There

is the common idea out there that religions are all the same, that they are superficially different, but fundamentally the same. DISCUSSION: Would you agree or disagree? And a follow-up question: Do you think you can disagree wholeheartedly with someone of a different religion or perspective and still love and respect one another? All perspectives are welcome. Using the word religion does the following: 1. By using the word religion, it creates a category in the public mind that separates it from our everyday life, work, ethics, academics, public policy, economics, etc. -For example, we today are meeting in the Multi-Faith Centre on the edge of campus; this is symbolic of the fact that religion has been pushed to the periphery of our academic life. Do you remember ever a time in your studies when the Christian view of personhood or the Confusion view of society was brought to bear on the subject matter at hand? 2. By using the word religion, it means that all the religions can be lumped altogether so if you find a weakness in one, you can write them all off as untrue or irrelevant or worse. By doing so, one doesnt have to take any of them seriously as individual worldviews that might actually be true. For example, you could cite female circumcision in Africa or 911 or stupid Christian pastors who want to burn the Quran as a reason to write off all religion everywhere. This is the kind of bad argumentation that Christopher Hitchens engages in in his famous book God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything. I think it might be better to use the term worldview instead: secular humanist worldview, Buddhist worldview, Christian worldview, etc. Each worldview answers at least the following questions: 1. Origin: where did we come from? 2. Ethics: how should we live? 3. The human problem: what is wrong with world? 4. What is the solution to the human problem? 5. Destiny: where are we headed? What happens after death?

Lets explore a few of the major worldviews in the world and see how they answer what is wrong with the world and what the solution is. Religion Human Problem Solution Summary Confucianism Chaos Order We achieve order through ren and li. Ren is human heartedness. It is the pursuit of virtue. It is cultivated first in family, particularly through honouring ones parents. Li means to arrange in order. It is through the right ordering of society by etiquette, customs, manners, ceremony, courtesy, civility, and propriety. Christianity Sin Salvation The problem is the human heart, which rebels against God by worshiping created things over the Creator. Through Jesus death in our place for our sin we can be forgiven and restored to a right friendship with God. This happens by trusting in his free gift of grace. It is all by Jesus performance for us and not by any good works that we could perform. Obedience to God

Islam

Pride

Submission

Atheism

Superstition

Reason

Buddhism

Suffering

Awakening

(ethics) is an act of gratitude to the God who loves us and not a means of earning Gods love. The problem is human pride and the solution is to submit to God, to do good works, and to believe in the five pillars of Islam. Then one might go to heaven when one dies. Religion is a disease that needs to be purged from humanity through the exercise of human reason. There is no purpose in life. There is nothing after death. Morality is based on what works for society, but there is no such thing as good and evil. The human problem is the karma-fuled cycle of life, death, and rebirth known as samsara. Rebirth is undesirable because life is marked by suffering. Therefore the goal is Nirvana, which literally means blowing out, the extinguishing of

Hinduism

Samsara the Moksha spiritual vicious cycle of life, liberation: freeing death, and rebirth. the soul from this cycle of samsara.

existence. The main technique to achieve this goal is meditation. Moksha, spiritual liberation, is conceived of in different ways: 1. As the loving union of the individual soul with a personal god; 2. As a more impersonal merging into an impersonal divinity; 3. As a paradise (e.g. at Vishnus home).

Not only do the major worldviews have different understandings of what is wrong with the world and what is the solution, they differ on their conceptions of God: there is no God, there are many Gods, there is one God, there is one God in three persons; God is love; God is not love. They differ on ethics: This is sin. This is not sin. There is such a thing as sin. There is no such thing as sin. They differ on the origins of humanity, what is right and wrong, what the afterlife is, etc. Every day in life we are engaged with worldview questions. What is the meaning of my life? How should I live in this particular circumstance? Is this action right or wrong? How do I help change the world? So, if we have many different worldviews with many different ideas, can all of them be correct? No. According to the law of non-contradiction two antithetical propositions cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. X cannot be non-X. A thing cannot be and not be simultaneously. For example: 1. God exists (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) 2. God does not exist (Atheism, Buddhism)

3. All is God (Hinduism) These cannot both be true at the same time. Another one: 1. Jesus is God (Christianity) 2. Jesus is a mere prophet (Islam) 3. Jesus is a false prophet (Judaism) 4. Jesus is merely a good teacher once you strip away all those unhistorical bits about him in the Bible (Atheism) One last one: 1. Humans are animals (Atheism) 2. Humans are god (Hinduism) 3. Humans are made in Gods image (Christianity) DISCUSS: So when all the worldviews of the world differ so much, how do we decide which one is true? Does the worldview work on multiple levels at the same time? E.g. Logic Evidence History: e.g. Did Jesus die on the cross (Christianity) or did Jesus not die on the cross (Islam)? Science: e.g. if the world is designed by God, does the world show evidence of design (e.g. signature in the cell, physical constants, big bang, etc.) Internally consistent: e.g. If everything is God then how can God be good (Hinduism)? Corresponds to Reality Deals with the problems of our world Existentially satisfying The Arts does it have a place for beauty, music, mystery, awe, wonder? Does the worldview continually show itself to be true no matter what hard questions you throw at it? I really believe that Christianity does all this. I did not grow up in a Christian home, but experienced Gods amazing grace at a young age. I had to go through a process of continually testing, asking hard questions, and facing doubts. I have found that Christianity stands the test again and again.

Two helpful books that tackle this subject that I would recommend are the following: 1. God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Rule the World by Stephen Prothero -He is a professor of religion at Boston University 2. Christianity at the Religious Roundtable: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam by Timothy Tennent -He is an expert on world religions and is president of Asbury Seminary in Kentucky