I want to ask a 'baby question' in the sense that I have a feeling everone else 'knows' & I am scrambling around trying find an answer

[KatyMac]

Do you see what I mean - it isn't a question about babies - it's just something that might be blindingly obvious to everyone (except me)

So I am Christian, sort of

But I think that 'God' talks to each of his peoples in a different way

So he tells Christians to do ABC, & Jewish people to do XYZ, & Hindu people LMN

So everyone is right & as long as they follow their 'rules' they will get what they are expecting

& I truly believe that everyone should have the right to practise their own religion as long as they hurt no-one else

And I (like to) think that I would defend anyone's right to practise their own religion to the best of my ability

So I'm just mad aren't I? No-one else thinks this do they?

Or are there?

I think I'm going to park myself firmly on the fence on this one.... on the one hand, I don't think that there is only one correct answer and all the others are wrong. I think all those who are genuinely trying to find a "good" way of living in response to some idea of "God" are all following the same thing, even if they have different perceptions of what that is and what response is appropriate.

OTOH I don't think that everyone who follows absolutely any path which they choose is therefore "right" or will be judged solely on how well they followed that path, because I think there are actually such things as "right" and "wrong", so anyone who followed a religion which twisted their ideas so far that they caused harm to others in the name of it would not be judged as "good" just because they'd done it very well.

Say for an extreme example, a religion which required human sacrifices. I don't think that anyone who ignored their conscience and went along with that would be fine, just because they'd done what their chosen religion required! Then I'd also have to wonder about things like female genital mutilation - to me it's so clearly wrong that I'd struggle to say that the religious requirement would make it acceptable.

But that would fit with my "as long as they hurt no-one else" in my first post - or wouldn't it

Oh sorry, missed that bit - yes that would cover it.

Because if you expand 'hurt' then most 'bad' or 'wrong' or even 'evil' stuff would be included wouldn't they

Ah, but then we're into what is defined as 'hurting someone else' aren't we? And that is rather a sticky old topic...

Katymac
I think you would make a lovely Bah'ai! (I'm not one, by the way, so not trying to recruit!).
They believe in progressive revelation, which means all main religions are right and trying to get to the same God / ultimate reality through different paths, Also, they're not allowed to argue about religion or evangelise!
I love Quakers too.
So, you see, I'm slightly undecissive too!

Have you read The Last Battle (CS Lewis, the last in the Narnia series)? I think that's what that book is about. Tolerance.

I may re-read The Last Battle as I haven't read it for years tbh

This has been lovely to read everyone

Dear KatyMac

Your thread yesterday was really 'lovely' and for a while today I looked at people and communties buildings and churches and thought wouldn't it be so great if we could all just be.... just be... human together and searching together and nobody was right or wrong about their perception of God or life and the values of treating each other right and not oppressing one another was enough of a reason to be together.

I would love to be part of a community like this, instead I am an atheist outcast.

Once again thank you for the thread, it has helped me lots.

I would like to say that there is a path and it is up to all to find that one path. It is called
"Faith" this sounds like preaching but then I guess preachers can find this faith as well as
we can.

There is a first source and center to all that is and this source (G0d) is what we need to
have faith in for it is the only way we can escape this mortal life to the next world.

We can know this truth or not for we all have free will to choose the path. This life is all about choosing to survive or not.

I can say this with certainity because I have that one experience which makes it all real. Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing people hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the His Spirit that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.

"Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

Page 1114-5
www.urantia.org/papers/toc.html

when I heard Thought for Today on Radio 4 this morning, it made me think of this thread

I like that - Thanks

I read your OP and though Baha'i - (and then read the thread and saw someone else had mentioned it). I'm a Christian but one of the school governors of the infant school (CoE one) is Baha'i and used to live down the road from me.

sorry if thread moved on from op but i was taught about this during o level re and its called pluralism

there is a famous story where people 'discover' an elephant in the dark. One feels a leg and thinks it is a tree, one feels the trunk and thinks it a snake etc etc but of course none of them see the whole thing - the idea is that by discussing each of our findings we work out the full picture

I consider myself an agnostic christian (I think) and I thought what you described was what is christian to believe anyway? I know it is also christian to believe in "One God", but I thought that just meant all the other religions just had different names for him and for heaven?