Approaches to Religious Diversity: Religious Pluralism, Atheism, Agnosticism, etc.

well everyone welcome to our discussion on religious diversity and we alluded to this in our previous lecture the notion that we are immersed in cultures in societies that are as diverse as they've ever been especially out here where we live the question is how do we respond to this diversity what's our what's our approach to living amongst other people that have such varieties of views of the world and how to relate to the world well let's remember back to the very first week of the course when we discuss what the course was going to be about we knew we're going to be discussing various religions and specifically I told you the following two things would be studied about these religions the first we discuss how each of these religions made sense of the world how they saw humanity's place in the grand scheme of the world and that this in a sense is what we refer to as the human condition every religion we looked at had a description of what the condition of human beings was or what the typical condition of humanity is whether it's trapped in suffering whether it's the separated from our original state or separated from our ideal state whether it's trapped in a an illusion where we're living in authentic lives every religion seemed to have some sort of story some sort of narrative that gave our lives context right some sort of narrative that provided a background for how to make sense of what we go through on a daily basis in the grand scheme of things the second thing that I mentioned at the very beginning of a quarter of our term was that each of these religions would also provide some sort of prescription and what is it we can do to live life best and we refer to this as the means or the ways in which various religions say we can transcend the human condition how is it that we can go beyond the human condition to live a more ideal like fulfilling meaningful lives so in order to have this discussion we look at various religions including in some indigenous religions and in a in one sense we were exposed to a variety of ways of looking at the world we were exposed to a variety of ways of looking at ourselves and how we relate to the world the question to pose now then is what to do next how do we move forward what's the best response to other people that have their viewpoints from ourselves well traditionally there are six common approaches to religious diversity the first is an atheistic approach which a nutshell is claiming that all religions are wrong in that the person who is atheist says I don't believe in them because they're not true right so one thing to think about for yourself is why might an atheistic approach to religion be a useful approach why would be useful to say these religions are not true and why might it not be useful so if you're living amongst other people in a world of other people where each each individual has their own perspective on reality and how to live best within reality why - why might it be a useful approach to say no no I think all of these approaches are wrong something to think about hmm a second approach would be to be agnostic and agnostic would say I don't believe in these religions because I just don't know it's a declaration of ignorance right I just I just don't have enough information just not III don't I don't know enough to come to a conclusion about the validity of these religions right this is agnosticism so again you might want to think about for yourself is and why might having an agnostic approach to religious diversity be useful why might it be useful to live amongst other people various religious beliefs or non beliefs and say I'm taking the approach that I just don't know why might that be a useful approach now why also might that be not so useful a third approach should be religious exclusivism religious exclusivism would be epitomized by a person that says I believe only one religion is correct and all other religious approaches to life are a mistake so religious exclusivism is often associated with some sort of fundamentalism and fundamentalism is simply a strong source strict adherence to certain beliefs or a strict literal adherence to certain ideals so you can imagine then if you are if you if you have a strict adherence to the belief that your particular point of view is correct and obviously you're going to be exclusive istic towards other religions right they can't also be true too because mind is the only correct one can you think of what religions have fundamentalist sex then you imagine what sort of religions have branches or or groups within them that are fundamentalist all religions do right all religions have individuals that have strict adherence to certain beliefs strict adherence to certain ideas or have a strict literal interpretation of certain Scripture so much so that they see their religion as having to exclude others can find Medel ISM be associated with atheism well if fundamentalism is strictly is just the Deaf is just the idea of having strict adherence to certain beliefs that strict adhere to certain ideas and sure you can you don't have that there's nothing about that definition of fundamentalism that's associated with atheism and there are some folks within the religious who are religious that see something referred to as scientism arising the belief or the strict adherence to scientific knowledge the strict belief that the only type of knowledge that is useful or valid is knowledge gained through the scientific method so you can be a fundamentalist whether you're a religious person or non-religious person you can have strict beliefs strict adherence to ideas if you believe in God or if you don't believe in God what we see seemingly is a rise in fundamentalism we see much more now the idea or the growth in the number of people that that have a strict adherence to certain beliefs and ideals now what why might this be why might this number be be growing well one