Here's a theory for ya':

What if ALL faiths ARE true? Why must they be exclusive of eachother? The Diety may well exist exactly as each faith percieves it, why not, if the Diety is all-powerful, could it not bend space/time/everything to make that so?

Most faith systems seem to have a clause in there somewhere (explicit or implied) that their Diety (or Dieties) are the ONLY God, the ONLY Goddess, what have you. But if ALL Gods and Goddesses are merely different "outfits" for the same divine being, wouldn't all of the religions then be correct? My Godess, your God, their Allah; all the same being presenting itself to it's children in whatever form the child would best understand and relate to.

Opinions, anyone?? :)

Sorry, but I can't warm up the discussion.
I'm in quite the same position as you are.

http://users.esc.net.au/~nitro/BBoard_member_gifs/ivan.gif

The Ravens Are Not What They Seem




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MoonCat,

Please allow me to repost a couple of responses from another thread which seem to address your question from the viewpoint of one who is with the Spirit of Christ:


What is so different about the Christian message in a crowded world of religions? Why will Christians sacrifice years, comfort, and even their lives to share this message from a carpenter who lived in an obscure Palestinian town thousands of years ago?

The difference is that Christianity is not just one more world religion. Nor is it merely a powerful message.

It is a relationship with God's only Son, who became a man so He could be punished for the sins of the people He created - out of no other motive than love.

It is a relationship with Jesus, the Savior of the world who, according to historical records and the testimonies of hundreds of eyewitnesses, was charged with treason, executed on a Roman cross, rose from the dead, and is alive today. The founders of all the other major world religions died too - and are still in their graves.

The heart of Christianity is love - not fear like animism. Eternal life is God's gift to all who belong to Him; it is not earned by following the pillars of Islam. And unlike the Hindu who tries to escape the eternal cycle of pain, the Christian says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Phil. 3:10 11). And again, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me"(Gal. 2:20).

What attests to the Truth in a world of counterfeits? Jesus. Unlike other leaders, He did not claim to have the truth. He claimed to be the truth. And going to heaven is not the reward for believing His teachings and obeying His rules. It is the result of loving Him.

Unlike the animist, the Muslim, the Hindu, or even the touch-all-the-bases syncretism, the Christian can do nothing to win favor with God. He cannot earn eternal life. As the saying goes, "You can't get there from here."

What the Christian has, who he is, and where he will spend eternity depend entirely on the grace - the unearned favor - of the God who made him. He cannot pay for his sins. God is too holy, and even the least sin is too great to be atoned for by man's pitiful penances, meaningless meditations, and religious rituals. He can only accept the free gift of forgiveness from the One who paid his debt.

What is the Christian distinctive?

It's not patience in suffering, a life of prayer, or perfect attendance at church. It's not a better idea or a deeper philosophy. It has nothing to do with priests, popes, or pastors. It's not what we have or what we do.

It's Who we know, accept and love.

There is but one distinctive in Christianity - Christ Himself. And that is the wonderful news with which we are privileged - and commissioned - to share with the world.

I agree with your theory that God can take on as many "faces" as there are individuals, but that there is only one way to salvation and that is through Jesus Christ.

As I mentioned to Corp. Hudson, ancient knowledge and prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ was not restricted to the ancient Jews or the Bible:


The Hindu Holy Scripture Srimad Bhagavatam (5000 yrs. old) prophecied of the birth of Yas'hua Christ, identifying Him as Son of God and calling Him by name:

Srimad Bhagavatam (1st Canto, 3rd Chapter, 25th Verse).
[The Vaishnava priesthood and their lineage have preserved Srimad Bhagavatam for over 5000 years] "athaasan yuga-sandhyaayaam dasyu-praayesu raajasu janitaa visnu-yas'aaso namana kalkir jagat-patih"

Independent translations of 'non-christian' vaishnava sanskrit scholar:

1) "Thereafter at the conjunction of two yugas (solar ages), The Lord of All Creation, will take His birth as the Incarnation of the Lord and be known as Son of God Yas'hua. At this time the rulers of the earth will have degenerated into plunderers."

2) "Thereafter in the midst of two yugas, the Lord of All Creation, will be known as Jesus Son of God, Emmanuel. At this time most
of the worlds rulers will have degenerated into plunderers"

The Diety may well exist exactly as each faith percieves it, why not, if the Diety is all-powerful, could it not bend space/time/everything to make that so?

