They can't be anything other.
This an important conclusion, and the reason why no single religion, particularly ancient religions fail to provide a universal message throughout time. The spiritual nature of the human nature evolves past ancient worldviews.
Why? The problems haven't changed, nor have the solutions. I fail to see why 'love' or 'compassion' are irrelevant? The Tao? The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism?
First, I believe the problems have changed. Since the 18th and and 19th centuries we have moved into a world where the relative isolation of cultures and individual religions no longer address the evolving spiritual nature of humanity that is becoming one.
Yes, love and compassion as well as the Golden Rule are universal, and remain at the heart of the spiritual human nature. Unfortunately this universal nature is not generally recognized by the individual ancient religions of the world where their spiritual sense of community is defined only by their own religion.
The core of religions address the Absolute and the Infinite, and as such address the timeless, the eternal and the transcendent, so in that sense are not subject to time and circumstance, fad and fashion.
This only applies to the ultimate nature of existence as defined by the individual religions and not outside the sense of community to other religions. The general rule between between religions is degrees of 'tolerance and intolerance' to deal with others who believe differently. One must not need to tolerate others if they do not believe in them as different.
No. The problem rather lies with man, who seems incapable or unwilling to embrace the teachings of the ancient religions. The twentieth century was the most violent in human history, and the major conflicts, holocausts and purges were not motivated by religious but political zeal.
The problem has always been fallible humanity regardless of what one believes, and what ancient or modern belief system one has. Unfortunately most people of the world do embrace the teachings of ancient religions.
The twentieth century is only more violent based on the scale of violence, and the confrontation between religions and cultures that were once relatively separate, because of the much greater population involved. The violence in human relations has been at times extremely violent in the past just has it has been in the twentieth century. In conflicts and wars it was extremely common to completely exterminate the enemy including the women and children. Those that were not exterminated were inslaved for life.
Only to the degree that the modern world has moved away from the principles of humanity contained within those traditions and settled, in my opinion, for far less, for the fashionable, the novel, the ephemeral and the ego.
This tends to be a scapegoat view of those that believe differently. Much of what is contained in ancient religions and world views, but not all, is worthy of rejection, because they do pretty much apply to a limited ancient cultural paradigm. The problem of what is fashionable, novel, ephemeral and of course the ego is an always problem with fallible humans regardless of what one chooses as their belief system, ancient or new.
Indeed, the commentators of the Hindu metaphysical traditions see this process as falling within the 'end times' of any culture, when all that is peripheral is 'used up' in an orgy of excess, much as, physically, the excesses of western culture has 'used up' the planet's resources to the point of exhaustion.
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What is telling is that man continues to look for a 'magic bullet' – rather than learn the lesson, that his lifestyle is unsustainable, he relies on science and other endeavours to enable him to continue in the profligate lifestyle. And God help anyone who wonders how it can be justified that the few can enjoy themselves at the expense of the many.
Unfortunately the 'magic bullet.' Holy Grail,' and the 'potion of eternal youth,' are indeed illusions of the ego, but nothing like that is proposed here. Neither is the problem of the comfort of the few at the expense of the many, is another common feature of the ego of the fallible human.
That is no reason to give up.
I have not proposed giving up, but putting the scriptures in the reality of their context of their culture and time. My view is to embrace a more universal view placing the different religions of the world in the context of the spiritual evolution of humanity and the wisdom of all the religions.
The Bible, for example,on the one hand expresses complex truths regarding God and man in a language that is indirect and full of imagery, on the other neither its source nor its object is the empirical, which is the only reality modernity concerns itself with outside of its own self-gratification, which is itself illusory).
I view the Bible as the knowledge and beliefs of the people at the time, nothing more. 'Truth' is too much of an illusive quest, and I will relegate that to vain desires of the ego.
The language of the world's sacra doctrina transcends these planes, and is accessible through the intellective and mystical center of man's being, or through the “heart,” or pure “intellect”, if one prefers.
Maybe, but this is an illusive claim.
The 'classical' prejudice of scientism, or rather the fault in its methodology, is that it denies anything outside of its own remit on the basis that if it can't see it, it can't exist, which is easily dismissed.
This is an unnecessary negative generalizing view of science. I am, for your information. a scientist (Geologist, Soil Scientist, and Hydrologist) Scientism is one of those unfortunate stone words used to throw at people and build walls. The foundation of science is 'Methodological Naturalism,' which by its nature is neutral to any metapyhsical claims and beliefs, because scientific methods cannot falsify anything other than what can be objectively proposed in theories and hypotheisis. This unfortunate view you proposed is related to ancient world views that needs to be rejected. There are scientist that claim to be Ontological Naturalists, or atheists/agnostics like Einstein and the extreme views of Dawkins, but this represents a philosophical assumption and not based on Methodological Naturalism. Actually the scientific work and research of even the most radical of atheist scientist is indifferent to their philosophical nor religious beliefs, because their work must pass the peer review test of Methodological Naturalists.
