Major world religions are fundamentally the same- and true!

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babamcrib

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There is.....at the end of the day....only one truth, but there are so many ways of looking at it.
That is where all our troubles begin.
Personally, I think all religions should be pulped in the same blender and turned into one (minus the carrot and stick schtick), but people have Ego's and things like Pride which seem to get in the way of such progress.
 
babamcrib said:
If one looks objectively at the foundational texts of world religions, they have immense common ground.

For example, all speak of the Nature of the Divine in strikingly similar terms:

Chapter One- The Nature of the Divine (UniversalSync)

And all claim inspiration from this Ultimate Source:

Chapter Five- The Divine Message (UniversalSync)

Many other similarities, such as the value of sincerity and cosmic justice. Any feedback?
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Firstly I think you are wrong. Both in your premise and the process.

I suspect that there have been many religions that have fallen by the wayside over the millenia. (we know this is the case). They were doubtless founded on something of which we no little, never the less in the society they existed they provided some kind of guidance to their followers.

Maybe it was sacrificing their young by throwing them off high structures or maybe it included mass suicide - no explanation needed there as to why it didn't take off:). What the eventual purpose was will never be known but I wouldn't mind guessing that quite a few didn't have the same rose tinted outcomes of the current crop of religions and the concept of the divine never entered the picture. (circa 2009 if you get my drift)

Religions aren't followed they are invented and to be successful they have to attach themselves to a successful culture. They do this usually by insidiously infiltrating the top of society. Subsequently being imposed on the general populous sometimes, in fact most times, against the will of the rest of the population who where previously quite happy worshipping tree nymphs and thunder gods.

How many religions with so called divine outcomes have and will fall to the next culture that comes along. If Christianity loses favour - It will happen (given time).

To be topical, think of old Montezuma (Brish Museum exhibition). Think of what the, prayed for, second coming will do to all those devine outcomes. Things are bound to change.

What then of divinity.
 
babamcrib said:
If one looks objectively at the foundational texts of world religions, they have immense common ground.
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Of course, because they deal with a common issue — the human condition.

How they deal with that condition is unique to each tradition, and there the commonality usually ends ... so no, religions are not fundamentally the same, people are fundamentally the same, but religions are different in their fundamental metaphysic and spiritual application, even when superficial correspondences can be made.

Thomas
 
Thomas said:
Of course, because they deal with a common issue — the human condition.

How they deal with that condition is unique to each tradition, and there the commonality usually ends ... so no, religions are not fundamentally the same, people are fundamentally the same, but religions are different in their fundamental metaphysic and spiritual application, even when superficial correspondences can be made.

Thomas
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Just goes to prove how biased all the religions are.
Pulp them all, sez the pastafarian pirates.;)
 
I think world religions share some goals but they are very different in how they actually deal with issues. I think the term "inter-faith" is misleading because it seem to suggest commonalities that don't exist.
 
I'm sort of with Netti and Thomas. Religions all share some common goals (and these are usually framed as spiritual but grounded in ethics, smooth social functioning, and not infrequently social control), they all share the fact that we're looking at the same problems and we're all dealing with the same human cognition, experience of brain and body, etc.

How they deal with all this, how they frame it, and the stories they tell are where the diversity comes in.

There are commonalities, but most can be traced to either grounding in common human experience (i.e., various "rules" about how the human brain works) or borrowing from one culture to another.

In the modern world, we have a tendency to forget that the ancient world was remarkably well-connected for its lack of technology. By the time Christianity began, there was a lot of borrowing and proselytizing between the Mediterranean, Middle East, India... so of course you'll find commonalities between the world's major religions, which (except Islam, which was later derived from Judaism and Christianity) were all sort of hanging around with Paganism and a bunch of generally forgotten but influential religions (Zoroastrianism, etc.).

We look at the commonalities between these things now and think "wow" but really, it's like everyone was playing a big game of telephone, so it isn't that surprising.

Now, when we look back to the animist traditions, there is a remarkable amount of commonality among them along with a lot of diversity, and this was not due to borrowing (it seems, given the data and movement of people at the time) so much as common human experience relative to the universe and earth.

