Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
Is there a name for the doctrine which claims that all religions are epistemically/veridically disjunct from each other?
To elaborate, a lot of critics of religion seem to presume that divergence of religion on any particular belief entails that they either don't refer to the same features of the world, or that they conceive of the world in an irreconcilable way. They express in certain common criticisms such as: "but which religion is the correct one?" or "which God?", and "God is a personal belief and varies greatly from religion to religion".
Their view seems to amount to thinking that there can be no common framework that would provide the pathway of reasoning to a "correct" answer with regards to religious questions. In other words that religious disputes cannot be solved because there's no reliable source of reason for solving them? It seems to be a view a lot of atheists and agnostics have.
To elaborate, a lot of critics of religion seem to presume that divergence of religion on any particular belief entails that they either don't refer to the same features of the world, or that they conceive of the world in an irreconcilable way. They express in certain common criticisms such as: "but which religion is the correct one?" or "which God?", and "God is a personal belief and varies greatly from religion to religion".
Their view seems to amount to thinking that there can be no common framework that would provide the pathway of reasoning to a "correct" answer with regards to religious questions. In other words that religious disputes cannot be solved because there's no reliable source of reason for solving them? It seems to be a view a lot of atheists and agnostics have.
Comments (52)
ChatGPT says: "Yes, the doctrine you are referring to is called religious exclusivism. Religious exclusivism is the belief that one's own religion is the only true religion and that all other religions are false. This belief can manifest in different ways, such as the belief that only those who believe in a certain religion will attain salvation, or the belief that other religions are based on false beliefs or worship false gods. Religious exclusivism stands in contrast to religious pluralism, which holds that multiple religions can be true or valid, and that different paths or ways of understanding the divine can coexist."
And if ChatGPT doesn't know everything, ask Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_exclusivism
That framework sounds like what one would need to compare religions with each other. Are there critics of religion who reject such comparisons?
As an atheist, I have some sympathy for this view. There is also a position called ignosticism which says that the concept of god's and goddesses are meaningless since there are no coherent or unambiguous definitions. I also have sympathy for this. Gods may be seen as either as a kind of magic man, or as a benign, unknowable, essentially amorphous 'energy' or force. It does seem incoherent.
Obviously there are venerable and comprehensive traditions of syncretism and perennialism - which seek to find (often rather crudely) common themes and values of religions, or seek to blend traditions in the hope of arriving at an overarching truth - but it's worth remembering that since religion can't really be defined in the first place ( a discussion elsewhere on the forum), this kind of enterprise might be seen to be precarious, muddled and insecure.
It is sophistical for Harris to use the diversity of religious expression to bolster his simple unitary view.
His emphasis upon the propositions of what is believed reflects the ritual importance of reciting the creed in many versions of Christianity. To cancel all religions on the basis of this model is oddly as chauvinistic as those who insist that it is the only truth. No sincere effort to compare religions can afford such baggage.
Mythology (i.e. cults, folklores).
Would this be religious pluralism? To quote Wikipedia: "Religious pluralism holds that various world religions are limited by their distinctive historical and cultural contexts and thus there is no single, true religion. There are only many equally valid religions."
Religious pluralism treats each religion as disjunct; to my mind that's what separates it from perennialism, which takes all religions to be pointing towards a single unified religious truth. Mythography treats all religions as fictions; thus it gives them all the same epistemological status.
Indifferentism is used to describe the non-committal belief that no one religion is better than any other, and there is "apatheism," which denotes a lack of interest in the truth of religious claims.
I am not sure if there is a specific sub-type of religious pluralism that specifies that all religions are epistemologically disjunct, but that each system is valid "onto itself." The term is fuzzy, and sometimes just used to denote tolerance, but some post-modern versions talk about "different types of truth."
Quoting Oxford Dictionary
Or the definition by Emile Durkheim? "A unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
I think it's negative pluralism (about religons) specifically. Positive pluralism would be that they're all disjunct but they all contribute toward greater understanding / they each contain truth value. Negative pluralism would be there's lots of them and they're all veridically empty.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think it's relativism.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think it's irreducible plurality (about religions).
Neither. I'm saying that "all religions" are myths and that they can be most, especially dead religions, have been studied as such. They have the same function (re: pacifying false fears with false hopes) even though their contents may be "incompatible" like e.g. 'styles of art' or 'varieties of medicines' or 'tribal/territorial identities' throughout history and across cultures. I suppose this implies the "doctrine" of religious skepticism.
