Jan
08
Only one true religion?
Labels:
catholic belief,
faith,
philosophy,
rational faith
I recently had a conversation with science blogger Gumby the Cat, who said this in the comments:
I do think though, that either all religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the non-Abrahamic religions) were originally inspired by God, or none of them are. I think the tendency of the adherents of one particular faith to ascribe "The One Truth" status to their religion is a man-made conceit. How could one possibly know that?
Is it logical to believe that there is only one true religion?
Let me first make some postulates:
1. God is perfect and unchanging. In another manner of speaking, he is self-consistent and non-contradictory.
2. Many of the world's religions contradict each other. For example, Islam and Christianity have different views of God, both of which are radically different from the Hindu view of God/gods, which in turn is different from Buddhist and Shinto views.
It follows, then, that all religions cannot be true. Therefore at least some of them must be at least partially false.
An atheist might conclude that no religions are true. This does not necessarily follow from my two postulates; they are equally consistent with the view that exactly one religion is completely true. I do not think it is logical to believe that more than one religion is completely true, though.
So either one religion is completely true, or none are. If God is truth, that means that either one religion is "the one" God wants us to follow, or none are. I believe that one is, and I believe this is more logical than believing that many religions are equal in God's eyes.
Logging you in...Comments by IntenseDebate
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Subscribe to...
Posts
Comments
GumbyTheCat · 846 weeks ago
Personally, I think all legitimate religions (i.e. ones that are not set up as obvious manmade scams) are ways various peoples came up with to try to understand God as they perceive him. Since religions are all created by imperfect humans, I believe none of them are perfect, or necessarily "the" one true religion.
All religions are true to some degree, in that they are inspired by the one God. But no religion can claim to have all the answers, or be the "one true" faith (although they all claim that). I think that when a person dies, no matter what their religion was, they will find that the true nature of God is spectacularly different and infinitely more sophisticated than any feeble manmade religion's attempts to figure out. My hunch is that every single religion on Earth has only a subatomic understanding of what God is really about.
To me, the "one true" religion is any religion that allows one to build a personal relationship with God. I think that's all God cares about. The rest is just semantics and differing rituals.
Michael · 845 weeks ago
But what if one of the religions is not simply man-made, but is actually the revelation of God Himself to mankind, as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all claim to be? The fact that they all make the same claim doesn't mean that all of them are therefore wrong in that claim -- but it does mean that certainly at most only one of them can be right.
papu · 844 weeks ago
Islam is a hoax, how come Angel Gabriel is sadistic and strangles Mohammed when only jinns do the hurting to physical creatures.
Judaism would be the perfect entry then, yet with it people became hypocrites. Thats what got Jesus killed in the first place.
So it might be Christianity then, but remember the story of the Rich Young Ruler and the end of Matthew 7?
Religion isn't the way. The way to salvation is only Christ.