The Possible Teapot

I recently read some religiously motivated articles purporting to answer the age old question: If I were born in Pakistan, wouldn’t I likely be a Muslim? One of the articles used a parable as an example (now there’s a surprise!)

There is an old parable about six blind Hindus touching an elephant. One blind man touched the side of the elephant and said it was a wall. Another blind man touched the ear and said it was a large leaf of a tree. Yet another blind man was holding a leg and thought it was a tree trunk. Still another blind man took hold of the elephant’s trunk and said it was a snake. Someone else was touching the elephant’s tusk and believed it was a spear. Another blind man had the elephant’s tail in his hand and was calling it a rope. All of the blind men were touching the same reality but were understanding it differently. They all had the right to interpret what they were touching in their own personal way, yet it was the same elephant.

In a general sense the meaning here is it is different cultural ‘interpretations’ of reality / spirituality are equally valid. difficult to understand the greater nature of something when one has too little information. It could also be interpreted as saying that it is difficult to understand the greater nature of something when one has too little information.

In the context of this article it is used to demonstrate the idea that all attempts to know god are equally valid, the idea of religious pluralism. 

Religious pluralism is an interesting idea. In fact, I have wondered why at least the Abrahamic three: Christianity, Judaism and Islam don’t bury the hatchet (or the sickle?). They’ve got the same god after all.

The problem is that they can’t, their holy men and their holy books will not allow it. They are in fact too dogmatic.

Religious pluralism is a nice idea but it is simply that. It is not an idea which is accepted, or even encouraged, by religious establishments or mainstream religious proponents. 

Those who do voice such a notion need quickly to re-affirm that ‘all roads do not lead to god’ for fear of being denounced as a heretic.

After all, if mainstream religions accepted the dogmatism of others their own would be critically undermined. Instead they tend to get caught up in a ‘my prophet is better than your prophet’ squabble. 

An even more common tactic is to turn this enquiry into a call for evangelism. If Islam contains a shred of truth then it is our duty as Christians to show them the light of Jesus or else they will be lost.

Because we know better than them right?

I’d be interested to know if there are any schisms of Christianity out there who believe that a person’s entrance into the divine realm is not predicated upon acceptance of Jesus.

Then Muslims and Christians could go to generic heaven together?

What would be the basic requirements then? Belief in an Abrahamic god? but then what about the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Buddhists? Well - they led a good life - In that case, atheists too should be admitted, provided they have lived a good life according to their conscience, correct?

It would be nice wouldn’t it.

Some might say - you will be judged by what you knew.

I have certainly heard the message and thus far, ignored it. Am I to be cast into the fiery abyss no matter my dedication to serving others.

The CIA factbook estimates that the religious spread in the world is thus:

Christian 33.35% (of which Roman Catholic 16.83%, Protestant 6.08%, Orthodox 4.03%, Anglican 1.26%), Muslim 22.43%, Hindu 13.78%, Buddhist 7.13%, Sikh 0.36%, Jewish 0.21%, Baha’i 0.11%, other religions 11.17%, non-religious 9.42%, atheists 2.04%

A poor showing for atheists!

Of those non Christian religions, how many do you think have heard the Christian message and disregarded it? Are all those people to be damned unless they repent?

What percentage of the world population, what percentage of all the people who have ever lived on this world are to be damned to hell for eternity?

The claim that this belief system is an intrinsically moral one is impossible to undertstand.

My favourite thing about the parable is they all failed to identify the elephant in the room, a common syndrome in religious thinking.

As an infant I was baptised as a member of the Church of England, an Anglican as our friends across the pond say.

Later, as a child, I proved a lacklustre Christian trainee even amongst my less than devout contemporaries.  

I was, however, a good boy.

I coloured in pictures of Jesus at Sunday school, went to church and and mouthed along vaguely to hymns I didn’t care to know, afterwards running amongst the dusty, odd smelling pews before being told sharply to sit down.

I was led to believe that those who truly believed in all the bible stories and led a good life would make it to that eternal party in the sky.

As I emerged from my somewhat credulous youth, questions were formulating in my mind. 

Not least among these was: What about all the Muslims?

It seemed to me extraordinarily unfair - that I should, so luckily and conveniently, be born in this place where I was primed for ascension to the divine.

Whereas my comrades, my working brothers and sisters, living in places I could not at the time imagine, were doomed to a mere blip of a life dwarfed in significance by an eternity of damnation.

What then of the Chinese or the Hindus? What about the aboriginal Australians, the lost native Americans or the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon? 

Wouldn’t it be unforgivably capricious and cruel to condemn those that had not only not listened to the good word, but had never, and would never even hear it?

It seemed so at odds for the kind, gentle people I met in the church to wish this to be true of other people.

A contradiction I have never fully understood. 

Then I came upon another realisation - That other cultures think the same thing about us.

How can we know which culture is right?

Thousands upon thousands of cultures have formed belief systems and made claims about the nature of life, death and the afterlife in the annals of human history.

Logic dictates that either one of these many claims are true, or none are.

Which is the more likely?

Religion is often bequeathed culturally to us by our elders and our communities at large. However traditional religious dogmatism entreats ‘the other’ to damnation thus excluding itself. 

If we are to get along together on this planet, to overcome the myriad of problems we yet face as a species, then we must see past these culturally programmed differences and realise that at the core, we are the same.