Religious pluralism
23 May 2008
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When a baby is born, if it is born to a Christian family it is baptized, if to a Hindu family then the family has a mundan ceremony, if to a Muslim family he is circumcised and the list of rituals goes on as per the religion. But the question is did the baby herself chose her religion??? No. It was just imposed upon her. This very child grows up learning about the rites and rituals that accompany her faith and grows to fall in love with it. This learning contributes to the individual that she turns out to be and this individual upholds her religion with utmost respect.
But somehow this honor and respect vanishes for someone else’s religion. Many turn out to be quite intolerant about other people’s faiths and their beliefs. They disregard what matters the most to others, make them the butt of all jokes, sneer at them and expect them not to react to any of this. This is the amount of tolerance one human being has for another’s beliefs! Many people uphold their denomination in high esteem and think themselves to possess absolute religious truth. They view other denominations as somewhat error prone or completely opposed to the truth.
We all pride ourselves at who we are, where we belong to, our caste, customs, sex, colour and what not. To the extent we restrict ourselves to marrying people within the same community because we fear what religion our children would adopt, we fear them not wanting to accept the religion which we have grown up with and more importantly we do not want to adjust with our partner’s beliefs. All across the world we know how one man’s hatred for the Jews led to mass murdering of innocent people and for what reason? Just because they chose to follow another God’s teachings??? We shiver at the very thought of the concentration camps started by the Nazis’, we hate the American government for what they are doing to Iran and Iraq, we cried along with the Americans when the twin towers came crashing down like a house of cards, we outrightly condemn the riots that go on in our country but do nothing to change the way people think. We think as long as we aren’t a part of it, it doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter.
This is where Religious Pluralism steps in-a small community on Orkut started by Supriya Tyagi (the owner of many communities on Orkut). Religious Pluralism is a loosely defined term which means tolerance towards other people’s religion. The aim of the community is to bring together people from diverse cultures and backgrounds on a common platform to share and discuss what they believe in. Although a small community, the message it sends out is quite large- to be respectful of one’s feelings and to sort out differences amicably.
Finally, I have just one thing to say. Not everyone is intolerant or insensitive. They are many great human beings who look beyond such petty issues. But unfortunately there are those who are still caught in the shackles of society. So the next time you decide to make fun of any one or be biased towards someone just because they chose to worship a different God or have a different set of beliefs, just ponder over this for a minute-what if you were born into that faith???
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“If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing — but if you don’t believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist.”
This argument is known as Pascal’s Wager. It has several flaws.
Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often described as the “avoiding the wrong hell” problem. If a person is a follower of one religion, he may end up in another religion’s version of hell.
Even if we assume that there’s a God, that doesn’t imply that there’s one unique God. Which should we believe in? If we believe in all of them, how will we decide which commandments to follow?
Secondly, the statement that “If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing” is not true. Suppose you’re believing in the wrong God — the true God might punish you for your foolishness. Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favor of prayer.
Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely — or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.
Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis.
Formally speaking, the argument consists of four statements:
One does not know whether God exists.
Not believing in God is bad for one’s eternal soul if God does exist.
Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist.
Therefore it is in one’s interest to believe in God.
There are two approaches to the argument. The first is to view Statement 1 as an assumption, and Statement 2 as a consequence of it. The problem is that there’s really no way to arrive at Statement 2 from Statement 1 via simple logical inference. The statements just don’t follow on from each other.
The alternative approach is to claim that Statements 1 and 2 are both assumptions. The problem with this is that Statement 2 is then basically an assumption which states the Christian position, and only a Christian will agree with that assumption. The argument thus collapses to “If you are a Christian, it is in your interests to believe in God” — a rather vacuous tautology, and not the way Pascal intended the argument to be viewed.
Also, if we don’t even know that God exists, why should we take Statement 2 over some similar assumption? Isn’t it just as likely that God would be angry at people who chose to believe for personal gain? If God is omniscient, he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as a wager. He will spurn the latter… assuming he actually cares at all whether people truly believe in him.
Some have suggested that the person who chooses to believe based on Pascal’s Wager, can then somehow make the transition to truly believing. Unfortunately, most atheists don’t find it possible to make that leap.
In addition, this hypothetical God may require more than simple belief; almost all Christians believe that the Christian God requires an element of trust and obedience from his followers. That destroys the assertion that if you believe but are wrong, you lose nothing.
Finally, if this God is a fair and just God, surely he will judge people on their actions in life, not on whether they happen to believe in him. A God who sends good and kind people to hell is not one most atheists would be prepared to consider worshipping.
cheers!!!!
I agree with the above comment…..I would like to add this picture…
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/images/Fear.jpg
LOL…
Regards
KC
http://Ortuk.blogspot.com
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