Would the same apply to a total lack of faith?? After all, the motivation behind atheism is the same as that behind any religious faith.

FYI - Here's another developing "label"...

What is a "non-Christian"
Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ?

A non-Christian servant of the Lord Jesus is one who has rejected the religion of "Christianity" in obedience to the will of God. Christianity claims to be the Church, but upon close examination, the sincere will find that it is not. The Church is not a "religion", but is the body of Jesus Christ, consisting of members which God has baptized into it through the holy Ghost (1Cor.12:13). Christianity is therefore an abomination to God, because it's traditions, doctrines, ceremonies, and divisions are contrary to the Spirit of God, and contrary to the truth which Jesus teaches to his followers.

For this reason, God is calling His people (all who have received the baptism of the holy Ghost, with the evidence of speaking in other tongues), to abandon or "come out" of every sect, denomination, and part of Christianity everywhere (Rev.18:1-5). In 1993 we thought we were alone in hearing this "call of the Spirit", but to our own surprise, we are meeting people around the world who are hearing the same call!

We who have obeyed God, and "come out" of Christianity are not rebels. We did not "come out" because it was an idea of our own. We came out because we are submissive to the leading of the Spirit which Jesus suffered to make available for His people; that they might worship God in Spirit and in truth.

Actually most religions do not believe that theirs is the only god, or the only way to salvation. True, the semetic religions believe this, but many others dont (hinduism, buddhism, taoism, cunfucism, etc.)

Truestory-

Yes, that's all well and good - but could that not be just one piece of the Diety pie, so to speak?

Suppose this is all true - the Diety comes to you as the Christian God, because it knows (in it's infinite wisdom) that THAT is the way you will accept the Diety. So for YOU, since you have aligned with the Christian theory, perhaps the only way to salvation IS through Jesus Christ - because that's the way that piece of pie is put together.

Another person (like me for example) can't be comfortable with the Christian image of the Diety, so it appears to me as Mother Nature, and Father Sky. I do not get salvation from Jesus, instead my piece of the pie is built so that I will reincarnate through several lives before I learn what needs to be learned, and THEN I will walk with the Diety. My piece of pie has no salvation, instead it has a ladder of lifetimes that must be climbed.

I am assuming the Diety IS all-powerful. If this is so, then the Diety controlls all that there is - including the afterlife. A smart Diety will know that no one faith system will work for everyone. Just like not everybody likes to wear white sneakers, so there are many colors manufactured. So the Diety, out of love for it's children, creates many afterlifes, and allows us to choose which fits each of us best, as an individual.

DaveW-

For those who are atheist...that's a little more tricky. I suppose one possibility is that the 'soul' or 'spirit' is then disassembled and reused as just raw energy, instead of retaining cohesion of personality in the afterlife. The consciousness that had decided not to believe or not to desire an afterlife would then get its wish, but since energy cannot be destroyed, I imagine it would have to be used in some way or another. Perhaps it returns to the pool of raw energy?

And for the agnostics, that don't know WHAT to believe, perhaps they do have one theory that stands just a little bit above the rest, and that's what their destiny is. (?)

Where is the information coming from? There must be a road map to follow? Are we really all part of the same elephant? The oldest books available are the Hebrew texts of the Bible, even going back to ancient Egypt the necronominon is talked about in the Apocryphal Books of Enoch and Adam and gives explanation as to how these people learned their magical arts and beliefs in pagan gods. All of the magical arts and pagan beliefs derived from the beginning of time.. Believing an expert because he says hes an "expert" is truly allowing yourself to be brainwashed.. Do the research, and check it out on your own..LOL

Micah-

Eh? I don't think I understand your post. What do you mean "where is the information coming from"? What information? My theory? I'm not trying to say I'm an expert, if that's what you're thinking. Can you clarify?

No all religions can't be true. Either Jesus is what the Christains say or what the Jews say or what the Hindus say, or what I say.
We are NOT all right.

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The Sailor says, remember Omar was right.

Sailor-

Why not?

SailorMike- I must bring up hinduism once again. They believe that all religions can exist within their own...they believe that there can be other truths.

Why are we christians so egotistical as to believe that god spoke to the jews and no one else? Did he live all of the other races out of heaven because of their geographical location? Not the forgiving god of the bible, now is it? And if god <u>did</u> present himself to other cultures and civilizations, who says he would do it in the same way?

