Which Faith to have Faith in
If you accept the concept of religious faith as valid, how do you know which faith to follow? If you are born and brought up in the west, you will be surrounded by a Christian heritage. If you are born and brought up in the Middle East, you will be surrounded by Islam, in Israel by Judaism, Punjab by Sikhism, most of the rest of India by Hinduism and so on.
Do you just accept the faith that you are brought up with? Does it matter which faith you choose? If you believe in the literal truth of your religion, it matters very much which faith you choose. Different religions tend to have incompatible and contradictory beliefs. If you believe in the literal truth of your religion, most other religions will be evil to you. The followers of other religions will worship(to your religion) false Gods.
The very notion of religious tolerance is nonsense for anyone who has a literal belief in their own faith. Tolerance is a dilution of their faith.
If you believe in the literal truth of your religion, the question of why isolated groups of humans do not come to the same conclusion as you is a very disturbing problem. Has God abandoned isolated tribes? Why has god not revealed his truth to them? Why must they wait to be discovered by other humans to hear the true word of God? Does God value these people less?
For many people the answer to these questions is that religions are basically the same the world over. They are expressed in slightly different ways but they are essentially the same. This argument also presents a justification of religious tolerance. It is a view that moves away from the position of believing in the literal truth of all dogma and sees many of the teachings of religion as symbolic with a small core of absolute truth at the centre.
Do you just accept the faith that you are brought up with? Does it matter which faith you choose? If you believe in the literal truth of your religion, it matters very much which faith you choose. Different religions tend to have incompatible and contradictory beliefs. If you believe in the literal truth of your religion, most other religions will be evil to you. The followers of other religions will worship(to your religion) false Gods.
The very notion of religious tolerance is nonsense for anyone who has a literal belief in their own faith. Tolerance is a dilution of their faith.
If you believe in the literal truth of your religion, the question of why isolated groups of humans do not come to the same conclusion as you is a very disturbing problem. Has God abandoned isolated tribes? Why has god not revealed his truth to them? Why must they wait to be discovered by other humans to hear the true word of God? Does God value these people less?
For many people the answer to these questions is that religions are basically the same the world over. They are expressed in slightly different ways but they are essentially the same. This argument also presents a justification of religious tolerance. It is a view that moves away from the position of believing in the literal truth of all dogma and sees many of the teachings of religion as symbolic with a small core of absolute truth at the centre.
posted by craig fotheringham at 2:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home