Waning Moon Conrad

I think that one world religion is a pipe dream and I also think that it's undesirable.

I won't be abandoning Buddhism to return to Christianity or to Crowley.

It's not realistic of me to expect a few billion people to embrace Buddhism.

In spite of fundamentalists who won't get a life, diversity is going to keep on flourishing.

Nowhere357

Why the insults? Is that what Buddha teaches? I think not.

BTW I highly respect the Buddha.

Also BTW I'm about as far from a fundamentalist as one can get.

Diversity can exist within one religion, so your objections merely show a lack of imagination. If a religion offers truth, that truth should hold for us all!

Eric H

Humanity is naturally competitive in just about everything, including beliefs. When we compete against other beliefs there is often conflict.

To bring religions together, there is a need to harness humanities competitive nature in a positive manner.

How can we love people of other faiths as we love ourselves?
How can we love God above all else?
How can we love our neighbours as we love ourselves?
How can we do these things in a greater way?

It stands to reason that if there is a God the creator, then he must have created all people. He then gave us the choice to become Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or non believer.

If we really beleive in God then surely we have an obligation of responsibility to all God's creation.

peace

Eric

Beetle

In which case, you don't really have a religion, you have the spiritual equivalent of esperanto. It may work fine, but nobody's going to buy into it.

Waning Moon Conrad

[Originally posted by Nowhere357
Excuse me but what insults are you referring to here?



I don't understand this one either. I haven't offered anything that could be taken as a warped, mistaken view of Buddhist teaching.

I have simply said that one world religion won't work because I won't be giving up Buddhism to embrace something else and I don't expect others to give up their religions to embrace Buddhism if Buddhism was proposed as the one world religion.



That's very nice! I also respect the Buddha.



Where did I accuse you of being a fundamentalist?



Diversity most certainly exists within Buddhism, it exists within Vajrayana, it exists within the different schools of Vjrayana.

It exists in all sorts of different religions. Have I said that it doesn't?



No, my objection to the concept of one world religion is a realistic statement based on the fact that diversity exists and is going to continue existing.

Diveristy of religions and diversity within religions.

People are entitled to stick with Christianity in all its diverse manifestations, with Islam in all its diverse manifestations and with Buddhism with all its diverse manifestations.

They're entitled to stick with Crowley, Gardner, La Vey.

No one is going to manage to come up with a religion that suits absolutely everyone. This is not a lack of imagination, this is simple, pragmatic reality.

If you doubt it, then ask yourself a question. How are you going to convince a theist, for whom the concept of God is all important and underpins their world view, to join a religion which says there is no God, says that minds transmigrate from existence to existence, says that karma is volitional momentum and is not administered by any god and that there was, ultimately speaking, no beginning?

You've got enough imagination to see that I have absolutely none, could you manage it?

Can you convince somebody who holds to such a religion, to join one world religion that proposes a God who created the universe?



Yes, that's all very well but the problem is that there are many different things that different people believe to be the truth.

Once one starts insisting to people that karma is absolutely true, or that Christ is absolutely the one and only saviour, one become a fundamentalist.

Once one starts running about spouting platitudes in order to convince people to accept one's opinion as empirical truth, one become a person who needs to get a life.

Obviously you don't do that becuse you're not a fundamentalist.

Neither do I.

I'm just a Buddhist who believes that diversity will flourish in spite of all the fundamentalists on this planet and who cannot comprehend why you take offence to my suggestion that a single world religion is unrealistic and who cannot understand why you think you're entitled to accuse me of having no imagination.

Nowhere357

You opposed my position (which is fine of course) then said:I felt you implied I'm a fundamentalist (and need to get a life). I apologize for misunderstanding. This also answers your next two questions.

You didn't. But you're missing my point. Just as diversity exists within one religion, so to can one world religion perhaps contain enough diversity for our needs.

I think I see your misunderstanding of my position.

I in no way mean to imply that any existing religion is adequate to become a one world religion. This is the source of my "lacking imagination" comment. I'm trying to imagine a NEW religion, one that provides both unity and diversity, as fits our needs.

I disagree. Unless you mean "given the current state of affairs", and then I agree.

I understand your point.

Here's how I see it. If religion is a source of truth (and I believe it is) then as we become better at determining what that truth is, the oppositional type of diversity will fade away. Making a one world religion a definite possibility.

Yeah, I'm an optimistic dreamer.

I didn't say you have "absolutely none", but I think I was out of line anyway. I apologize.

Absolutely not. Unless we can demonstrate that for a fact, God is true.

I understand your point. Do you understand my point, that someday we may be able to actually know the truth?

An exception is if religion is entirely false - then our only hope is to evolve past the need for such a thing.

BTW in my experience, Buddhism and Zen Taoism are the best (current) sources for spiritual truth. The Abrahamic and Hindu religions seem too full of bigotry and intolerance.

Waning Moon Conrad

Nowhere 357,

Apology accepted of course. I think I understand where you're coming from.

Cheers.

andy_d

Ah, and here we see a major issue. Is the any such thing as an absolute truth?

Indeed, are there any absolutes at all? Your vision depends heavily on the viewpoint that there are absolutes.

I personally doubt that we'll ever reach a point where the whole of humanity agrees to take an absolutist stance. In fact, I would even venture to suggest that the process of our culture is moving away from absolutism. We now acknowledge the idea that everything may be purely relative (both in philosophical and physical terms)

Of course, you can also argue that although the philosophies that back them may be more flexible, all religion is inherantly absolutist.

Nowhere357

Good point. I am not sure whether there are any absolutes. The subject comes up in many threads, and I'm still learning to see the various viewpoints.

For an analogy of how I view the situation currently, consider physical reality. When we see a mountain, in a very real way we can never know exactly the entire truth about it. We are not aware of the mountain - we are aware of our impressions of it. After being filtered by our senses and processed by our brain, how can we ever know the truth?

So I see truth not as a destination, but as a path. Sort of like a mathematical asymptote. The asymptote, or destination, can be seen as the "absolute" truth, but we will never reach it, only approach with greater and greater accuracy. IMO.

I don't see this as necessarily in opposition to my idea. I believe everything is relative, or seems that way. In much the same way as a beehive or an ant colony can be understood as a single organism, so too can all of humanity, or all of earth's life, be seen as an organism. This supports the idea that eventually we'll all be on the same page.

The Abrahamic religions, and maybe the Hindu religion, seem too rigid and resistant to bending, and so I predict they will eventually break and fade away. One can hope.

Eric H

Quote Nowhere 357: The Abrahamic religions, and maybe the Hindu religion, seem too rigid and resistant to bending.
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I have only used the first part of your quote, and certainly within Christianity there seems to be a contradiction of purposes, which causes division.

On the one hand we recognise that it is a terrible sin that Christianity is so divided.

On the other hand denominations quote truth, and will only unite with others if there can be an agreement on truth, but no one is willing to concede any truth, so we have stalemate.

I believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel, many groups have been forming over the last century that are trying to achieve interfaith relations. Not just Christians but Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, and Jews, in fact I believe that most faiths are involved in some kind of interfaith relations.

Maybe In the future people may come to understand that God has to be greater than all the religions of the world. Maybe we will come to understand that we all share the same God in our many different ways. Maybe we will start to understand that the only way we can have freedom to worship our way, is if we can give others freedom to worship their way.

With the recent conflict in Iraq Christian and Muslim leaders are trying to make it very clear that religion is not the cause of the conflict and it is not a religious war.

Maybe people might come to understand that the morals of religion might play a greater part than the beliefs.

Peace

Eric