How to deal with "Every religion thinks it's the right one"

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Bahman said:
The question: How to deal with “Every religion thinks it’s the right one”?
The answer: Drop them all together.
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The question: How to deal with "All theories that think they are the right one?

The answer: Drop them all together. 😃
 
NextElement said:
This comes up SO often for me when discussing religion with non-believers. They always eventually go to the “Well every religion thinks it’s right and all the others are wrong!”… For me it’s hard to keep the conversation going after that. It’s like, yeah they do, but why does that stop you from finding your own truth?

Any advice for how to deal with it when this is brought up? How can I kind of elevate Christianity/Catholicism above all of the “other” religions that would swear they are the truth?
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Here is a blog entry which is quite long. First it goes through the Proofs of St Thomas Aquinas, but it is the incredibly quick exposition at the end explaining “Why be Catholic” that I thought might help you.
 
Bahman said:
The question: How to deal with “Every religion thinks it’s the right one”?
The answer: Drop them all together.
Click to expand...
This is not a sensible solution.

For example, there are football fans across the nation, and they form groups each of which believes that the team of which they are fans is the best, right? So do we drop football altogether? No, we have a system for figuring out each year which is the best.

Dropping religion is the lazy way out of the issue. The way to go is to figure out criteria for determining which is most likely to be true and then applying the criteria.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
I’m pretty sure Lutherans would trace their history back to Saint Paul and the writing of Romans, and to the gospels themselves. The Lutheran position is that the early Church held doctrinal positions more akin to Lutheranism than Catholicism – hence the fact that Saint Augustine is a central figure in Lutheran theology (perhaps more central than Luther).
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The Lutherans are not the only ones to try this. The Baptists also claim to be the “true” early church, and that St Patrick was really a Baptist missionary.

Which is precisely what the OP was asking about.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
I’m pretty sure Lutherans would trace their history back to Saint Paul and the writing of Romans, and to the gospels themselves. The Lutheran position is that the early Church held doctrinal positions more akin to Lutheranism than Catholicism – hence the fact that Saint Augustine is a central figure in Lutheran theology (perhaps more central than Luther).
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Yet Augustine bowed to Rome, while Luther would not.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Yet Augustine bowed to Rome, while Luther would not.
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Luther was goaded, and the Catholic authorities do not come out of the situation looking precisely holy. But yes, it was a terrible mistake for him to leave the Church, a mistake which still has consequences resounding today.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
Luther was goaded, and the Catholic authorities do not come out of the situation looking precisely holy. But yes, it was a terrible mistake for him to leave the Church, a mistake which still has consequences resounding today.
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Alas, humans do goad each other. When that happens, it’s hard to look holy.

The way to look holy again might be for Pope Francis to renounce the goading of Luther and for the Lutherans to renounce Luther’s revolt against the Church.

Not likely soon. 🤷

What a great omen it would be if the Lutherans and the Anglicans could throw aside their differences with Rome and return as Catholics. That might be a sign that most Protestant Christianity is nearing the return to one shepherd and one flock.

The down side of this prospect is that Roman Catholicism would be immediately infused with the spirit of Protestant liberalism that would create havoc within the Church, as if the present divide was not divisive enough! :eek:
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Alas, humans do goad each other. When that happens, it’s hard to look holy.

The way to look holy again might be for Pope Francis to renounce the goading of Luther and for the Lutherans to renounce Luther’s revolt against the Church.

Not likely soon. 🤷

What a great omen it would be if the Lutherans and the Anglicans could throw aside their differences with Rome and return as Catholics. That might be a sign that most Protestant Christianity is nearing the return to one shepherd and one flock.
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Agreed. 🙂
The down side of this prospect is that Roman Catholicism would be immediately infused with the spirit of Protestant liberalism that would create havoc within the Church, as if the present divide was not divisive enough! :eek:
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I don’t think Protestants’ problems are generally with liberalism – Catholics are as liberal as Protestants, in polling, and more liberal than evangelicals. There is a spirit of division in Protestantism.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
Agreed. 🙂

I don’t think Protestants’ problems are generally with liberalism – Catholics are as liberal as Protestants, in polling, and more liberal than evangelicals. There is a spirit of division in Protestantism.
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I think maybe you misunderstood me?

The Vatican is hardly a bastion of liberalism in the same sense as the Anglican and Lutheran churches. You seem to be talking more about divided opinions within the Church. But the ruling opinion is always orthodoxy, not what your liberal Catholic friend down the street thinks.😉

Which is often irrelevant to what the Church teaches.
 
St_Francis said:
This is not a sensible solution.

For example, there are football fans across the nation, and they form groups each of which believes that the team of which they are fans is the best, right? So do we drop football altogether? No, we have a system for figuring out each year which is the best.

Dropping religion is the lazy way out of the issue. The way to go is to figure out criteria for determining which is most likely to be true and then applying the criteria.
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We are talking about the truth, not sport.

Moreover, you need to drop all the religion first, disbelief them, then perform a serious core study on each so your study is not biased by your belief, otherwise you go nowhere.
 
the sacrament of confirmation deals with what you are talking about I think.
 
Bahman said:
There is one God and one absolute truth. Isn’t it? One has to doubt his/her belief first when there are many religions each claims that it is the true one.
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Again, that doesn’t follow. If you were born in ancient Sparta, you would believe that it is good to leave people who don’t contribute to society out in the cold to die. If you were born in ancient India, you would believe that it is good to burn widows with their husbands. Now psychologically, it could perhaps make you doubt your morality, but logically, it simply does not follow that your position is any more wrong simply because there are many different positions on the same issue. No matter how many counterfeit $5 bills were made, it wouldn’t make the real $5 bill any less real.
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
Again, that doesn’t follow. If you were born in ancient Sparta, you would believe that it is good to leave people who don’t contribute to society out in the cold to die. If you were born in ancient India, you would believe that it is good to burn widows with their husbands. Now psychologically, it could perhaps make you doubt your morality, but logically, it simply does not follow that your position is any more wrong simply because there are many different positions on the same issue. No matter how many counterfeit $5 bills were made, it wouldn’t make the real $5 bill any less real.
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We are not living in ancient time anymore, so we don’t have the excuse that they have!
 
Bahman said:
The question: How to deal with “Every religion thinks it’s the right one”?
The answer: Drop them all together.
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How I wish life’s problems and issues can be so easily avoided. But avoidance does not get you to heaven. Discerning the right choice do.
 
ericc said:
How I wish life’s problems and issues can be so easily avoided. But avoidance does not get you to heaven. Discerning the right choice do.
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As I mentioned in another post, that is the first step toward finding the truth. And I have less concern about Heaven, as this concept as well is attached to religion, but what is the truth.
 
Bahman said:
We are not living in ancient time anymore, so we don’t have the excuse that they have!
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But isn’t it just as much an accident that we are born in the time that we are as it is an accident that we are born in the place that we are?
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
But isn’t it just as much an accident that we are born in the time that we are as it is an accident that we are born in the place that we are?
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The knowledge carries responsibility for those with critical minds, as we are, human being.
 
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