When one considers how aware people were of their immediate dependence on the weather, trees, animals, land, waters, sun, and so on, it is hardly a revelation that folks all over the place saw these as powerful spirits or deities (before the nation-state and increased alienation from human-environment interaction). It is worth noting, however, that an animistic system was not incompatible with a monotheist or panentheist one-- ideas of a Creator or other One Big Diety were not limited to state-level society and could be found even among foragers. However, it isn't difficult to see how the idea of one god/dess or a pantheon could be very useful to a state society, especially if you could convince the populace that the ruler was divine incarnate...
 
I was traveling this past week and had a couple of interesting experiences. Running around Phoenix/Scottsdale I had a need for a town car occasionally... I'd get picked up from the resort (oh it was a tough life) and hauled off this way or that and invariably had Muslim drivers. Got to where as I jumped in the car I glanced in the back to see if their was a prayer rug rolled up...and there always was.

So I had Somali, Ethiopian and Egyptian drivers, most of which spoke great english, well educated, taking college or tech classes, and I took the opportunity to discuss their beliefs. Well obviously all practicing, all with their prayer rugs 5 times a day etc. We spoke of the five pillars, we spoke of the six pillar of imam....they all, all had issues translating some of the pillars nuance and meaning to them as the words did not translate well.

That is the tip of the iceberg as to how I see various religions. Varioius prophets, folks who got insight, guidance that they deemed from source related that guidance in a way that not only fit with their experience and understanding, but also a way that would be accepted and embraced by those that listened to them.... that in itsefl is probably a couple of generational leaps away from the thought that was actually being conveyed.
 
shawn said:
Just goes to prove how biased all the religions are.
Pulp them all, sez the pastafarian pirates.;)
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Religions are about making people feel special for being different.

It's evolutionary. It gets people thinking. Ideas evolve and sometimes people need to feel important for the ideas they promote and uphold.

Having ideas is better than having no ideas. You are usually smarter if you've got ideas. You're making a contribution. Religion is a framework of ideas.

Because people are considered smart if they have ideas, following a religion can make you feel smart because a religion is a framework of ideas. If you believe that those ideas are valuable, you will feel smart and important.

The same is true of those who oppose religion and all its emerging ideologies. You would then have ideas on opposing religion. That too, makes you smart and intelligent.

Think of it as a kind of Social Darwinism. It's the survival of the most meaningful, valuable and memorable ideas.

It's biased for a reason. Otherwise we wouldn't get anywhere. We wouldn't be constructive or productive. Pride and arrogance has often helped make the world a better place . . . at the expense of maybe another group of people.
 
I also believe that religions are not the same but they are essentially coming from the same source. When it comes to personal worship life, they are not the same at all. But when it comes to social interaction they have very very similar teachings.
 
john4dlg said:
About Sufism ,
It is just the spiritual aspect of Islam.
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Surely not indicating that Islam doesn't have a spiritual component. I always thought of Sufi being to Islam what Kaballah is to Judaism and what New Thought is to Christianity....folks that delve more into the mystical and the mystery and the oneness....

Of course I ain't sayin that any of them aren't into the mystical, metaphysical or mystery...just that these arms focus on it...
 
I'd tend to weigh the individual _human_ factor in each case far more heavily than many others whom I know. Hence, one crucial factor that matters most to me are the earliest and least "tweaked" textual strata and what they indicate about the specific founder involved at each creed's outset.

There is sometimes a lot of heavily tweaked textual material that tends to emerge roughly around four or five hundred years or so after each known founder is long gone. But, though heavily manipulated, that later material (sometimes within each creed's canon for sometimes bogus reasons and sometimes not) often tends to overshadow, in the minds of each creed's believers, the earlier material/information on an original founder duly available in much earlier (and more reliable) strata.