I'm curious what happens if we change the question to: "What if all faiths are wrong [not true; as opposed to moral wrongness]?"

In the long run this is how I view it; all religions and philosophies have elements of truth in them. Stephen Hawking presented a subjective proof, once, for the validity of astrophysical, physical, and quantum theories: We know the theories we have developed bear truth because they must. This seems to rely on itself, but if the idea is the product of the organism, is it not subject to the same conditions? So that bad ideas will filter out, become obsolete or unapplicable over time, and that the "good" ideas--as such--stand on their merit, much like the notion of "survival of the fittest." To Hawking's case, let me mention there is much more to consider--something he acknowledges. But I think we can look at the elements of that thin, partial proof, and apply it in its forms:

* Certainly, General Relativity has its holes, but Einstein was aware of that, and theories have either patched those holes or reconstructed the postulates. Despite quantum theories and the difficulty of observation, Einstein's General Relativity stands on its merit on the grounds that no theory before or since has accomplished such theoretical union; and also that theories of this scope often do not address their own shortcomings. As well as the classic E=mc^2, Relativity also mentions that there is a point at which it breaks down, and Einstein was able to see what that point was, as relates to extreme gravitational influence. So 300,000 km/s isn't necessarily the speed limit; it's rare that a theory of such scope as Relativity holds together as long as it does.

* Likewise, with more subjective ideas, we can speculate that the ideas bear a facet of the truth. Those, at least, that do not disappear into the fading memory of history. It isn't that human sacrifice at the altar is any more or less gory today than it was, except the most productive societies--those whose flawed ideas stood the longest on what merits they had to offer--saw human sacrifice at the altar as unimportant and perhaps detrimental to the developing notion of God. (In the end, one must wonder what the difference is between dying on a stone for the cause of a God, or dying in the field during combat for the cause of a God, but such considerations are not specifically relevant at this time.) We can say human sacrifice disappeared from religions when people figured out that it did nothing to improve the bonds between God and people. Or, we could say that murderers murdered murderers, and coincidentally wiped out the last active sacrificial altars in this or that region.

In this sense, the larger religions are like Relativity, as they are broad theories with many small flaws; the ones that cope best with these flaws seem to be those that acknowledge such flaws directly. So if we look at "Major Religions" in the world: Christianity, Hindu, Muslim, etc., we might see that there are common points, which most of humanity (regardless of faith) views as being of merit: don't kill, don't steal, don't lust your neighbor's ass ... &c. However, the moment we name a God, and make that name a Prize, we defeat that sense of God and its limitless possibilities. Under these circumstances, God is reduced to a pundit.

In sum I would say that most religions have varying degrees of merit in their cores. Thus, for the most part, all religions are correct, but only insofar as they are incorrect. (Leggo my Eggo, it's my turn to Waffle!)

In fact, the first truly incorrect act of any religion is to limit God to a select group. If we were to read, for instance, the early epistles of the Christian Church, we see a form of antisemitism growing among the writers that can only be political; it has nothing to do with "filthy Jew" stereotypes, but might well be the precursor to them. But one of the priorities in the first century after Christ was to rhetorically exclude Judaic practice from the developing Christian method. Eventually, the rhetoric dissolves into "Jews are wrong because they're stupid because God says so." Thus, thinkers like Justin Martyr or Barnabas, whose words affected developing congregations, implanted this limitation to the adherents' minds. This is a polar issue that has yet to be resolved; all of which could have been avoided had Christians and their Jewish predecessors and brethren avoided the political considerations which stained the whole of Judeo-Christian history throughout the Roman tale.

My basic understanding of Muslim history reflects a similar conflict between Christians, Jews, and Muslims, though this tale seems obscured by the thousand-plus years of Muslim infighting based on sectional divisions.

My own family saw an exclusionary religious spat a few years ago, between "standard" (what's the term?) Lutherans and the Missouri Synod. The fight disrupted at least one wedding and one funeral because the Missouri Synod side had chosen to exclude the rest of the Lutherans as "not Christian". Apparently, my attending Catholic school was a bigger offense to the Missouri Synod crowd, in this case, than my apparent separation from the Christian faith.

In that sense, I have to admit that my proximity to Christianity in America makes it a richer philosophy for this kind of examination. But there's nothing taking place between the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Catholics that hasn't taken place in similar or worse form since the beginnings of time ... even the bizarre tribal skirmishes and exchanges documented by Cabeza de Vaca in this country reflect some of this idea. It covers the whole gamut, from the subtle divisions of Australian bush theology all the way up to the blatant standard of division for Scientology (your bank account).