Would you say that they are all devoid to true content (in their claims)?
Quoting 180 Proof
But what about the claims of religions, are those incompatible, or are you unsure?
Yes, "religious claims" have never been publicly demonstrated to be true.
Usually. No.
It's religious scholars who often argue the subject can't be adequately defined. Take it up with them. I'm not preoccupied with definitions, I'm more interested in usage. No doubt there are many definitions of religion but they lack or distort the idea. I always liked Ambrose Bierce's definition:
Some vague notion that religions all focus on the idea of oneness or transcendence is so slippery and inexact it would seem to be foundational quicksand.
Your comparison with governments seems a false equivalence, as governments are nominally cooperative and administrative entities and by definition flexible and subject to constant modifications and never deal in transcendence or Truth. And don't forget that anarchists would seek to abolish governments precisely because they are contradictory and there are no best forms of government.
From the outside, it is. I can't really say someone else's experience isn't valid. If the Buddhist tells me they have experienced Nirvana, I can't reject the veracity of that claim simply because it's presumably incompatible with the dogmatic claims of Roman Catholicism. That makes no sense. No religion can be reduced to a set of truth claims. They all assume that one must practice it, immerse one's self in it, to understand it. I would have to experience the same thing as the Buddhist before I could present a legitimate critique against their experience. Thats the problem.
The problem with the various religions is not their seeming incompatibility to the outside observer. It's the fact that in order to give a legitimate critique of the various religions, one would have to have a lived experience of each one of them, which is not practical since most religions worth their salt assume it takes a whole-life orientation to become suitably immersed to call a religion one's own. Religion escapes legitimate critique precisely because, at its best, it deals in experience. You and I might not get it, but we can't say much about it until we have the experience.
I agree. But, again, if it's true, it's not going to be subject to evaluation by an outside observer. Mystics from various religions will talk about a common element (perennial philosophy, if you will) but you and I can't hand wave it away until we experience the same. I would be interested in hearing from someone who had a mystical experience, say some experience of Nirvana, and said, "Yep, that's complete nonsense. I just had indigestion." Lol
Perhaps it is a false equivalence. I'm thinking a monarch that has absolute power, for instance, is going to be incompatible with a democracy, e.g, the kind Plato deplored. I like your suggestion regarding anarchists, but I think the general idea that a set whose members are incompatible somehow nullifies the veracity of any of the individual members is fallacious, as a principle. All it takes would be one true member, and regardless of the mutual incompatibility of the members in the set, the principle fails.
If a Christian says that their faith tells them that God hates fags and thinks women should stay at home and black people are inferior - do you accept that claim because it is faith based and they experience the truth of these claims? How do you determine what religious claim you will accept? The same Christian religion will also have people who say faith tells them that god loves and endorses gay people and wants women to work and is a feminist. You might say that the same religion 'cancels itself out.'
Quoting public hermit
I don't think experience is a 'get out of jail free' card. Is there anything that can't be justified through claiming experience?
I think the general point is not that all religions are 'rubbish' but that no religion has demonstrated why it or others deals in Truth about reality. Until this happens, why take any of them seriously? I am not saying none of them are true, I am saying none of them are in a position to demonstrate their truths. And all religions justify their diverse 'authenticities' using similar arguments - personal experience, causation, meaning, truth, morality, etc.
:cool: :up:
Can you point to any religion that does not have some notion of transcendence as central?
I don't think we can say someone's experience is not what they experienced. Who is in a position to do that? Your conclusion that adherents in the same tradition that differ somehow cancels out the tradition is hasty. Whether adherents within a particular tradition are incompatible, say in Christianity, could simply be the difference between one who has had a legitimate experience and one who has not. I think Jesus said my followers will love as I do, or some such thing. The one who says they follow Jesus and yet hates others might be one who is not an actual follower. The tradition has not been canceled by that incompatibility; it's just that one adheres and one does not.
Experience doesn't necessitate validity; however, the legitimacy of another's experience can't be denied out of hand. Someone who hallucinates and sees a three legged elf is surely hallucinating, but it would be inaccurate to claim they are not seeing a three legged elf. My point is not that every experience is valid; my point is that no one is in a position to discount a whole set of experiences, in this case religious experiences, simply because they are incompatible.
