if only one religion is right?

Question

then all people worshipping different god are wrong and damned.i carnt get my head round that,it doesnt make sense.i dont even think thats a question,i just think in a universe as diverse as it is relying on some all seeing beings daft.also no-one will ever know which god was real as nobody ever comes back.ps. i must stop smoking pot

Answer 1

Why My Religion is Right and Yours is Wrong
or


The Flawed Logic of "The One True Path"


If you are a human being who lives on Earth, you have probably been exposed to other human beings who are not your exact clones.

If this sounds like you, then you have probably also been told once or twice that what you believe is wrong and (coincidentally) the person who told you this just so happens to have the correct set of beliefs that you should promptly integrate into your life.

The first time I heard this, I was excited at this easy replacement for years of personal discipline, study and introspection. Imagine my shock and amazement when I found that that the reasons they offered as to why they were right didn't quite stand up to the feeble light of early dawn.

To save you from suffering the same disappointment that I endured, I have listed some of these reasons that failed to provide me the "easy out" and forced me to do actual real work in finding my own personal spirituality.


1) My Religion is Right, so Yours Must be Wrong!

Let's all start and agree with the premise that Divinity is Big. Quite probably beyond our ability to grasp its vastness. Bigger than the Earth, even!

Okay. Now look out your window and describe what you see. Did you just describe every feature of our planet, or just a small part that you have seen and are familiar with?

If you can't describe all of our little planet, how can you expect to describe all of Divinity?

Just as I can look outside and say "The Earth is a muddy swamp like my backyard is after the rain" you might say "The Earth is a dry hot arid place" because you've had a year of drought.

A Religion is basically like looking out your window and describing Divinity as you see it. It is impossible for you to describe it in its entirety as you haven't seen it in its entirety.

As a result each religion is expressing the portion of Divinity that the people who created it could see.

Just because you see one thing doesn't mean that somebody else can't see a different aspect of Divinity and be just as correct as you are. Just like I see mud outside my window and you see a cracked river bed. We're both right. It's just that we're looking at something so big that we each see a different part of it.

Just because you don't see the same thing I do doesn't mean that I'm wrong. We can both be right if we're seeing different things.

2) My Religion is Old, so it must be Right!

Due to the fact that people have believed something for a Real Long Time™ it must be correct. This is quickly shot down with this:

From my quick search on Google, the oldest formal religion appears to be Hinduism. So if you're not a Hindu, you've already buzzed out.

The oldest informal religion was probably cavemen worshipping the sun and cowering from the angry storm gods. So, if you're not a Hindu and don't worship the sun and fear the storm gods, you've just buzzed out twice.

But even If you do happen to be a Hindu and worship the sun and fear the storm gods, it still doesn't mean you are right. Sorry. When it comes right down to it, this answer is really no more valid than any other when it comes to establishing a logical basis for your belief system.
3) My Religion is New, so it must be Right!

To the best of my knowledge, the newest religion is the one that I just made up worshipping The Great God Lardicus and the Gentle Goddess Dietima.

If you're not worshipping one or both of them, buzz yourself out on this one, too.
4) My Religion is New, but it is based on Ancient Knowledge, so it must be Right!

I have to admit that is my favorite one, as it gives you the best of both worlds. This is a common one with many of the New Age religions. Many of the "New Old" religions are only about 50 years old, but claim ancestry going back hundreds or thousands of years.

Ancient wisdom combined with modern insight - what could be better?

Unfortunately, if being Old doesn't make it Right, and being New doesn't make it right, being Old and New doesn't make it right either.
5) Lots of Other People Believe It Too, so it must be Right!

If everybody decided to go and jump off a bridge, would you do it too?

I'm sorry. My mother made me write that.

But I must grudgingly admit that she has a valid point. Lots of people were pretty darn sure the Earth was flat, yet even that power of belief was unable to squish our planet into a nice one-horizon pancake planet.
6) Hardly Anybody Knows About It, so it must be Right!

Many "secret societies" have a veil of this kind of thinking around them.

While it may be possible that they possess knowledge (or think that they do) that others don't have, it does not automatically give their beliefs any more credibility than any of the other reasons we've covered so far.
7) This Holy Book Says it is True, so it must be Right!