In plain English, since I depend on first knowing what each human founder was personally like and the status of his ethics before viewing any one creed as superseding any other, that means I depend heavily on the most modern, most secular scholarship to determine which texts in a creed's canon _most_ _likely_ reflect the earliest record on that founder's virtues and/or vices. Maybe one can't always be certain that such-or-such a textual stratum is definitively earlier than some other textual stratum. But I still feel it's more sensible to seek out the most up-to-date "guesstimate" instead of just swallowing a whole creed's canon and traditions wholesale.

In evaluating the founders behind these creeds and the earliest texts on them, my chief considerations are

A) Do we have relatively early accounts that the most skeptical scholars would place no later than three centuries or so from the time they actually lived?

B) Did the founder introduce brand new ethics paradigms that exerted a maximum culture-changing effect through at least a thousand years later, thus demonstrating a new ethic's capacity to resonate with our species on a huge scale?

C) Did the founder introduce brand new ethics paradigms that seem wholly taken up with some basic empathy/selflessness/compassion for others?

D) Is there any account conforming to A that also seems to suggest that the founder really did _walk_ his elevated and pioneering empathy-in-ethics talk 24/7, once the founder experienced a radical new insight?

1. Getting down to cases, The Rigveda is the earliest Hindu religious text -- the bulk of it from the mid-second-millennium b.c.e. It's a series of devotional poems. Author unknown, but a certain Lord Krishna of the late fourth millennium b.c.e. is sometimes reckoned the immediate inspirer of the traditions reflected in the poems. One highly symbolic account of Krishna's life can be found in a much later text, the tenth Canto of the S'rimad Bhagavatam, from the early Mediaeval period. Like many a founder in many a belief tradition stretching back ages, there are countless questions concerning how much of what we read of this figure can be taken at face value. While I don't take all the stories as being history -- since it's clear that highly symbolic myth is also involved -- the actual names of those human players who impact on an entire community might still be partly historical. So I'm ready to accept the possibility that someone like Krishna really played some kind of foundational role ca. 3100 B.C.E., even though the events that swirled around his assuming that role were possibly somewhat different from those described in the S'rimad Bhagavatam -- or, for that matter, the more general references to him in the first-millennium-b.c.e Mahabharata (where the Bhagavad-gita is found), and elsewhere. Essentially, the Hindu tradition, the oldest tradition still practiced by millions around the world, appears to have been partly inspired by Krishna, and one important detail may possibly be historical: The love Krishna inspired may have been partly due to his having reportedly replaced a vicious tyrant (called Kamsa in Indian tradition). In other words, read this way, Krishna brought freedom to his people. Ironically, in the tenth and latest book of the Rigveda, assembled at least a century or so after the bulk of the collection, the Purusha Sukta became a Scriptural justification for the noxious caste system! So we see right here a clear example in which a later text has adversely impacted a creed to its ethical detriment. In addition, the earliest direct description of this creed's founder is at least a thousand years later than the time he lived, so we may not be on very solid ground in establishing the status of his ethical probity. In view of all this, the integrity of this creed, with all its textual imponderables, could be somewhat nebulous, while the stance of its founder is only preserved at least a thousand years later. This creed, then, falls short on A and D.

2. The earliest extant example of caring for the vulnerable among us comes from the third millennium B.C.E. in ancient Sumeria. Urukagina, the pioneering lawgiver and first (known) social and religious reformer in our modern sense, is the first to coin the phrase "widow and orphan" as symbolic of those unjustly (and/or inadvertently) prey to the powerful and better-off. Urukagina couples that with a solemn claim that his own god, Ningirsu, mandates that he care for the vulnerable above all others. This marks a distinct break with the prior understanding of deity as a safeguard for the mighty instead. It is probably the first instance of someone making any such connection at all. Some scholars today view Urukagina as the precursor for the 2nd-millennium-B.C.E. laws of Hammurrabi and Moses. Urukagina is also the first known human being to introduce the concept of "freedom" ("Amagi"), and his reforms include radical measures aimed at relieving families of crushing debts, at leaving humble citizens free to name their own price for goods previously yanked summarily out of their hands by the financial and royal elite, at allowing key resources throughout the realm to be used in common rather than confounding the roles of superviser and owner as had previously been the case, at rebuilding temples where the ministers now had strictly pastoral duties and much less power over any properties than they had had previously, and so on. Texts preserving his reforms are found on Sumerian clay tablets of the third millennium b.c.e. It would appear that the textual record for Urukagina, then, is somewhat more reliable than that for Krishna. For me, this creed conforms to all four parameters.

