|
The problem of many religions.
|
View this Thread in Original format
| RJT |
c0r version: If you need one, then I don't want you posting in this thread anyway. ;)
I just took a final in one of the easier courses I had this semester (Philosophy of Religion), but the question was one that though simple, is pretty interesting to me, so I'm going to pose it here:
| quote: |
The Problem of Many Religions: How does one account for so many different religions? Your reading outlined three possible responses to this question: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Additionally, in class I discussed what I referred to as “hierarchical” or “progressive” inclusivism, an option that is particularly applicable to religious systems that accept the notion of reincarnation. Discuss each of these four positions, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each. Then select the one you find more persuasive, and support your choice with reasoned arguments. |
Rough and ready notes on what you need to know (if you don't already):
Exlusivism: Our religion is right, yours is wrong, so you're going to hell. This creates massive problems for people being rewarded for having been generally good people, but just being born at either the wrong time or in the wrong place.
Inclusivism: My religion is the right one, but if you live your life based on compatible ethical codes, you'll be rewarded in the end too. This view falls into the trap of many religions being directly contradictory, making the project of who to include and who not look eerily similar to exclusivism.
Pluralism: All religions are equally valid. Falls into same problems as inclusivism.
Progressive Inclusivism: Tied to reincarnation, there is some kind of hierarchical order of religions, and if you live each of your concurrent life times as a good person you'll eventually end up at the right one. This is just dressed up exclusivism with a reincarnation twist.
So, given all of that we were supposed to say which position we found most convincing (I'm interested in hearing what you all think), however, the position I found the problem of many religions to advocate best is atheism.
Each of the above outlined poisitions seems even more ludicrous to me every time I ponder them - and it really only seems to me to prove that people need fairy tales to teach them ethics as children, but once people grow up it seems staggering to me that so many people could buy into any of these positions.
So I put it to you - what do you all think of the problem of many religions? Is there a satisfactory way to deal with it, or do you all (like me) find it inevitably leading to Atheism (or at least agnosticism)?
:conf: |
|
|
| jonze |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
c0r version: If you need one, then I don't want you posting in this thread anyway. ;)
|
i'm going to post anyways.
religion sucks, you live...you die....end of story |
|
|
| Project-K |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
and it really only seems to me to prove that people need fairy tales to teach them ethics as children |
Children don't need fairytales to understand ethics, you can be perfectly honest with them. Fairytales are for people who are too lazy or cowardly to deal with intelligent and inquisitive children asking them tough questions to which they don't have the answers. |
|
|
| MrJiveBoJingles |
Some exclusivist religions claim something along the lines that people are not actually good unless they have faith in the right god, even if they appear to do "good" actions.
So they technically don't have a "good people going to hell" problem, because anyone who goes to hell is simply defined as "bad," even if most people would consider that person "good" by everyday "earthly" standards. |
|
|
| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Project-K
Children don't need fairytales to understand ethics, you can be perfectly honest with them. Fairytales are for people who are too lazy or cowardly to deal with intelligent and inquisitive children asking them tough questions to which they don't have the answers. |
I couldn't disagree more. Children cannot deal with the world as it is from their youth, and I don't see anything wrong with using fables or fairy tales to illustrate moral principles to kids.
The "honesty" you speak of would most certainly fall on deaf ears when it comes to kids, not to mention that some of the "tough questions" children ask have "honest" answers that they are incapable of grasping at their face value.
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Some exclusivist religions claim something along the lines that people are not actually good unless they have faith in the right god, even if they appear to do "good" actions.
So they technically don't have a "good people going to hell" problem, because anyone who goes to hell is simply defined as "bad," even if most people would consider that person "good" by everyday "earthly" standards. |
Isn't that what I said?
:conf:
I wasn't really trying to write the definitions from the perspective of an advocate of each position... |
|
|
| Clovis |
It all boils down to
People Who Think > People Who Don't Think |
|
|
| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
It all boils down to
People Who Think > People Who Don't Think |
Lol, I'm not sure I'm willing to take it quite that far. |
|
|
| Project-K |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
I couldn't disagree more. Children cannot deal with the world as it is from their youth, and I don't see anything wrong with using fables or fairy tales to illustrate moral principles to kids. |
Having worked with kids before, I think you underestimate them. Better to answer them truthfully, even if it means simplifying your answers, than to feed them bull they'll have to deal with when they grow up. Treat them as intelligent beings and they will appreciate you for it - and often surprise you.
I think it takes a certain degree of courage to admit to a child that you just plain don't know or don't understand something, courage that most people probably don't have. Turning to religion for answers is the easy way out. |
|
|
| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
Lol, I'm not sure I'm willing to take it quite that far. |
Me either, thats why I kept it grossly ambiguous and general. |
|
|
| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Project-K
Having worked with kids before, I think you underestimate them. Better to answer them truthfully, even if it means simplifying your answers, than to feed them bull they'll have to deal with when they grow up. Treat them as intelligent beings and they will appreciate you for it - and often surprise you.
I think it takes a certain degree of courage to admit to a child that you just plain don't know or don't understand something, courage that most people probably don't have. Turning to religion for answers is the easy way out. |
I'm not discounting the intelligence of children, but explaining things to them in "simplified answers" is really no different than giving them morality tales - it's putting information in a form that kids can actually digest and use, rather than telling them the cold, hard truth from the outset.
I also don't think that turning to religion is necessarily always bull, especially in the context of it being used as morality tales and/or fables. There's a big difference between teaching kids how to act and telling them the absolute truth about the world from the outset. Not only is it my guess that they wouldn't be able to comprehend much of the truly awful aspects of the world (and humanity), but even if they did, you'd be breeding hopeless drones who know from the outset that they're ed and can do nothing about it. I don't see any more point in raising children like that than raising them under the false belief that any religion is absolutely, literally true.
Just because you use religion to held educate your kids absolutely does not mean you're lying to them. I'm not saying that there aren't many, many people who do - it just doesn't have to be that way. |
|
|
| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
So, given all of that we were supposed to say which position we found most convincing (I'm interested in hearing what you all think), however, the position I found the problem of many religions to advocate best is atheism.
|
I totally agree.
The more interesting question is, why did (and maybe does) religion pop up almost everywhere like an itchy rash. Why did so many cultures develop some sort of religion? What does your anthropology class about that? |
|
|
| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
I totally agree.
The more interesting question is, why did (and maybe does) religion pop up almost everywhere like an itchy rash. Why did so many cultures develop some sort of religion? What does your anthropology class about that? |
Well to be honest, even though pretty much everyone pans Freud these days, I think his psychoanalysis of religion is pretty well spot on. It arises, and does so as prevalently as it does, as a defense or coping mechanism.
I think it arises out of a natural need that human beings have for something to hope for. This of course does not justify all of the terrible things that have happened in the name of religion, nor does it really make sense of exactly why people project this need into "a God up in the sky", but it does, however, seem like a pretty reasonable explanation. |
|
|
|
|
