rkolter wrote:Posted secondarily since it's not directly related to the topic, but related to something else said in the thread.
I too find it disconcerting when people say "All religions are basically the same."
At a distance, both people and religions look the same. People all have a head, two arms, two legs, a torso... religions all have a power they worship, generally have a personification of that power, have holidays (many closely shared), rituals, some kind of structure.
But when you get closer to both people and religions, they differentiate out. People have different genders, skin color, eye color, hair length, hair color, adornments, style of dress, languages, accents, tolerances for heat and cold, and so on. Religions have different closely held beliefs, different absurdities, different takes on life and on death, different rules they ask their followers to abide by, and so on.
While it is true that you can expect a specific set of things from any religion, that does not actually imply that all religions are the same.
Well, as I said, I believe that religion is metaphore, materialisation, systematisation or whatever have you, of moral. I reason that by the fact that in all main religions, major sins are similar: killing, stealing, adultery, etc, things that are generally considered amoral. That, of course, differs from religion to religion so Budhists cannot drink alcohol while Moslems cannot eat pork, etc, commandments that usually have some sort of basis in culture, geographical, economical, etc, situation from which the religion grew. But basically, being good in any major religion comes down to that set of rules that even atheists will find right.
Also, with globalisation and all, there is an urge to make peace among religions and make them all respect each other. Thinking that everyone but members of your religion (whichever it is, it's minority of global population) will go to hell for disbeleaving isn't acceptable in modern society, so from that need grew conclusion that God is one, and that various religions believe in him in different shapes. It's partly logical, partly ilogical, but it is practical and works. Just like deism works with modern science which allows scientists to be religious.
Those things are basically how I understand that "All religions are the same" assesment.
I think perhaps (and I'm certainly no expert in these things) that problem may be that you define yourself by your faith. Your personal life, your job, your hobbies, even your username. It all draws from the fact you're a Christian. My advice to you. One question you may have to ask is "without my faith, who am I?" which is certainly not a great point to start considering a question of this size.
Great observation. Any time you try to define it one category, be it religion, philosophical theory or a rock group you're fan of, you start missing on a lot of things. Life's much, much more complicated than that. I don't like to think of God as someone who created us mainly to praise him. I like to think that he created us to live our lives and enjoy them. And then, if we accept that God created everything, isn't talking about anything of this world actually talking about God, through talking about his creations? By that logic, my comic is as much about God than 4thalord's.
The bible can be and IS so many things at once, it's obscure and mysterious... which is all the fun.
I can recommend John Shelby Spong's 'The Sins of Scripture' which examines those texts in the bible that seem completely at odds with the idea of a 'loving' god, and for a bit of fun, 'Summon's Christian Miscellany' by Parminder Summon, which has a lot of strange tidbits of Christian information you might find interesting.