3. The Ten Commandments remains of incalculable importance to the history of humanity. Just that one achievement is significant enough for its author to be included in a survey like this. The only human name associated with this code is Moses, and although the Pentateuch or Torah describes Moses's death, much of the rest of its narrative is often ascribed to Moses. Be that as it may, and however we take the Torah, it remains a superb literary achievement. If Moses was indeed the author of most of it, that is yet another reason to include Moses in this survey of human giants. Finally, of course, he is a foundational figure in Judaism, so his contribution is as much bound in with the spiritual as with the judicial. The earliest stratum of text in both Exodus and the Torah as a whole is generally taken to be the so-called J passages, distinguished chiefly by the term(s) applied to deity. The J passages in Exodus deal with certain aspects of Moses' story, but not all. The E passages -- the next-oldest layer -- provide the full text of the Ten Commandments, for instance. What emerges from the J passages, roughly three hundred years after the best "guesstimate" of Moses' dates, is a man who does understand what injustice is and who, despite a sometimes violent youth, does walk his talk consistently once he has his encounter with the divine. And the words of God in Moses' very first encounter, one of the J passages, resonate uncannily with Urukagina's maintaining that God cares for the vulnerable above all: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows". Like Urukagina's, this creed too conforms to all four parameters.

4. Wen Wang is generally assumed to be the writer of the I Ching, of the 12th century b.c.e., a set of Chinese aphorisms, primarily significant for having introduced the concept of yin and yang and for having helped cement the usage of the term Tian for both heaven and deity interchangeably. There are some vague indications that the I Ching may have been written in prison, although a few scholars have doubted that. Beyond that, the I Ching continued to shape Chinese sensibilities some thousands of years after it was written. Of Wen Wang himself, not much is known beyond his authorship of the I Ching. Thus, this creed falls short on A and D.

5. It's Hesiod, from the eighth century b.c.e., who presents the classic "picture" of the early cosmos as conceived in ancient Greek tradition, his Theogony. In addition to the centrality of his Theogony, Hesiod, according to one account, directly influences the Constitution of Orchomenus, whose designers view him as "hearth-founder". He may thus be the earliest extant designer of a government structure who is known by name. But another account places the Constitution of Orchomenus as post-Hesiod, the term "hearth-founder" in fact referencing the place for his ashes instead. Beyond that, his biography is shrouded in uncertainty. This creed thus falls short on A and D.

(continued)
 
(Part 2)

6. Zarathustra is an even more shadowy figure. We know he was probably responsible for composing the Gathas central to his creed. But beyond that, scholars are not even sure of his dates, which could range anywhere from the 6th century b.c.e. back to the 12th b.c.e.! Thus, this creed falls short on A and D.

7. Matters are just as murky for Daoism, in which its chief text, the Tao-te-king, is sometimes ascribed to a certain Lao-tze and sometimes not. Here, then, we have a case in which even if there were detailed information on a "founder" (and in Lao-tze's case there isn't), we can't even be sure that that's where the creed is really "coming from". The dates for this figure range widely, from the 6th century b.c.e. to the fourth or possibly even later. So this creed falls short on A and D.

