Diego MSN conversation 1

Diego: Dale tell me something… when you look at all the different religions they seem to actually be trying to get people to do the same thing. All religions ask people to practice kindness and patience. If I’m right even Buddhists have a concept of suffering that seems similar to our idea of ‘taking up our cross’. It seems that so much of the things that Christians are supposed to be doing are being taught and done by other religions and often even better than we are. It seems hypocritical for Christians to claim that their way is the only way when it seems so similar to so many other religions.

Dale: Diego, you’re right there are huge similarities between what other religions teach and what Christians teach. This Irish play writer dude (George Bernard Shaw) said something once that kinda says the same thing that you are saying, "There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it."
Personally, I think you’re wondering about stuff that basically scares a lot of Christians off. They don’t really want to think about how similar things might be. So a lot of them put up some pretty huge walls against other religious perspectives. Its too bad really cause I think that too often that approach leaves us looking pretty naïve.
I have heard a lot of Christians talk about how evil the Koran is for instance and that it encourages young men to sacrifice their lives for their faith. And I’ve heard lots of Christian people making fun of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons because of some of their seemingly weird rituals and practices (and to be perfectly honest some of that stuff tends to freak me out).
But let’s stop and think about how our own religious ideas and practices look to other people. For instance, let’s take communion. Most Christian churches celebrate a form of the Lord’s Supper. But when you look at it isn’t the idea of eating bread and drink wine or grape juice that represents Christ’s body and blood pretty much a cannibalistic sort of ceremony. We think it is pretty normal though. But I’ve heard that when Christians start teaching about Jesus in some of these tribes in South America, Africa, and South East Asia that have struggled with cannibalism – the communion ceremony presents a problem for them. So my point is that there are many ways that Christians criticize other religious positions while our own practices might actually present big problems for other people.

Diego: Yeah but aren’t there a lot of place where the virtues that are taught in the different religions are almost identical?

Dale: Yes. For instance, Mormons practice generosity and service to those in need in ways that often put us to shame. There that Buddhist thing you mentioned that believes in suffering and personal sacrifice being the road to nirvana or enlightenment. The Hindu ideas about contentment match those of the beatitudes that Jesus preached about.

Diego: So doesn’t that make you think that maybe we can just pick and choose the ideas and practices we want to follow? Don’t we all eventually end up with the same result even if we call that result something else?

Dale: Sure it makes me wonder that. I think anyone who looks carefully at how the various religious/philosophical perspectives are structured will see fabulous similarities to many Christian ideas.
But for me the fact that so many of the other religious paths share so much in common with Christianity is a very reassuring thing in confirming that the Christian perspective is accurate. Some people say well other religions are just stealing concepts from Christianity. That seems like a pretty ignorant and arrogant statement to make. In fact there is lots of evidence that Christians have often stolen ideas and practices from other religions and adopted them as their own. And even if somehow you could prove that all the other religions were just copycatting Christian that wouldn’t be a very solid argument to stand on. But if so many of the practices lead us to very similar results there must be a reason for this similarity.
The Bible describes a longing that everyone has for God –even though people may not recognize it we all have this sense that we have lost some important part of ourselves. I think that the Christian ideas have an answer for the problem of loss that all of humanity struggles with. I would suggest and I think this fits what the Bible teaches: We have lost a relationship with the Divine and we desperately want to get it back. We’ll do anything almost to recover what we’ve lost. The only problem is that if we think we really aught to behave better than we normally do - - we have to admit that something extraordinary needs to happen before we can realize our deep desires. In the Christian way of thinking this extraordinary thing is that God chose to become one of us. So instead of us having to work our selves up to God – he comes down to us.
Basically, it boils to something like this. Many of the other religious viewpoints try to change the human behaviour problem that exists because we have lost contact with the Divine but Christianity is unique in actually offering a relationship with God that addresses that core issue of loss. So the similarities between religious practice confirms the idea that we have lost touch with the Divine. Really that is why the Christian idea of heaven is such an exciting concept to me. We get to be complete with God again. But I digress.

Diego: So tell me what should do with all these other rituals and religious practices that seem to bring us the same results as the Christian ones? Should we write them off and dismiss them or what?

Dale: That will have to be for another time. I will call you about the hockey game.