[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
If there is God, it doesn’t matter if you or I reject the notion or call it by a different name than I do. [/quote]
Thing is, if this God that exists is the God that’s believed in around here, these things most definitely matter to Him, and, by extension, to all of us.
Ecumenism is probably impossible within Christianity and certainly impossible between Christianity and the rest.
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Not true.
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Oh, I think it is.
The loosest interpretations of each religion might find some way to fit with each other.
But as someone becomes devout, their devotion becomes sui generis.
If Push is right, then Muhammad Ali was wrong. If Gandhi was right, then Jewbacca is wrong. If I am right, they’re all wrong.
It is fantasy, to think that you can find a tree and ask, “how did this get here?” and hear two entirely different and conflicting accounts of the tree’s planting and decide that they are both correct.[/quote]
Well if we’re are hashing out theology, then sure we each will defend that which we relate to the most. But that is an academic, argumentative affect. It’s not a real world, “I am better than you” modality.
Yes, I know you can put forth examples where that occurs, but in many cases it also does not occur.
If a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or a Christian has a flat tire, I am willing to help them all equally.
I have been to a mosque with a Muslim friend I had a few years ago and did Friday prayers with him. I have spoke with a Hindu coworker about religion and faith extensively. I have had Jewish friends and talked and exchanged ideas about religion. It was all friendly, it was non-condemning it was seeking for understanding. In doing all that, I understand my own faith better as a result.
So yes, there is ecumenism between the faiths. People of goodwill exchanging ideas in a friendly manner. Listening to one another in their expressions of faith. It happens on a personal level. Sometimes it happens in a larger expression too.
Popes have been to a mosque before, for the purpose of having a relationship, not to change anyone. Pope John Paul II was best friends with a Jewish Rabbi.
What I found from my experience is that, at our core, though our theologies are different, our love of God was the same. I didn’t condemn them, nor did they condemn me.
We were able to get alone, share some common things about faith and put differences aside.
It’s not only possible, it’s happened and happens. It happens at the human level. When all the screaming and shouting over each other is through, what we have left are people. People with a longing to be closer to God. It’s not a judgement on who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not a shouting match or ‘My God can beat up your God.’
You certainly have some very negative impressions on religion and religious. I honestly don’t know what I could do to change that impression. I shared my experience, but I am sure that won’t be enough.
Are you willing to look at cases of ecumensim? See where people actually do get along despite the difference in belief? Where religious difference is not the impetus of war and evil?
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You have misunderstood me. First, I really don’t have negative impressions of religion and the religious. As I just mentioned in another thread, one of my major sources of income has to do with research of Medieval Christian art and architecture. I have been to, and enjoyed to the fullest, most of the “great” churches on the planet.
More importantly, my thoughts did not have anything to do with fellowship or peaceful coexistence. I was not saying that all religions must always be in conflict, or are always in conflict. In fact, most Christians I know–who, admittedly, are city-dwelling academic types–are interfaithists.
I was talking about philosophical incompatibility. You and I offer a fine example. Despite the fact that we argue passionately sometimes, we respect each other, and I consider you a friend to the fullest extent that the word can apply to someone conversed with behind a veil of anonymity. I genuinely like you.
That said, our philosophies are incompatible. If I am right, you are wrong. If you are wrong, I am right. Excepting the loosest figurativists, the adherents of the world’s great religions are in exactly this same boat (vis-a-vis each other).[/quote]
Well yes, theologies of the varying religions would be right or wrong depending on what the actual truth is, or they can be all wrong, but they cannot all be right.
Now what it would take is to categorize what is similar between them and eliminate those and then take the differences and be able to test them in some way.
For instance, most religions share a belief that God exists, there is good and evil, we can interact with God through prayer.
Then there are differences, Jesus vs. Mohamed vs. Vishnu vs. Buddha and all the theologies that follow.
I would certainly agree they cannot all be right, per se. But I don’t think that speaks to the spiritual state of a person. It most certainly does not speak to the salvation of who ever. Yes, there are those who disagree with me on this. But I think it a dangerous thing to ‘play God’ and say one is destined for hell, why they themselves are destined for heaven. We don’t know. It’s best not to pretend we do know because we’ve read the Bible or Koran or what ever holy book and that book says if we don’t believe X we are doomed.
I don’t believe we have to be ‘right’ about what we believe, at least not academically. I believe the answer lies in love and we if love to the best of our ability then who can condemn us? Only fools says I.[/quote]
I certainly don’t have the authority to say who will, and who will not, be saved, if salvation turns out to exist (though it is certainly true that many, many Christians believe that there is no salvation without positive faith in Jesus as the son of God). I was speaking about what you called “academic” truth and fiction–somebody (or nobody) is “correct,” and the rest are not.