8. Prince Siddhartha Gautama Buddha -- ca. 560 - 480 b.c.e. -- is the founder of Buddhism. The number of Buddhist texts are endless. The earliest collection is the Tripitaka in the Pali language. In that collection is a book of sermons, the Digha-Nikaya, that is usually viewed as the earliest and directest record we have of Buddha's own "voice". What sets Buddha apart from his contemporaries is his utter repudiation of any violence, plus the apparent complexity of some of his thoughts. He rejected the caste system altogether. He also is the introducer (for his culture) of the idea "that (from time to time) a Tath¤gata is born into the world, an Arahat, a fully awakened one, abounding, in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher of gods and men, a Blessed One, a Buddha". This suggests an intense and close experience of the divine. Fortunately, we do have early references to this man in his private life. The worst that's said of him in his own era is that he inadvertently made a number of young men lose interest in getting married and raising a family, they were so taken up with the Buddha lifestyle of preaching non-violence and living as a wanderer. And even the most noncommittal accounts appear to validate his personal probity and genuinely peaceful ways 24/7. The earliest accounts of this man's reflections (in the Digha-Nikaya) seem no later than a couple of centuries, if that, within Buddha's lifetime. So this creed checks off on all four parameters.

9. Kung-fut-ze/Confucius lived politics. He came up in a particularly violent time -- c. 551-479 B.C.E. -- and there may have been moments, especially toward the end of his life, when he may have thought his lifelong efforts at reining in the arrogance and violence of those in power whom he met were pointless. But after his death, there was a remarkable resurgence of interest in the reciprocal and considerate way of public life that he had espoused. Confucianism thus arose despite the attempts of some to destroy Confucian texts after his death. The earliest text reflecting his thoughts is now taken to be Chapters 4 through 8 of the Analects, emerging two centuries at most from the time he lived. Considered China's greatest philosopher, as well as a rallying point for political reform, his example may have partly helped foster one of the most stable cultures that humanity has yet seen, starting with the Han dynasty. As with Moses, Kung-fut-ze's stature as effectively the founder of Confucianism ties him in with a tradition that is as much involved with the spiritual as with the secular, although, unlike Moses, the secular component in Kung-fut-ze involves the political more than the judicial. No account of him questions his rigorous consistency and integrity in walking his talk at all times. This creed is one of those that conforms to all four parameters.

10. Philosophy itself has sometimes been described (hyperbolically, of course) as "footnotes to Plato". But there would probably have been no Plato at all without Socrates -- 470 - 399 b.c.e. If we're talking of ethics, if we're talking of self-knowledge, if we're talking of right and wrong, if we're talking of the very nature of reality itself, it seems impossible to discuss any of these things without either Socrates or Plato eventually coming up. Socrates is the godfather of the Peripatetic school, and Plato and Aristotle's influence, huge as it has been, owes its (sometimes "Puck-ish") spirit of inquiry to the endless teasing, sometimes in jest and sometimes in deadly earnest, that Socrates initiated 2,500 years ago. That is a loooooooooong time, and for a solitary eccentric to remain a household word for all that time may be a unique accomplishment in and of itself. Most scholars assume that the texts that come closest to Socrates' "voice" are probably Plato's earliest dialogues, when Plato was not yet using Socrates routinely as a mouthpiece for his own ideas. Among those earliest dialogues are the Apology and the Crito, written scarcely a generation after Socrates' death (very possibly sooner), which are usually taken as about the closest we can hope to get at grasping what happened during and immediately after Socrates's trial. The Apology purports to be a direct representation of Socrates's own defense on the very day he was condemned. Another possible source, and one that differs from the Apology and the Crito in various ways, is the account of the trial from Xenophon. No serious account of this man seems to throw doubt on his having had tremendous personal integrity at all times. And his experience of the divine apparently extends back to childhood and is extremely intense and close. So this creed too checks off on all four parameters.

