Do most/all religions contain the same essential truth?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Do most/all religions contain the same essential truth?

It seams the religions of Greeks, Egyptians, druids, even Abrahamic’s had similar aspects to them, though one is pantheistic others pagan and monotheistic. When we read books about or by these pagans they often mention ‘god’ though I think most often they would have been pagan at the time of writing, however this shows that later interpreters saw something of god in the text.

My speculation; for me my religious experiences are as valid as another’s, and for me gods are manifestations of something else, something itself unknowable. Indeed later Egyptian texts put many gods together as a single god, they even have an image of the heavens with simply a leg [of Osiris] at its centre.

As well as gods also compare spirituality…
Example;
Awen is a Welsh word for “(poetic) inspiration”.
Awen derives from the Indo-European root *-uel, meaning ‘to blow’, and has the same root as the Welsh word awel meaning ‘breeze’. There is a parallel word to ‘awen’ in Irish, ai, also meaning “poetic inspiration” which derives from the same ancient root
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awen

Chi
In traditional Chinese culture, qi (also chi or ch’i) is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as “energy flow”, and is often compared to Western notions of energeia or élan vital (vitalism), as well as the yogic notion of prana and pranayama. The literal translation of “qi” is air, breath, or gas.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%27i

Seams we all believe in the same essential shit but simply with different interpretations.

We are all and always have been monotheists, in the sense that all or most religions believe there gods to be derived of a single entity? Have we not always believed in the heavens as both a body and that which guides us, and is the originator of law, even the largely agnostic Confucian philosophy saw the heavens as divine order moving through lords or even the people.

Thought, air, heavens, destiny, inspiration, poetry, deity ~ always the same in all cases.

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Yep. You seem (not “seam”) to have gotten the idea. Welcome to the club if such is a recent revelation. :mrgreen:

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Bitch! :stuck_out_tongue: Well I had always thought that for initiates into the mysteries we would all see the same things, the eye, the tunnels, orb realms etc. so I just want to know how others may see it, if there is such a loop or if it’s a general sentiment if we are honest about our religious thinking.

Another interesting point is if all the ships are on the same journey? Religions seam to go through phases and humanity has followed, or it has followed humanity.

an evolution?

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It isn’t really right to say that they are “all on the same journey”. Some are more sustaining than others even though they are talking about the same things, perspective affects consequence.

And as far as “evolution”, evolution is dead.
Evolution only works when life resists it.
By embracing it, Man has stopped evolution and created “manevolution” in its place, by which means he ends homosapian forever more. Sad but true.
Say “bubye” now. :greetings-waveyellow:

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I suppose it depends on how you look at them. Since they all deal with human beings, they all have a certain degree of overlap. If one were to choose and emphasize those similarities, then they would all appear quite similar. But are those similarities the elements by which we ought measure a religious faith?

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I wouldn’t say they hold the same essential truths.
I would say that they have similar essential understandings of being human ontologically and conditionally, and have some similar base approaches to interacting and/or coping with the ontological conditions therein described.

Another way that I could crudely put it is, “Do all dogs essentially bark the same messages?”
We’re only human, so that biology has its boundaries; grand and vague as those boundaries may be.

Now whether the similarity of humans over history in various ways suggests any given objective truth of physical states beyond this one (such as aliens, gods, transcendent dimensional metamorphosis, or the like) is too far into conjecture to state, I think.

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Xun,

It took me second to see what you are getting at, but I think we may be on a similar page [assuming by “measure”, you mean in terms of ‘truth’].

I don’t think the ‘essential truth’ of a religion is found in the concepts [“God”, “Heaven”, etc.] or stories so much as the respective morality it speaks to. The similarities actually seem to dwell in the more trivial or plainly obvious aspects of a religion. But isn’t it the passion and sense of purpose that makes religion so appealing?

That’s where I think the key variances tend to lie as well–

What are you most passionate about [in your faith], and why?
How has God, or your religion, instructed and/or purposed your life?

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James S Saint

.