Welcome to the land of Circular Reasoning!

Here's how it usually works: "My Religion is Right!" "Why?" "Because my Holy Book says it is!" "Well, why should I believe your Holy Book is Right?" "Because my Religion says it is!"

You can not logically say "Here's my first premise, here's my second premise. My first premise is true because my second premise says it is. My second premise is true because my first premise says it is. Therefore, both premises are true and support each other!"

Unfortunately, this doesn't work when exposed to any form of logic or rationality. In order to provide "proof" there must be validation from outside of the condition being tested.
8) Divinity Said It Was True, so it must be Right!

This is almost identical to the last technique, but instead of a Holy Book saying it, some form of Divinity said it.

But who did they say it to? Was it someone you know is trustworthy? Are they alive?

Did you hear it? So it's at best second-hand knowledge (you personally know the person who Divinity spoke to), or most likely third-hand (usually more like 100-handed) knowledge.

Have you ever played the game of "Telephone"? People line up, and a message is whispered to the first person in the line, who whispers it to the second person, who whispers it to the third, and so on until the last person gets the message. They then say the message that they got and everybody laughs at how the simple message got completely mangled to the point of being unrecognizable.

Now, add to this process the following and shake, not stir: What century was it written in? What language was it in? How many translations has it gone through since then? How likely is it that there were words and phrases that did not translate literally, and the translator had to make an approximation across the languages? How many cultural differences go unstated that are not accounted for in translations? How many political or other agendas were able to influence the translations to sound more like the positions that they advocated?

As you can see, there are many issues that can take what could have been straight from Divinity and changed, confused or corrupted it on its way to the version you see today.

And we still haven't addressed the issues as to whether the person who originally said they heard it wrote it down correctly. Have you ever tried to write down what happened in a dream after you woke up? Have you ever had difficulty expressing a significant personal experience using nothing but words?

And then there is the most basic question of if they actually did receive a message from Divinity or not. Could they have just made it up? Were they trying to impress someone, become famous, influence people? Under the influence of a mind-altering substance? Suffered from a mental illness?

Do you know people who you trust who have told you important things that turned out not to be true?

Unless you personally experienced it, you have no unquestionable basis to believe it. And all of the other rules here also apply to why you should believe what someone else says is true.
9) Someone I trust told me it is True, so it must be Right!

Why do they believe it is True? Is their reason covered by one or more of the above explanations? If so, there is no rational reason to accept it as True based on those reasons.
10) Science agrees with me, so it must be Right!

Science is not always right. Periodically a new discovery is made that invalidates entire bodies of knowledge and creates new ones. Many scientific "facts" are discovered to be incorrect as new information is learned.

While this foundation provides the best rational platform for a system of beliefs, it does not "prove" it is right. There could always be a new scientific revelation that could end up proving it is wrong after all.

Additionally, there are lots of things that science admits that it still doesn't understand. Every so often, someone comes along and discovers a new aspect of how things work, and it can cause an explosion in new knowledge that builds upon this new foundation.

Nothing is absolute in science, despite the wishes of the scientists.

If you are a logic-based person, this is probably the only rationally valid reason to prefer one belief system over another. But remember that it is not absolute, and will not be a valid rationale for an emotionally-based person.
11) It Just Feels True for Me, so it must be Right!

If you are an emotionally-based person, this is probably the only valid reason to prefer one belief system over another. In your gut or your heart, it just feels right.

But remember that you based your beliefs based on your PERSONAL feelings. If another person chooses a different belief system based on THEIR OWN PERSONAL feelings, you can not logically discount their choice but assert that your own is Real when you both selected your beliefs based on the exact same criteria.

Therefore, religious choices chosen in this way can only be a PERSONAL choice for you and you alone, because only you can experience the emotional foundation of your beliefs.
In Conclusion...

I hope this helped to illustrate that there is no magic reason that anyone's belief system is right or wrong. It is, at best, a personal decision as to what criteria you use to find your spiritual path through life.

Most importantly, there is no way that you can make a logical case that your belief system is "more right" than anybody else's.

