Pluralism(2)

A-I am somewhat familiar with your view which I know under the name of pluralism. I am not aware of your religious studies and urge in this field though. So Iwant to ask you something which is by no means to question your belief, but only to help me understand this position better. I always had trouble putting myself in the shoes of those who have this view, and I always thought that there must be things that I don't understand about it.So maybe you can help me.pluralism has different kinds, I believe that all religions have the same source and major goal,which as you said is to help people get closer to God which is the only reason of man's creation in the first place, but another kind of pluralism which is sometimes named extreme pluralism says that people don't have to follow a certain religion and anyone of them can satisfy this end. It seems that this is the one type you mentioned , since you said that"Whether one is a Baptist, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. is not important." The first one which I believe in, doesn't say that we don't need to follow a certain religion, but that the major goal of all religions is one. so I ask my question like this:

-what is the immediate result of this way of looking?

--does it mean that if a new prophet comes and even I believe in him/her, I don't need to follow him/her,and that I can achieve the same goal through another religion?

if the answer to this question is "no" and that "we must follow all his/her orders and devote ourselves to the new creed, how can we adopt that extreme appproach to pluralism?
If the answer is "yes" , then it brings more questions

is God doing something unnecessary by sending a new prophet?

**we know that each time a prophet came , he suffered severe hardship and lots of his followers were martyred.Were all these things unnecessary?
**religious experince that a prophet gains, is a source of new insight for humans to lots of new problems of life; prophets bring their instructions for the immediate need of the people of the related time and period, and these instructions are given to make the spiritual development possible, so if these instructions are the best source of the right approach towards the problems of that particular time, how can we do without them? As you know, the make of the society has a direct effect on the spiritual education that a person receives , so besides working on the one-to-one relationship of the person with God,religions have teachings that are to make the society too.

-since this look makes the person feel very independent of a new religion, and since “everything comes to the waiting heart”, I think that having this view makes it so hard to recognize a prophet and see the message of the new religion.

-if somebody claims that he is the one that Jesus was talking about all the time in Bible, but we think we are in good shape without him, then why Jesus spent so much time talking about this over and overand trying to make people ready for it?

I respect your view and asked these questions just for my lack of knowledge, which is the only thing I am responsible for, thank you again for answering my email and all the best wishes

(posted by Farid)


Posted:Friday, June 27, 2003 |