11. Service/living for others was spotlighted by Jesus Christ -- 4 b.c.e. - 30 c.e. -- more than by anyone else -- even one's enemies were to be loved. His impact led to the founding of Christianity. He also changed the way years are reckoned. Scholars take the three Synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, as the earliest texts relating to his life, coming approximately a generation after he died. Written from a strongly devotional point of view, they contrast with the noncommittal Josephus, whose recollections include two references to a Christ: one that may reflect later tampering -- the form we have it in and a quote of it in Arabic diverge -- and another that refers to Jesus's brother James and that seems better confirmed by a less divergent quote elsewhere. Even relatively unflattering accounts like those found in Tacitus and the Mishnah fail to spotlight any specific flaw in his personal integrity. In the three Synoptics, while Mark seems the earliest, there appear to be fragments of an even earlier sayings tradition, sometimes termed "Q", embedded in Matthew and Luke. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount/Plain seems largely drawn from the earliest "Q" material. This earliest material also confirms that Jesus Christ himself viewed God directly as "my father", and as a father whose son can help reveal that to the world. Since this personal claim of his appears in the very earliest textual strata, and since it is now harder for modern scholars to claim that it is a later add-on, one must conclude that his experiential claim for closeness with the divine is at least as intense and close as that of a Moses, a Buddha or a Socrates. Like those other creeds, this one too checks off on all four parameters.

12. Mohammed -- 570 - 632 -- prophet and founder of Islam, the most recent faith tradition to be adopted by millions, was an extremely influential political and military leader. Reckoned the author of the Koran, he, like Buddha, advanced the idea of recurrent sages with special wisdom, although Islamic tradition characterizes them specifically as "prophets of God". Mohammed started as a simple believer and propounder of a new creed, but when family members were threatened, he withdrew from Mecca to Medina, where he became a military chieftain. In order just to survive, rough raids by his followers for basic goods just outside Medina in retaliation against raids launched by his enemies in Mecca alternated with acts of uncommon kindness on his part. His is a checquered odyssey, ethically, until he becomes the chief peacemaker of his time. Before then, he would even agree, at one point, to one lowly soldier's dying request that all the defeated adult male combatants in a victorious battle at Qurayza(sp.?) be summarily executed! He eventually journeyed back to Mecca to talk with his biggest enemies, journeying there with no weapons, successfully starting a peace process involving all the area's feuding tribes. But soon after his death, strife resumed, even though the ecumenical idea of many "prophets of God" did bear fruit in tolerant places like the surprisingly pluralist Andalusian Spain in the Middle Ages. Although this man certainly made himself some enemies in his lifetime, it is surprising just how many of them would later became his friends once he initiated his peace-making odyssey. Still, some later accounts from those whom he had offended make it clear that he could be very tough and ruthless on certain occasions. Accounts of him in the Hadith, compiled within the three-century mark of parameter #A, present a man of some complexity, ready to be amazingly generous and forgiving on occasion, but also recognizably a military chieftain above all else when needed, meaning all the good and all the bad implicit in such a position. This creed falls short on D.

13. Bahá’u’lláh -- 1817 - 1892 -- was the founder of the Bahai faith and an advocate for world peace. He conceived of the entire globe as a single village long before others took up the idea in the political realm. For this alone, he has to be reckoned one of the most far-sighted sages of the past few hundred years, even though his impact so far has not matched the cultural impact of others in this retrospective, and thus this creed's record is still incomplete on B. Check back in a thousand years or so.;-) The fundamentals of the Bahai faith are preserved in two written books written by Bahá’u’lláh himself and issued in his lifetime, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and the Kitáb-i-Íqán. There are also contemporary accounts of him from a number of different perspectives, and they all seem to show a person of great forbearance and insight. Thus, this creed falls short on B.

From this retrospective, only Urukagina, Moses, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Kung-fut-ze/Confucius, Socrates and Jesus Christ emerge as fulfilling all four parameters. The others all have varying question-marks over them. If you want me to further rate the various levels of usefulness of the remaining seven in gauging the essence of humanity's selflessness urge through the millennia and where it may ultimately spring from, I'm happy to attempt that. But this post is already too long, so I'll only do that by invitation.

Operacast
 
wil said:
I enjoy an interfaith Sufism however many of our Islamic friends denounce it as not Sufi.
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It depends upon what they do other than dancing. Most of the actual sufi work remains hidden from public. Any dances or ceremonies are mainly to have a cultural effect.

So if they are just dancing, they are just dancing. If they actually work to organize the lower you so that you might evolve out of it & enjoy the higher you, that's sufism.

BTW its from Inayat Khan's lineage, right?
 
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