The Lord is universal but the human beings in the universe differ in their attitudes. The same single Lord adopts a different procedure in a different region and such different procedure appears as a different religion. A few criticize the Lord of other religion. You are criticizing your own Lord of your own religion. The external behavior of the Lord differs due to different internal and external behaviors of the human beings in this universe.
The external form, dress, language, food habits and culture of human beings differ from one region to the other. Accordingly the external form, dress, food habits, language and culture of the Lord also differ to suit that particular region. The internal Lord and the internal essence of the same Lord is one and the same in His different human incarnations which have come in different regions or religions.
So, given how the Lord has set it all up, the Lord must see some value in the process of inter-criticism, no? How else would eccumenical dialogue and internal critique occur? Or is a critical perspective counter-religious?
So in one place He tells people to stone anyone gathering sticks on the sabbath, in another that someone else is responsible for their sins, and in still another He tells them to bring other religions under submission to “His” religion via the sword. These things make no sense on their own, much less when they intermix.
If God were going to give us his Word (which He couldn’t do without negating our free will), He would certainly have given it to everybody at the same time, saying the same thing in every language and dialect there is. That this has never happened is hard evidence that the different religions are merely self-serving fraudulent corruptions of whatever truth they may have started out with, if any.
The same Lord came to different parts of the world in different age to preach the same Divine Knowledge. All the scriptures of the world are the records of the knowledge given by the same Lord and hence cannot contradict each other. Yet we find sometimes that there are some glaring contradictions between different scriptures of the world. This is in part due to fact that the Lord taught the same truth in different ages and places in a slightly different way, so as to suit the culture and language of the people. This is only an extraneous difference. The essential knowledge is the same. Correct interpretation will remove the contradiction.
Sometimes there may be an apparent difference even in the essential meaning.
In such as case the inconsistency is probably caused by corruption of the scripture over generations. Comparison with other scriptures of the world will help in removing the corrupted portions in each scripture. Here it becomes essential to bring in experience as a prama?a or a valid means of knowledge. While comparing contradictory views in different scriptures, the view which agrees with experience or anubhuti should be taken as correct.
That’s all well and good, but you’re still making the contention that there is a degree of contingency in the claims of literary theology; that the Ten Commandments, or the Five Pillars, or the Four Noble Truths are largely arbitrary developments which arose as a consequence of cultural influence. As someone who subscribes to the “evo psych” model of religious belief - that religious belief is a “side-effect” of cognitive systems that evolved primarily to serve other purposes - I couldn’t agree more: we should expect to see many similarities in form and purpose amongst the world’s religions (i.e. rituals centered around invisible, minimally counter-intuitive agents which have priviliged access to social information), but a great deal of difference in the specific content or expressions of these beliefs at the same time. The universals of religion - that which they all share in common - have nothing to do with “Divine Knowledge”, however, and everything to do with genetics.
Besides all that, even if we were to accept your claim that “inconsistency is probably caused by corruption of the scripture over generations”, that “correct interpretation will remove the contradiction” and that “the view which agrees with experience or anubhuti should be taken as correct” then surely we would be right in saying that any conclusions reached by such a process owe a greater debt to human reason and intuition (what is exegesis if not the application of human reason and intuition?) than Divine Knowledge. If acquiring Divine Knowledge is entirely dependent on such human processes, what cause is there to not simply dismiss all possibility of acquiring Divine Knowledge with any certainty (presuming there is any to acquire in the first place), minimise our pluralities and simply throw our lot in with the efficacy and reliability of human reason to begin with? What need is there of gods?
The correlation of the scriptures of various religions was done in a detailed way by several prophets who aimed at the world peace. Even I have done this correlation in major topics like human rebirth, concept of human incarnation etc. The effect of such correlation is not much because the devotees of various religions are neither influenced by the unity of the scriptures nor by the unity of human beings having the same bodies of matter and energy externally and the internal souls made of the same pure awareness.
Scriptures are the concepts given by various forms of God. Devotees feel that these forms of God are totally different from each other. Unless you bring the correlation of the various forms of God belonging to different religions, the problem is not solved in the root. You have to come from top to bottom in the solution for difference. The correlation of unity in the scriptures and in the human beings is an attempt of solving the problem from bottom to top. If you can prove the unity of the forms of God and establish the concept of single God in various religions, the scriptures have to be correlated forcibly because one God cannot speak contradicting concepts in various religions.