way to let you look at this is that there's there's rapid globalization so secular ideas secular beliefs are much more easily spread and we can all relate to one another using non religious belief systems and non religious perspectives as our foundation right so remember when we take a look at various religious traditions they all kind of stem from various geographical locations and if we think of a secular point of view or a secular worldview you know world without religion or world without God this can be something that's in common amongst various people from various areas so that could be a part of it another part to at least claim by Karen Armstrong is that what we see is a world that has more emphasis on logos sort of knowledge knowledge a fact there seems to be much more emphasis in significance placed on that form of knowledge as opposed to mythos knowledge right knowledge of experience and you can judge for yourself take a look at your own culture take a look at the people around you and maybe you see things are only true if right if they can be proven factually knowledge is only valuable if it corresponds to declarative sentence that corresponds to reality there are tables in the room as opposed to knowledge that you might get through poetry or knowledge that you might or knowledge that you might get through through living in the world because of the rise of science and the rise of Technology there seems to be more value placed on logos type knowledge at least according to Karen Armstrong now again one thing to think about is why would religious exclusivism be a useful approach why might it be useful to say and there's only one correct religion and all other religions are wrong oftentimes you'll notice that that one correct religion is whatever religion this person adheres to but why might this be useful approach and why obviously might this not be so useful why might it be a detriment to just believe that amongst a world where you live amongst other people versus perspectives there's only one correct approach to reality one correct description of the human condition another common approach is to be a religious inclusive astreus inclusive esteem ight say something like I believe only one religion is fully correct while all others have partial truths to them there is only one religion that is completely true completely valid but all other religions have an aspect of truth or contain a kernel of truth well the religious inclusiveness idea kind of stems from the the notion that when we take a look at all these traditions there seems to be something useful amongst them all there seems to be something worthwhile that we can we can learn from all these religions and for a person that that grows up in and belongs to a particular religion they might see certain teachings and certain beliefs that are shared amongst all these religions excuse me so they see that there's some truth in them but there's still this sense that there is only one religion that has the complete truth there is only one religion whose narrative and whose reaming of reality is is fully correct again well before we go to our typical questions for some people there is a sense though that being a religious inclusive astiz still exclusivist in a no way do you see how that might work that one can claim to be a religious inclusiveness believing that hey look you know I believe that my religion is fully correct but I'm more than III can I can I can see that there is some validity to all others I'm being inclusive of them it sounds very good on the surface but can you see how some people would interpret this as still being exclusivist in a certain way okay so back to our traditional questions why might an inclusive this approach be useful if you're living in a world amongst other people can you see how being open to all perspectives as having some sort of truth to them how that might be useful to have that's sort of the source philosophy being useful to have again on the flip side why or what problems could arise as a result what could be an issue with being a religious inclusiveness number five and a very popular approach especially in our region of the world is religious relativism and religious relativists believe that each religion can be considered true for their believers religion cannot be proven objectively there's no way to apply a scientific method an objective method of fact-finding to determine which religion is true or more true therefore what we can say is that if the religion works for that person then it's true for that person if this other religion works for this other person it's true for that person right so the religious relativist is not saying anything about the objective truth or validity of any religion they're not saying this religious right or that look is right they're simply saying that if it works for that from their point of view if it speaks to them that is true for that from their point of view because they grew up in different area because they grew up a different time because of where they live maybe this religion is true for that right a relativistic approach again think about it why might this be useful a useful approach if we're living in a world amongst other people with other religious beliefs and can you think of why this might not be so useful why being a release relativist might be short sight or short changing religions in some way now the last approach we'll talk about is religious pluralism and it's probably the most complex approach in some ways these proto Lillet pluralists believe that every major religion is correct every major religion is valid and we can acknowledge the differences while still coexisting in society that we can live amongst people that have various religious beliefs and we can say no no Judaism is correct at the same time Taoism is correct at the same time Buddhism is correct not that it is correct for them but it is occur it is a valid approach to experiencing reality it's a valid approach to