to know him even better and better. (The methods by which one might come to know God is a whole nother question.)
This is very apropos to what I wanted to respond to Sqweel’s post:
A very practical and logical approach. On the plus side, you do minimize the chances of being wrong. Unfortunately, as I see it, you also eliminate any chance of being right. There’s no room in your set up for knowing which positive things God expects from us.
Some might consider that a reasonable trade-off, considering how angry God gets at the wrongdoers. I’m just pointing out the downside, that’s all. Full disclosure and all that…
Tell that to Schrodinger’s cat (if she can hear you through the box).
If there isn’t “only one truth” in science, why should there be “only one truth” in religion?
Put more simply, do you have any evidence that your assertion that there is “only one truth” is, in fact, true?
Great argument, Sua. I hope Sqweels won’t mind if I guess what the response will be:
Even if there is more than one truth, the odds are incredibly high that there are far more falsehoods than there are truths. Now read that post again, keeping in mind that the main point was how to minimize one’s chance of being wrong. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter much whether there is one truth or two or three.
Seems ot mr that in Sshroedinger’s case, uncertainty is the truth. In other words, “there is more than one truth” is also a possible truth. To illustrate:
There are 2 beliefs, A and B. Now, we have the following options:
Sure there is: Use logic and maintain an open mind. Empathize with your fellow human beings and understand how your behaviour affects them. Always protect the Earth’s environment because it is the only known place that can support life. The conflicts that arise from that last point are where it gets tricky, but most religious traditions are useless on that score.