Good point! Some ships are reaching their destinations quicker, some though, due to their word of god philosophy, have slowed or even stopped where earlier they were full steam ahead?

“manevolution” ~ I just cannot imagine that evolution has stopped or that man will not change. Perhaps there’s a greater dynamic to evolution in mankind, we shouldn’t limit the term to what we see in nature, the universe evolves into galaxies and then to life, so in a way its description of the whole of changes, no?

Xunzian

Probably not, but it is perhaps a measure betwixt them all? If we don’t take a particular position then we take the universal one, which belongs to none.

Jayson

Well no religion or denominations therein bark the same message, its more a question concerning the universal values here. I cannot think of a religion or philosophy and story within one, which does not have derivatives. You don’t get one religion without another preceding it and informing it, same with many/most aspects therein.

Well firstly its seams a bit of a stretch to have an almost exact same theme in Celtic and Taoist philosophy [as stated in op], when they are at far ends of the earth. One would expect a medium, no?
If not then we have a massive extension of ideas across the globe [even mayan stuff has similarities], which itself contains a medium ~ a universal exchange of informations.

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What would you call it now that man has taken charge of gene pools for all of homosapian and decides which will be used to create the future “hu-man” race, no longer homosapian, or possibly even no longer organic at all?

Is that still what is meant by “evolution”? I don’t think so.
It is “manevolution” from which the homosapian cannot survive and must become truly extinct.

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To the dogs; I was referring to the capacity of articulation bound by biological framework.

To the rest…essentially:

No.
Hebrew and Greek word for spirit is breath as well.

Old mankind only had basic observation of what was actually there in quantifiable terms to use as their tool.
When going through and naming everything, what is the body or thing that is breath?
We have breath, but what is it?
How is it that breath is there to live, but is nowhere in holding?
It is a basic root of most cultures that breath refers to the same concepts as a soul, spirit, or essence.

It is a simple reason why.
Without the breathing, life simply is not.
It appears to be the cardinal difference between life and death, it inhabits us, but it is not bound by us, yet it is our life, and is also allowed to leave and return; like water to a riverbed.

So far, nearly every early human culture that pondered on this paradox arrived at the idea of breath being the soul, spirit, essence of human life.
Without even moving a theological muscle; I agree.

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James S Saint

Quite right, as long as man has control over the genes he can do what he wills with them. Man however doesn’t want other man to fuck with his stuff, hence in application if you don’t change the entirely you get changes occurring organically [perhaps even if you got different groups creating different gene pools].

Man wont survive either way I’d assume.

Jayson

that’s very true, stop breathing and we die etc. I suppose thought seams light and airy like air and inspiration to come from without and hence like air too. We can go on to say that ideas like gods/god, heavens as people in the sky are equally simplistic. There is nothing to them at all, its just mans crude descriptions of what they perceived as a shared experience.
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Pretty much.
Now where I enjoy things is examining those modules and finding the concepts that have been efficiently beneficial to that conveyance and evocation in human history, and stealing them away from their “home” into my little book of “tricks”.

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Point to any two things. I could show you how they’re similar and I could show you how they’re different. Similarity and difference are like that. They’re kind of meaningless. It all depends on what you’re looking for.

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Okay… I am pointing at two things. Now show me how they are different… GO!
:icon-wink:

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Whatever they were, they were different enough to be called “two things” by you. :wink:

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Perhaps you’re missing a trick! :slight_smile:

They made all these connections due to the medium they found.
…

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Got me. :laughing:

But then again, you were to SHOW me (not tell me). :wink:

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No, because most religions are inextricably tied to divine revelation. And if one of those happened to be true (which is 1 to infinity unlikely), it would be in opposition to all the others.

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TPT, different kind of “truth”.
He’s using the word “essential” to refer to the common themes that run in nearly all religions.
Not the question of who’s metaphysical deity choice and type is correct.

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As long as we all agree you aren’t taking a position and thereby not saying anything, we all agree. (Statiky has got it).