describing the human condition now and how is this possible how can that wasn't be correct and Christianity be corrected and Islam be correct and the Hinduism be correct how could all of these both get all of these religions that seemingly have various ways of describing the human condition and how to transcend the human condition how can they all be said to be correct there are various approaches to religious pluralism the most popular way of looking at religious pluralism is through what's referred to as the perennial philosophy now the idea with the perennial philosophy well I should say that the parade of philosophy stems from a belief that about time people have realized that all religions are really talking about the same thing that parentally right through time when we see in here all of these various religions what we're really hearing are different cultures describing the same reality just with different language just with different cultural cultural frames to them so a visualization of this is to think of religions as all pointing towards the same ultimate nature of reality whether it's Hinduism Buddhism Taoism Judaism Christianity or Islam they all speak of some sort of ultimate they all speak to some sort of underlying true reality and they all say that we are somehow distant from it that we are somehow removed from it right whether because we're trapped in illusion whether it's because we're trapped in selfish desire or there's because we simply forgot whether speak right all of these are really this are really different ways of saying the same thing so for the perennial philosopher all religions are really pointing to the same peak they're really pointing to the same ultimate end the same ultimate goal the same ultimate reality and each of the religions because they stem from different cultures articulating different paths to that same ultimate reality well we take a look at Eastern religion we talked about how a lot of people or a lot of the religion is based upon people having mystical experiences and in fact the Easter traditions emphasize having these experiences they they kind of emphasize with the adherence with the people that follow the religions with the religion you should have these experiences for yourselves so whether it's the Buddha whether it's the Hindu Rishi there's a sense that you can have an experience beyond your ordinary one that can give you a glimpse at the ultimate nature of reality right you can find yourself in line with the doubt you're not just read about it you don't have to learn it from a teacher what the DAO is like now you can experience the DAO you can experience Nirvana you can experience unity with Brahma even though it's not as emphasized popularly in the West even though it's not emphasized as popularly in the Abrahamic traditions even the Abrahamic traditions have a have in their past emphasized these same sorts of mystical experiences and when we take a look at how these religions were founded they seem to also be founded by people that have had these sort of extraordinary experiences of reality whether it's Moses having a direct experience of God whether it's Jesus having a direct experience of the Father whether it's the Prophet Muhammad having a direct experience of the divine voice in order to to recite the Quran going into a trance all of these religions seem to be founded by people that have had these mystical experiences so what we see in common is these various religions that out there foundation kind of stem from human beings having some sort of direct experience at what ultimately is real human beings having some sort of extraordinary experience of what is ultimately true right it is this ultimate truth this open reality that we see as being the peak or the ultimate goal of all of these fades so we see all these religious pointing to according the train of philosophy all these religious point to the same reality any any sort of variations that we've heard about as we've gone through the past eleven weeks any sort of variations like calling something Brahma versus God versus Allah it's all variations of culture it's all variations on language we talk about escaping samsara and releasing ourselves from Tonk and aligning ourselves with the dow or trying to fulfill the covenants training philosophy says these are all just different wrappings of the same phenomena these are all different terminology this is all different terminology different words and different ways of saying the same sort of thing the only reason they sound different is because they come from different cultures so they express it differently but at the core says the premium philosophy is that they all teach the same sort of life wisdom they all teach the same sort of life lesson that can allow a person to better flourish so Aldous Huxley articulates the perennial philosophy in his book entitled the perennial philosophy when we take a look at some of the core ideas and some of the foundational concepts of each of the major world religions it seems to people like Huxley that they all are pointing to the same reality if they're all describing the same the same approach to living the living one's life so let's identify some of these similar ideas these core concepts the first is that the pronoun vos P says that when we take a look at each of these major religions they all indicate that everything arises from some sort of absol Lieut foundational ground that everything is manifested from some sort of sacred divine essence whether it's matter whether it's consciousness it all comes from there so you can think of how every how Abrahamic traditions believe we all come from God you can think of how Hindus believe that everything is Brahma everything comes from thing that we experience its result of Brahma what we also see in the prema philosophy is this notion that humans can have knowledge of this absolute through experience and intuition that when we take a look at all the major world religions they seem