"Religion, the dominion of man's soul .... such that naught but blood and gloom and tears have ruled the earth since gods began." (Emma Goldman)

Some of it, I hope, makes sense. :D

thanx,
Tiassa

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Take a side you say, it's black and gray. And all the hunters take the hunted merrily out to play. We are one, you say, but who are you? You're all too busy reaping in the things you never sown. And this beast must go on and on and on .... Nobody gives a damn. (Floater; "Beast")

As an addendum to my previous post ... something I was never able to figure out, even living next door to a Sikh--

* What is the division that motivates the fighting in India between Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus? What exclusions can compel three religions of peace to murder each other, literally, by the trainload?

I asked Charnkamal once. He grinned, swallowed the rest of his beer and said, "That's why I moved to America."

thanx,
Tiassa

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Take a side you say, it's black and gray. And all the hunters take the hunted merrily out to play. We are one, you say, but who are you? You're all too busy reaping in the things you never sown. And this beast must go on and on and on .... Nobody gives a damn. (Floater; "Beast")

It also occured to me that if the Diety is all-powerful, all-knowing, etc., then no one single book could ever contain even a fraction of It's truth. What's half of infinity? Still infinity. How much space is there between 1 and 2? It can be divided infinitely, and then the spaces between those divisions can be split infintely, ad nauseum.

So the entire great work that is the Bible (just as an example) could be nothing more than one of the infintely small divisions between the Diety's count to two. Smaller than a single grain of sand compared to the vast beaches of TRUTH. As human beings, I doubt we can even comprehend the full truth, even if it were to be laid out to us letter by letter, the learning would take longer than a hundred lifetimes. So of course we have to try to describe it as it appears to us, hence the variations of religion.

MoonCat,

If time is infinite, you live in a fraction of it. There is, in fact, far more to God than we can ever understand. If we knew as much as Him, we'd be Him.

Daniel 2:21-22
He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes
them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the
discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies
in darkness, and light dwells with him.
ISDAMan

Originally posted by MoonCat:
Sailor-

Why not?

Because MoonCat most religions and especially fundemendal Christians insist that htere is ONE God, there God, no other God did or will exists, they have the ONE and ONLY truth about the ONE and ONLY god.

So, at least for that sect, all religions can't be true. So, e.g. Hindus are Christians are wrong, one or the other.

It is really not a hard concept to grasp. Either the Bible is without error or it isn't, either Jews ( fill in the blank) are right are they are not, etc. etc. etc.

No w I says again, show me the proof that ANY of these sects is right to the exclusions of all others.


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The Sailor says, remember Omar was right.

ISDAMan-

Exactly. That's my point. So how could one faith or another say for sure they own the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Answer: They can't. They can make assertions all they want that their God is the ONE god, the TRUE God, but really, honestly, they can't know if that's the whole story or not. I am theorizing that they are correct, in a limited sense. The thought I'm trying to present is that the ONE god they see is the same God or multiple Gods & Goddesses percieved by other faiths, just in a different format - deliberately done by the Diety to relate to It's children in the best way possible. The Diety appears to Christians as the Father, Son & Holy Ghost, to Wiccans as various manifestations of a God and Goddess, etc - all the same Diety, just assuming different forms.

Because the Diety is the source of all life, It realizes that people are going to evolve, change, learn, divide into seperate nations with different languages and cultures. So It manifests to each sub-group in a form they will comprehend. Like the salesman that changes his sales pitch from customer to customer - he wants to get his point across as clearly as possible, so he changes his words a bit, his analogies, his "power phrases" to match up to the customer. See what I mean?

Sailor-
"ONE God, there God, no other God did or will exists" - right, what I'm saying is that the God of other religions is merely a FACET of the SAME God. So when a Christian tells a Buddhist that their God is the only one, in a sense they are right. The Buddhist God is the SAME god as the Christian God, just wearing a different outfit, so to speak. As far as them claiming they have the ONE truth, see my answer to ISDAMan above - I just don't buy it.

Originally posted by DaveW:
Would the same apply to a total lack of faith?? After all, the motivation behind atheism is the same as that behind any religious faith.

Come again please?! What exactly is an atheist's faith?



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The Sailor says, remember Omar was right.