Therefore, please treat everyone with respect and courtesy when discussing your beliefs or theirs. If you try to find the core principles that guide most religions, you will find that they all share many similarities, and there is room in the world for all of them.

- Brian Gallagher
PaganWisdom.com







Copyright © 2005 Pagan Wisdom.com. You are free to give away and share this and use it in your own classes.
Non-profit duplication and distribution is permitted only when this entire notice is present in the duplicated work.

Answer 2

As a devout Pagan, I worship several gods and goddesses. I am NOT a Wiccan. I do NOT worship the "Devil". I personally don't think that anyone should put down anyone else for their beliefs. That's why they're called BELIEFS! It is what you, as an individual believe.

I think that it was written best by Gregory Maguire in his book, Son of a Witch, the sequel to Wicked, when he wrote:

"...unionism seemed like a thicket of contradictions. Charity to all, but intolerance toward the heathen. Poverty ennobles, but the Bishops had to be richer than everyone else. The Unnamed God made the good world, imprisoning the rebelious human being within it, and taunting humankind with tinderbox sexuality that must be guarded against at all costs.

Lurlinism was no more sensible, to judge by how Nanny spoke of it. Random episodes of mildly erotic dalliance, as Lurlina effectively wooed Oz into being. Privately he thought it was downright stupid, though, being prettier, it was also easier to remember.

Perhaps he just didn't have the feeling for faith. It seemed to be a kind of language, one whose gnarled syntax needed to be heard from birth, or it remained forever unintelligible."

While I realize that this passage doesn't specifically say Christianity or Paganism, I think the message is clear. No matter how much you think of your religion, there will always be those that think you're wrong or foolish. Faith is in the eye of the beholder.

Answer 3

I look at the possibility all religions and philosophies are analyzing the same thing. Human nature.

I don't think it's important that you believe in the right religion.

To me it's like people are putting the hands into a box from different sides and feeling the same thing from different angles.

I would hope someday all religions could unite and find some harmony. Still believe there own beliefs. But, care for each other instead of hating each other.

I'm an atheist. Or, more correctly an Agnostic. I think anything is possible. But, have not found any compelling reason to accept a belief in god or an particular religion.

Answer 4

Truly, I think Kandi said it best. A very thorough answer and I'll never understand why two people gave her a thumbs down. It was perfect and logical, and I'm going to have to check that site. We can never see the whole of divinity, so all religions could have a part of the truth so we should respect each other for each other's beliefs.

Answer 5

Well there is a real god..All gods are real..People bleive in different gods and belive different things! And have you noticed theres a story about every God? Hindus have loads of gods as i am a Hindu and muslims only have one and so to christians!
But i truely belvie that all gods jesus ect theres one god all together! Just put all gods together and there will be one becuase all gods say to avoid doing wrong and try to be on the good path and things so there is only one god all together and hindus gods are real so are muslins and christians...you just have to bleive that theres one god together1
Hope this has helped!
Thanks for the good question :) x

Answer 6

If there is a creator who is omnipotent whould it matter what name we use, as all religions worship some form of creator/s. Surely they wouldn't care as all devotion is directed that way anyway. Like Shakespear said in Romeo and Juliet -
that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Answer 7

There are many religions but there is only one God religion is not important it is the personal relationship with God the is important and yes you need to quit smoking pot.

Answer 8

I guess there is no correct religion. Different people worship and believe in God's ways differently. But at the end of the day, they're worshiping the same guy.

Answer 9

That's the right question, now think about it logically. Only one can be right, otherwise everything would be, so nothing would be, and since clearly something must be true, one of them is. I'm a Christian looking at philosophy and finding Christianity is still true.

Answer 10

i don't think believing in god is necessary. trying to be a good kind person is. the god idea gave some people the ability to do great acts of kindness but also gave people the ability to do great acts of destruction, but i don't think the god idea was always present in war mongers they used it to rally people behind a course look at GWB and his speeches on "the war on terror" its all just propaganda for the most part or business with a robe.

Answer 11

Study the First Principles of logic, review a summary explanation of each of the major religions, delve into them a little deeper, and then ask yourself which one overwhelmingly seems the most believable and correct in terms of reality. I did just this many years ago, and the choice for me, hands down, is biblical Christianity. Pure and logical.