Friday, July 1, 2016

No religion can be ultimately correct at the expense of all others

Adherence to a religion is measured by a sincere belief in the definitive statements of that religion. Thus, the purported truth of a religion is expressed in human language, be it Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Pali, or Arabic. All of this presupposes that the ultimate object of worship (traditionally rendered in English as God with a capital G) created the universe with human beings as the center of meaning, that the Object communicates in human language and that the key statements may be understood unambiguously by humans. Aside from the unlikelihood that the entire universe is primarily about the human race, or that God would codify the most essential truth in a human language and, of the multiple versions people follow, only one is the correct one, the assumption that the statements of any religion are unambiguous and not subject to sincere differences of interpretation is clearly false. Therefore, we might as well quit trying to figure out the correct interpretation of statements in human language considered to be divinely inspired, much less which religion is the correct one. Where does that leave us? One possibility is that all religions point toward a transcendent truth and that striving to understand key religious statements may lead us to wisdom and understanding.

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