Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Religious Pluralism: All Religions Don't Lead To Heaven

Just some thoughts from my Bible study of Revelation 2:18-29...

So what does this all have to do with you and me?  We have discussed the dangers of assimilation with the world in order to fit in with other groups.  There is also a danger of religious pluralism that seems to surface here.  Religious pluralism is that belief that two or more religious systems with competing views are equally valid.  Do all roads lead to heaven?  In other words, if I look at the sky with my wife and say it is blue and she says that it is red but we both belief that the other’s view is as valid as our own, that is a pluralistic view.  When it comes to religions, it would mean that a person believes that every religion on the planet is equally valid and true.  They all lead to either heaven or nowhere.  People who proudly display the “Coexist” bumper sticker on a vehicle are supporting religious pluralism.  The problem with the “Coexist” bumper sticker is exactly the fact that no world religions can coexist with any other world religion with the exception of Hinduism, which actually believes that all religions are valid as a part of its basic belief system.  This belief renders Hinduism illegitimate for a number of reasons.  There isn’t space or time to enumerate those reasons here, but I will just address one major issue with some common religions and why they are completely incompatible with Christianity and why they simply cannot “Coexist”. 

            Many world religions believe in God.  This actually isn’t an uncommon belief, however Christians understand that, just as their name suggests, the identity of Jesus is what matters to their faith.  Many other world religions actually believe in Jesus, as well.  There is a problem with these other religions’ belief in Jesus, however.  I have said many times that the one belief that sets Christianity apart from literally every other competing world religion is the belief that Jesus is God.  To say that every single religion on the planet is equally valid is simply false and ignorant because too many of them have divergent views as to who Jesus actually is!  To say that Islam and Christianity are equally valid is an example of this ignorance.  Muslims do NOT believe that Jesus is God!  Christians absolutely believe that Jesus is God!  They are 180 degree, polar opposites in their view of what matters to eternal salvation.  The only way around this is to say that none of these other world religions are correct, or to say that truth only matters to that person who holds to it.  In other words, Islam is true to Muslims and Christianity is true to Christians.  To say that a person gets into heaven by holding A belief is simply false.  What sort of higher power would allow a person to enjoy eternity side by side with a person who held an opposite belief?  Why would that eternity even matter?  Why would I want to serve or spend eternity with any god who said that my beliefs and character basically do not matter?  I could hold to atheism and say that this is my view on religion and decide that living an ethical life is my religion.  I don’t have to follow ANY god in this case!  That would certainly be the easy way to go, and it would make it easy for every person on the planet to go to a blissful eternity, so what is the problem with that view?  The problem is that you just can’t change truth!  You can’t change what truly IS!  I can’t redefine truth to be an arbitrary, individual preference.  If that were the case a pedophile could say that his or her truth includes the belief that raping children is okay and actually healthy.  Objective truth exists and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  To say that all I have to do is believe SOMETHING and I’m okay with some cosmic higher force is simply avoiding the truth that truth exists and the when some views directly oppose one another that makes one of them a LIE.  A thing cannot be both true and false at the same time.  The sky is either red or blue.  End of story.