to say we can know we can have knowledge of this absolute this foundational ground from which everything arises this ultimate reality we can have knowledge of it but it's knowledge of experience it's knowledge through experience knowledge through intuition it's not declarative knowledge knowledge that the the cases rectangle or knowledge that the remote is black it's not that sort of declarative knowledge it's knowledge of experience it's knowing the reality right it's having contact in relation to the reality so we take a look at things like Zen Buddhism in Sufi stories and parables of Jesus jana yoga we see that there is an attempt to bypass the minds rational approach to knowing to bypass the mayans analytical linear approach to understanding the world through declarative fact in order to get in touch with a different mode of experiencing the world different mode of knowing the world a mode that's more about experiential knowledge sometimes will hear this articulated as a difference between do mystic thinking rational thinking versus contemplative sort of thinking or experiential sort of thinking that's not based upon tearing apart a sentence to determine whether or not the sentence true or false is the sort of knowledge you get from experiencing something rather than knowing what beer is in terms of what makes up a beer right certain chemicals it's the result of a certain process it's the actual knowledge of beer what it tastes like so all these religions seem to say according to the printer philosophy that we can have a taste for reality we can have a taste for the ultimate nature of things from which all things manifest all things arise the perennial philosophy says that through all of these religions we get this picture that human beings possess a double nature that there is a finite self there is a limited self but there's also an infinite self there is an eternal self so we can take a look at brahman and how it articulates there's Ottman and then there's brahman and the truth is Atman is brahma the separate you is actually the big use actually the everything similarly with with Islam we notice that there is this emphasis on delving into the divine having a direct experience of divine because oneself is divine right we come from divinity we take a look at Christianity there is this notion that we often see ourselves in terms of this finite Kingdom the kingdom of our culture when in fact our identity is actually that that belongs to a greater Kingdom right in eternal Kingdom ring for the cranium lastly all these various religions are then also saying that the purpose of a human life the purpose of your life is to identify your small self with that greater self to come to some sort of realization that this finite existence this small existence is is not who you really are that you are part of something much larger that you need that that your rightful place is is in a in a kingdom that's much greater than the one you believe it but the one you see on an everyday basis right so we talked about kingdom of God we talked about Kingdom of Heaven Christianity when we talk about Brahman in Hinduism when we talk about be finding oneself aligned with the DAO according to printed philosophy they're all relating the same sort of phenomena that the purpose of our lives is not this mundane everyday sort of existence but to come to our realization that we are more than this right there's something greater for us than this we we are what we are we are we are it we are we are part of the everything we are part of that underlying around which everything arises that is us and we took a look at process philosophy right we are an element aspect of the divine coming to knowledge of that coming to a realization of that seems to be what according to printed philosophy all major religions emphasize what they all say now again this is this is and it produces one particular approach to religious pluralism the belief in the perennial philosophy that all religions are pointing to the same thing there they're all saying the same thing about humanity they're all saying the same thing about with the purpose of the unit of our human life is how to transcend our human condition there's another approach there's actually several approaches but we'll talk about one other approach to religious pluralism and that is the notion that maybe all religious are true but not because they're all saying the same thing maybe all religions are true because they all provide different paths to dealing with different human problems so this stems from a book entitled God is not one and this is by oppressive religion at Boston University Stephan prothero and in his book he advocates this position that rather than seeing all religions as pointing to the same summit instead of seeing all religions as providing a path to the same place or describing human human to the human condition the same way prothero emphasizes the possibility that instead maybe all of these different religions are different human approaches to dealing with different human problems so if you're dealing with suffering right you're trying to compensate or find an approach to dealing with an exaggerated [Music] an exaggerated sense of of negativity and exaggerated viewpoint of pessimism maybe Buddhism is the correct approach or best approach for you if you're dealing with a sense of meaninglessness if you're dealing with a sense of how to deal with you know all the unwanted circumstances how to make sense of all the unwanted circumstances that occur in your life maybe your approach should be more of a Judea corn if you seem lost if you feel as if you're bound to circumstances that are inherently limiting maybe what you need is maybe you need a Christian approach to see that your rightful place is in a greater Kingdom if you feel out of joint with the world if you feel as if things aren't going as smoothly as as they can maybe your approach should be a more of a Taoist one so the idea here is yeah all religions