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wowiexist
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17 Mar 2019, 3:28 pm

I have been thinking about the idea that the various religions of the world all have some truth to them and are possibly connected in some way. I was wondering what everyone else thought of that?



DanielW
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17 Mar 2019, 3:39 pm

My trouble is that I find too much to disbelieve in all religions. I think as a very general rule though there, is some good in all of them. Also a lot of bad. I spent a lot of time trying to find a religion for myself, but gave up. I found more that I disagreed with than anything else.

Generally speaking, I think everyone needs to chose what is right for themselves, and leave others to do the same without interference.

I'm more of a hippocratic oath kind of person - "first do no harm"



Last edited by DanielW on 17 Mar 2019, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

shlaifu
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17 Mar 2019, 6:20 pm

They are all connected as they are all human stories that try to make sense of the universe in human terms.

And then there's science, which doesn't try to interpret the universe to make sense if it in human terms - and it doesn't leave much to hope for for humans.

Regarding religious wisdom on how to behave: well, philosophy of ethics is much more sophisticated than the social rule-books of agricultural societies.

So... Religion is either trying to frame the universe as 'for humans', or consists of rules of behaviour for bygone civilizations.

What's left is the role as a social glue, a shared worldview. But it doesn't really fulfill that role in multicultural societies either - it still works in religious-monocultural societies though, but the dynamism of capitalism has been gnawing away at those, too.

So... Religions might have just in common that they are not appropriate tools to look at this world today.


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kraftiekortie
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18 Mar 2019, 9:14 am

I think the idea makes sense from a purely philosophical/intellectual perspective. There is actually much evidence for this.

I don't believe in any religion----so I don't have "faith" in Omnism, or any other religious philosophy.



Fnord
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18 Mar 2019, 9:29 am

A person cannot believe in all religions, since many of their doctrines contradict each other's.

Image

… and …

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So to say that one believes in all religions, is to actually say that one believes in no single religion at all.

So just claim to be "Agnostic" and be done with it.



Last edited by Fnord on 18 Mar 2019, 9:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

kraftiekortie
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18 Mar 2019, 9:34 am

There are very many parallels and similarities between the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). One could almost say that one is a "sect" of another.

I am an agnostic atheist.



Fnord
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18 Mar 2019, 9:37 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
There are very many parallels and similarities between the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)...
To claim Omnism and then focus solely on the Abramic religions would be disingenuous, at the very least. To claim Omnism and include every religion instead would show a lack on understanding of what one professes.



Crimadella
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18 Mar 2019, 9:45 am

Fnord wrote:
A person cannot believe in all religions, since many of their doctrines contradict each other's.

Image

So to say that one believes in all religions, is to actually say that one believes on no one religion at all.

S just claim "Agnostic" and be dome with it.


I don't think they mean all religions are correct, that would be an obvious contradiction. They mean more that all religions contain 'some' truths within them. I even believe that and I'm not religious at all. Take some of the stories out of the bible, they contain events that actually occurred, it just puts a religious spin on it, changing the details of why it occurred. Like the massive flood, I watched a show on History channel where geologists were suggesting that a huge portion of land mass broke off of a continent and crashed into the ocean causing a massive tsunami that nearly effected the entire globe and they suggested that it occurred near the time that the bible suggested the great flood occurred. I'm not sure of the validity of the claim but it's not the first time I have heard that some of the stories in the bible are like accounts of history morphed to insinuate they they occurred because of a god when they can actually be linked to geological events. I'm sure that's not what most are suggesting here though, I've heard a lot of people make these claims for various reasons.

Agnostic: a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

I would have to say I agree with that portion, I would be considered to be an Agnostic.



techstepgenr8tion
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18 Mar 2019, 9:46 am

Aldus Huxley and some of the esoteric Traditionalists like Rene Guenon believed that there was an original Perennial Philosophy that all world religions were corruptions of.

I think what's much more likely is that the motifs and contents of mystical experiences tend to be congruent across groups (humans more or less have the same wiring), mystical experiences are the core content of early shamanic traditions (where most religion starts before it gets formalized), and so you'll have a lot of experiential carry-over which then takes on all kinds of regional political concerns as societies grow and you end up with these baroque stories about reality that tell us interesting things about histories of people and their ideas but not a whole lot necessarily about the realities of mystical states or spirit unless you really zoom out on the symbols and ignore the details.

What you do get in the last case which gets interesting - parallels between the Kabbalistic Tree of life and the visions of John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila, or the salt, sulfur, and mercury of the alchemists held up against the three gunas of Hindu philosophy (ie. tamas, rajas, and sattva). There's a lot of interesting stuff that can be picked at, or explored through meditation, but a lot of modern work that's going on in the area of mysticism is still trying to solidify what these things are in relationship to physical or perceptual reality and how far the usefulness of such insights can be extended.


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Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 18 Mar 2019, 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

kraftiekortie
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18 Mar 2019, 9:46 am

Couldn't one say that Omnism is a form of Pantheism?

There are relationships, though more indirect, between the Abrahamic religions and others.

I believe Omnism is a situation where one believes in the idea of religion----but doesn't profess specific allegiance to any one religion on an exclusive basis.

Bahaism, in Iran and other parts of that region, is a religion which might come close to Omnism.

There are considerable political considerations, as well as religious considerations, within people who profess themselves Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.

Even the most radical Muslims don't deny that Christians and Jews are "people of the Book." Their hatred of Christians and Jews are more politically and (supposedly) morally motivated.



Fnord
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18 Mar 2019, 9:54 am

Wikipedia wrote:
Omnism is the recognition and respect of all religions; those who hold this belief are called Omnists. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes as the term's earliest usage by English poet Philip J. Bailey: in 1839 "I am an Omnist, and believe in all religions". In recent years, the term has been emerging anew, due to the interest of modern day self-described Omnists who have rediscovered and begun to redefine the term. It can be thought of as syncretism taken to its logical extreme. However, it can also be seen as a way to accept the existence of various religions without believing in all that they profess to teach. Many omnists say that all religions contain truths, but that no one religion offers all that is truth.
So the current definition seems to vary from one person to another. Thus, "Omnism" means whatever you want it to mean.

So I'll define "Omnism" as the belief that every article ever published by Omni Magazine is both true and valid.

For the record, I am NOT an "Omnist".