How can someone be more than 1 religion?

Question

Isn't that hypocritical?

I know a guy in India who is Hindu and practices Christianity....(as in believes in both) I try to tell him that if he believes in Jesus then he can't worship the other gods.

Just like someone who says they're a Christian Deist....isn't that hypocritical as well??

Gorgeous....

That would be a Jew

You need to learn what a deist believes first before you can make statements like that.

Answer 1

Hey, I'm a Pastafarian, a Pagan, an IPUer, and still have time to be an atheist, though that's not a religion.

Answer 2

You can't, unless you hedge on one or more of the religions to which you belong. You can't be a Catholic and follow all the rules of Catholicism, and at the same time be a practicing Buddhist. The one excludes the other.

Of course, that doesn't stop people from thinking that they're atheist Muslims, or Hindu Zoroastrian Rastafarians, or whatever the hell they want. But that's just because they lack the critical capacity to realize the contradictions.

Now you can say that you respect Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and so on as "spiritual ancestors" or whatever, but that's very different from saying that you're a Christian and a Buddhist and a Muslim all at once. You can say "Jesus taught tolerance of all" (which is totally untrue), but that's very different from saying that Jesus taught you could follow his own cult and that of Huitzilopochtli at the same time. The Abrahamic religions are especially insistent on exclusivity.

Answer 3

A person can't BE a religion at all. Asking 'how can someone be more than one religion?' is like asking 'how can someone be more than one banana?' A person isn't a religion by definition.

As for HAVING more than one religion...well, that depends on the religion. For example, in the Bible it clearly states that you're not allowed to worship any other gods but Jehovah. So christianity is definitely incompatible with other religions. However, it is quite possible to imagine a religion which does NOT say anything to that effect, in which case a person could have two such religions together without a contradiction occuring. I'm not sure if any such religions actually exist, though.

Answer 4

I have met several people over the years who subscribe to more than 1 religion simultaneously. I remember being in some Asian families' homes where they would have an ornament of christ on the wall in one room and in a separate room they would have their statues of their buddha and other gods on tables with incense burners in front of everything. I have also traveled to different parts of Asia on business where I met with clients and other associates, and I remember they would pay to have fortune tellers and spirit mediums come to the house so they could ask them for advice regarding their company's affairs.

Some of the people I met, after we got to know each other a little bit and we would start talking candidly, sometimes I would ask them about their faith regarding all their religious symbols and practices. They would tell me that they are catholic, and leave it at that. One person who became a close friend, one day I asked him the same question that you asked all of us here, and he told me that he still considers himself catholic but his whole outlook is that it doesn't hurt to have other religious spirits around you to help you in your life. He was someone who visited the fortune tellers and other con artists throughout the year to ask for advice regarding his job and financial situation.

So to answer your question if subscribing to more than 1 religion is hypocritical or not. If a person who says they are catholic and who also prays to other gods in the form of statues and pictures, if they wear christ around their neck, indirectly or directly worship the pope, don't use condoms or other birth control devices, don't eat meat on Fridays, and follow all the other superstitious beliefs, then yes, this person is a practicing catholic. If this same person also prays to other gods in the form of statues and pictures, or pays arm's-length amounts to a fortune teller or spirit medium to ask for advice and the outcome of future events and decisions, then this person is also practicing those other religions.

I think the answer to your question is : Only the person's gods can judge them and decide if what they are doing is hypocritical or not. For the rest of us humans, I don't think it really matters.

Answer 5

Actually, Hinduism allows you to join other religions as well. It works this way: According to Hinduism, all world religions are a path to the same God. They have different names and different cultural beliefs, but the Gods are all the same.

In that way, the person you know in India isn't violating any rules. He believes that the God he worships as a Hindu is the same God he worships as a Christian. He doesn't see himself as violating the first commandment because he believes he is worshiping the same God when he worships as a Hindu.

Answer 6

Not all religions exclude all others. Hindus, for example, will see Jesus Christ as an incarnation of their supreme deity and are, through that framework, able to practice both religions. It isnt that he is worshiping two gods, but rather that Jesus' father, the one we call God, is the same as his supreme deity, Brahman. When you stop trying to exclude other people, many religions become suprisingly compatible.

Answer 7

No, it's very open minded. I honor Jesus as well as many other spiritual ancestors and I'm a Buddhist who has serious Hindu leanings. There isn't much I rule out in terms of spirituality. I know you don't agree with this but you're also constrained by a particular mindset. All paths lead to God.

Couldn't have said it better, Vishal.

Answer 8

Why do you care? You are talking about labels here.

I am not a Christian deist but I can understand it. That person does not believe the biblical monster is real but does believe that Jesus is the son of the real God.

Answer 9

- just to let you know that 'gorgeous' is not describing a Jewish person. We don't believe that Jesus was anything other than an ordinary Jewish bloke.

Answer 10

No more hypocritical than being a Mormon.