all major religions are valid all major religions are telling the truth but it's not because they're all saying the same thing for Protheroe maybe it's because they're all Point Li they're all different prescriptions to different human problems in your text Houston Smith highlights various aspects of religions that seem to be a common seem to be similar you notice that all major religions share some sort of ethic that says things like murder things like stealing things like lying things like adultery or not are not good they all seem to point at similar virtues that we should develop a sense of humility that we should be selfless that we should develop compassion and be charitable that we should strive for truths we should strive for knowledge of reality all religions all major religions seem to have a similar vision that there's something that in the world things are much more connected than we often believe them or we often see them as being but even though we leave with our eyes and with our senses feel as if things are separate that in reality underneath it all there's a connectivity that lies beyond the lies beneath the surface and that life itself is better than it usually appears to us so we've taken a look now at three different approaches to religious pluralism now the big question of course is what should your approach be to religious diversity should it be to have an atheistic point of view in agnostic point of view should it be to have a religious exclusivist point of view or just inclusive his point of view should it be to be a religious relativist or should it be the religious pluralist now this sort of discussion about these approaches to religious diversity makes sense if we are looking at religions primarily as belief systems if we think of religions as as a list of beliefs or clubs that have certain beliefs then it might be appropriate to have these sorts of approaches to religious diversity and this is what you'll hear often times when people talk about religious diversity these are the common approaches and they'll often debate whether or not they should be agnostic because they don't know enough whether they should be a relativist because everyone has their own point of view what's being assumed is we're treating religions as you know organizations or clubs that have certain belief systems however that wasn't prime to primarily that wasn't the primary approach to religious in our class if you remember our class is taking a look not primarily at beliefs but primarily at religions as the ways in which people have experienced their world by looking at various religions we're taking a look at various cultures in what we see through the religion is the framework which wish with which they are experiencing reality it's the framework with which they are experiencing their lives and giving it meaning now just an example if our to describe what life is there are several different ways to do that I mean I can describe a life in terms of a biological definition of life I could describe a life in terms of what we do in it right life is about working hard life is about earning money like we can do that describe life I could say life is like a camera if you take a if you take a bad picture you can always give it another shot I can say something like life is life is like riding a bicycle the only way to stay balanced is to keep moving I could say life is like a box of chocolates right you'll never know you never know what you're gonna get meaning life is full of varieties full of surprises sometimes like a sweet sometimes life is sour sometimes life is is not so not so good these are all different frameworks through which people can experience life it keeps pierce life like riding a bike to experience life like taking photogate stress life like it's a box of chocolates these are different frameworks by which one can experience life now is one of those frameworks more right than the other if you treat these as beliefs right literally is life a photo as lifelike Technic picture is life literally a box of chocolates you treat them as beliefs then you can have discussions about whether or not we want to be agnostic whether or not we want to be inclusive this but if not we believe in relativism but we're treating these religions as frameworks we treated them as the lens by which people in the past have experienced their world just like when you think of life is like a box chocolates or life is like a writing bicycle or life is like a camera they're not necessarily meant to be taken literally instead they're they're meant to give you a new way of experiencing or looking at life and how you should best live in it so in this sense our class has really been a pluralist class right we are taking we were taking a look at all these various cultures and saying well I mean this is how they experience the world it's not it's not that it's a right or wrong experience it's their experience you can't you can't say whether their experience is right or wrong if they're selling us what they experienced now any sort of declarative statement about reality we can question right because that's a belief but in terms of how did they experience what they went through it's what they went through and for us there might be things that can be gleamed by seeing how other people have experienced the world understanding how various individuals see their lives and make sense of the lives I mean there might be something useful some sort of wisdom that could be gained and this is what we'll delve into and discuss more in our next lecture

Channel: Prof G

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Keywords: the human condition, religious diveresity, religious pluralism, living with religions, atheism vs agnosticism, religious inclusivist vs exclusivist, dealing with religious diversity, the perennial philosophy, what is the perennial philosophy

Id: DmcrL6IjziU

Length: 38min 0sec (2280 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2017