I don't really disagree since I have been saying that their reliance on experience makes them virtually impervious to critique from the outside. Whether one takes them seriously or not is a matter of personal choice, I suppose. What I reject is someone claiming they're all invalid since, as a whole, they're mutually incompatible. As I have shown, that's fallacious.
No.
But thats not the argument. The argument, which I stated earlier, is that they all make contradictory claims using the same justifications and so there is no way to demonstrate if any are true, or even how we would begin such a process of discernment. So best we move on until theres a breakthrough. Weve been waiting for millennia.
Advaita Vedanta comes to mind first ... but I suppose it depends on what's meant by "transcendence".
Quoting 180 Proof
Would you say that religions qualify as theories? Would you say theories among scientific theories or theories among historical theories are incompatible with each other?
If your answers to these two questions aren't both "yes", what is the substantive difference between religion and theories (historical/scientific)?
If by "theories" you mean explanations of how states of affairs change or formal abstractions work, then I don't think "religions qualify as theories".
They are about as "incompatible" as observational evidence and circumstantial evidence, respectively.
Religions proselytize with fact-free myths and folk tales which do not explain any publicly accessible facts of the matter whereas, at best, "scientific and historical theories" are rigorously critical, abductive, attempts to do so.
Accepting this definition of a theory, would you say that (your best interpretation of) atheism qualifies as a theory?
Not at all. Atheism is only a critique and rejection of theism.
There aren't any sound arguments demonstrating that the claims of any form of theism (which also includes deism) are true.
There aren't any publicly accessible corroborations of any "scriptural" accounts of any god or gods (or "miracles").
There aren't any extant, ostensible, "divine" "sacred" "spiritual" or "supernatural" facts of the matter.
Atheism is only a sound criticism of theism and not itself a "theory of godless reality" (or a belief system).
By this, you mean atheism?
I think you will find most religions have a common thread under/through them. It may be simple, basic but it is there. There are several concepts that parallel across all religions. God is not one of them.
Not all religions have a godhead. Taoism speaks in favour of flow of nature that is ultimately not reducible to human language/description.
I think religions as well as science are all fundamentally reconcilable with one another for a simple reason - they all study/ponder reality - it's origin and it's nature. Some features of every religion are more or less accurate than others in a reconcilable logical/rational framework. Science also has its limitations in areas spirituality does not - like an explanation for irrationality, love, ethics/morality and intuition.
In essence the reconcilability of the study of the universe as "self/conscious" (spirituality) and the study of the universe as an inanimate object (science) are divided by the hard problem. Where does self end and inanimate substance begin?
Hello Hallucinogen!
Interesting OP, and I have already seen that some other users commented on mythology. This is what came to my mind firstly. Nevertheless, I think we cannot consider mythology or polytheism as religious diversity. Yes, they do have different deities representing their beliefs, but with a common "root" and excluding the rest of the groups who were different from them.
What I know as a school with religious diversity is the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in Spain.
Its many works of art and architecture are the product of three major religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It was called "La Convivencia", It claims that in the different Moorish Iberian kingdoms, the Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in relative peace.
Convivencia: "living together"
I don't think that this is a question of doctrine. That religions are disjunct from each other is a fact. Even sects within religions are sometimes isolated from each other and their mother religion/church.
How can one reconcile Christianity with Hinduism or Islam or even Judaism?
There have been even religious wars carried out between two denomications. People have been persecuted because of their religion or even their religious beliefs. Even in these days there are ethno-religious enmities with the same countries themselves and not between two but more religions. (E.g. Bosnia)
On the other hand, there is an effort for the protection of religious freedom and human rights in general, made by conventions under the UN of representatives of major religions --Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Religiious freedom automaticall ends enmities among religions as well as persecution by governments and churhes. These and similar conventions and movements are the closest I can think of about arriving at a reconciliation between religions ...
They all believe in spirits and the afterlife.
:gasp:
Come on, seriously now ...
I agree.
Quoting Benj96
Indeed, but the implication we could take from this is that religions that aren't reconcilable, aren't so because they reject a feature of reality whereas the others don't. God might be that feature of reality.
Quoting Benj96
Correct.
Quoting Benj96
I believe it is.
I'm not sure if this gets directly at what you are asking for, but "religious particularism" is a relevant term with "ecumenicalism" having somewhat the opposite meaning.
Thanks, it seems to be a variant of exclusivism.
Quoting wonderer1
Yes it's a form of reducible plurality, the view that I hold.