Like this if you come from the top for the solution, there is always a tremendous binding force acting on the heads of devotees to correlate the scriptures. Even if some little variations exist in the scriptures, they have to be unified by force in the light of unity of God, who is the single speaker of various scriptures.
I’m not prepared to give my life/soul over to a religion with apparent contradictions or “corruption of the scripture” that has been there since the beginning–and I think anyone is foolish to do so especially since the dogma doesn’t even make sense…
Especially since there is a philosophy concerning God, and the Word of God, that does make sense:
“It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language… It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
The point was that it is tied directly to a religious view of God that does not, and will not, agree with any other view of God.
This stands as a direct opposition to the original posts assertions.
While I agree with the idea of universal religious acceptance, the reality is so very far from sympathetic to such ideas.
The essence of all the religions is one and the same since the Universal God gives it. The religions are different from each other because the religious leaders who are the human beings create the material that surrounds the essence. The skeleton is one and the same and there is no difference in the skeletons of the human beings. The difference lies only in the external materials covering the skeletons, which are flesh, skin etc., in these external materials differences arose due to deficiencies. Suppose there are two students. One is weak in physics and the other is weak in chemistry.
Each student mocks the other for the deficiency. Therefore, the deficiency is the root of difference and quarrels in the religions. The reason for the deficiency is the human brain that developed the external body of the spiritual knowledge. Therefore, the spiritual knowledge is the skeleton and the religion is its body. The deficiency in a religion can be removed by taking the merits of the other religions. Every religion has deficiency and the rectification of that deficiency should be from other religion without any ego and jealousy. Do not think that you are without defects. Do not think that your parents have no defects. Do not think that your teachers and preachers do not have defects. Therefore, observe others and take the merits from anybody without prejudice.
The blind thinking that your nation, your state, your district, your town or village, your caste, your family, your parents, etc., is the best or highest should be eradicated from your brain. Always base your self on your analysis and commonsense that is observed from the examples in the world. Your elders might have polluted the scriptures but this world is the best scripture written by God. This world-scripture is Universal without any color of any religion. You can develop the entire spiritual knowledge by observing this world and the scientific knowledge existing in the various examples or items of the world. Any human being cannot pollute these. You must be scientific and analytical in your belief. The ignorant and clever religious elders always exploit blind belief.
I think you confuse me as being in disagreement with the assertion.
Instead, I am merely stating that this assertion doesn’t stand a chance against practical application due to exactly the sentence I just quoted from you.
A permanent solution for this does not lie in the begging appeals, which may or may not unite the followers. Even if the appeals unite such unity is not permanent. If the real unity in all the religious scriptures is exposed through the logical divine knowledge, the followers have to be united for generations together. Therefore, My attack is not on the hearts of the followers through love and kindness. My attack is on all the religious scriptures through intellectual logical analysis of divine knowledge. The unity of hearts through love can be only temporary. The unity of brains through intellectual analytical divine knowledge will be permanent. Hearts agree but brains realize. Agreement is temporary, but realization is permanent. Thus this is My first blow of My divine Conch shell for the permanent unity of all the religions aiming at eternal Universal Peace.
Today the development of science is terrible, which is the faculty of logic and analysis. Today the heart is reduced and the brain is expanded. The old generations were having a broad heart and less brain. The heart can be inspired by appeals but the brain will not be satisfied by appeals. If you appeal “All the human beings are one and the same internally and externally. God is one only. Do not quarrel with each other and be united as one family”, the effect of such appeal is temporary only. When the devotee returns back, the emotion is subsided by next day itself.
The reason is that his or her intellectual facility (Buddhi) is not satisfied. You have not given the logical analysis of such concepts. You have worked at the level of mind only and not at the level of intelligence. Mind is the steering rod and the intelligence is the driver. Mind is in the hands of intelligence. Due to this reason only, the Lord started Gita with the concept of knowledge and analysis (Buddhi Yoga). The driving knowledge of the driver is more important than the driver. The correct driving depends on the correct driving knowledge imparted on him by the teacher of the driving school, who is the Satguru.
In the case of Arjuna, the teacher of the driving school himself became the driver! You cannot imagine the fortune of Arjuna. When God Himself became the driver, He is called as Satguru. The word Sat is used to mean God. Guru means guide.