[Opinion] Which Creed?

[Xenophon]

G.K. Chesterton has his Father Brown ask, "If all religions are fundamentally the same, why do you need to go all the way to India to get one?" Wyndham Lewis' answer was that "exoticism" forms the crippling senescence of the West. Others---like myself---reckoned that the East (Buddhism in my case) was not "fundamentally the same" as what I was turning the back on. So the question remains, are all creeds the same? Or is that simply a way to dodge either pointless debates or (maybe) serious intellectual wrestling? A corollary query might be why argue at all? Religion seems to have been the one thing most ancient peoples (pre-Christian) did not fight about. (Outside of Moses and his posse.)

 

[HoldAll]

Ah yes, the

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

thing which has gone out of fashion with scholars of religion since the end of WWII or so but is still a favourite of the New Age crowd. I'm not much of a philosopher but I remember reading a refutation of this belief where the author points out that you only have to look at the various doctrines concerning the afterlife to notice that there are huge differences between religions. To this I would add teachings about the human soul, starting with the atman/anatman controversy and ending with wildly differing notions regarding the segmentation of the soul such as in Ancient Egyptian beliefs or Kabbalism, not to speak of the monotheism/polytheism debate. The metaphysical variations are unmistakable and massive.

Ethics, however, seem to be relatively uniform. The various commandments are in fact very similar, and even an atheist will agree that lying is a bad thing; differences only exist when it comes to exceptions, for example when it becomes ok to kill. Whether it is permitted to drink alcohol, eat shrimp, etc. is a minor detail in comparison.

You'd really have to consciously ignore significant disagreements between various faiths to claim that all religions are fundamentally the same. The only commonality is perhaps that all religions demand that their believers be good persons but that's what society at large demands from everyone of us, too - without recourse to any religious precepts.

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

All paths lead to the same end, but the route and methods differ. And because the route and methods differ, the skills and strengths of practitioners are different.

Whether you dive deep into theurgy to BALG (why is it shorthanding it to BALG? @SkullTraill I'm not talking about the edgy LHP people), or become ordained as a minister and preach the good words with faith, or take a crooked path and become an edgelord and die early, or become a monk and follow Buddha, the end result is still unification with The All. Well, unification might not be the correct word as it's more yourself returning to The All by dissolving into it. The trick is that practitioners of spiritual arts get closer to (re)unifying with The All while still living, and as such gain influence and ability. And really the terms dissolving into or reunifying or whatever are a bit wrong, but that is what the experience from the perspective of man is, as we never left The All, we just perceive ourselves as other to the rest of The All.

Also the Mormons were right.

 

[Xenophon]

All paths lead to the same end, but the route and methods differ. And because the route and methods differ, the skills and strengths of practitioners are different.

Whether you dive deep into theurgy to BALG (why is it shorthanding it to BALG? @SkullTraill I'm not talking about the edgy LHP people), or become ordained as a minister and preach the good words with faith, or take a crooked path and become an edgelord and die early, or become a monk and follow Buddha, the end result is still unification with The All. Well, unification might not be the correct word as it's more yourself returning to The All by dissolving into it. The trick is that practitioners of spiritual arts get closer to (re)unifying with The All while still living, and as such gain influence and ability. And really the terms dissolving into or reunifying or whatever are a bit wrong, but that is what the experience from the perspective of man is, as we never left The All, we just perceive ourselves as other to the rest of The All.

Also the Mormons were right.

If we haven't arrived and are on different roads, how do we know we're going to the same place?

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

If we haven't arrived and are on different roads, how do we know we're going to the same place?

We all live the same, and we all die the same. Born from a mother, and returning to the earth.

Mind you, what I said earlier is just my own personal thoughts after studying the beliefs and systems of various paths, as well as my own explorations into the nature of our own mortality.

 

[Xenophon]

We all live the same, and we all die the same. Born from a mother, and returning to the earth.

Mind you, what I said earlier is just my own personal thoughts after studying the beliefs and systems of various paths, as well as my own explorations into the nature of our own mortality.

We all live; we scarcely live the same. Life is full of choices, some of them good, some bad. "A wasted life" is a common enough phrase. "He lived a good life," somewhat rarer but still highlighting a real difference.

Publius Decius Mus went through the rite of devotio, promising certain Roman deities to die in battle in exchange for saving the city. He kept his end of the bargain; they, theirs. Judas Iscariot, by contrast, turned betrayer then hanged himself. Aside from the fact that he, like Publius, left a corpse, in what sense was his death "the same"?

Egalitarianism is a disease not an ethic.

Post automatically merged: Aug 31, 2024

We all live; we scarcely live the same. Life is full of choices, some of them good, some bad. "A wasted life" is a common enough phrase. "He lived a good life," somewhat rarer but still highlighting a real difference.

Publius Decius Mus went through the rite of devotio, promising certain Roman deities to die in battle in exchange for saving the city. He kept his end of the bargain; they, theirs. Judas Iscariot, by contrast, turned betrayer then hanged himself. Aside from the fact that he, like Publius, left a corpse, in what sense was his death "the same"?

Egalitarianism is a disease not an ethic.

That came off a bit too harshly. My point, though, is that the fact we share a problem or issue to deal with does not render our approaches in any serious sense "the same." To crib from T.S. Kuhn, the phlogiston theory and that of oxygen are quite different things.

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

My point, though, is that the fact we share a problem or issue to deal with does not render our approaches in any serious sense "the same." To crib from T.S. Kuhn, the phlogiston theory and that of oxygen are quite different things.

What I meant wasn't that the paths were 'the same', but at the end of the path, no matter which way it goes, ends roughly the same way.

"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive." - Elbert Hubbard

We all die in the end and all that we are returns to The All (even though it never really left in the first place), so regardless if you deify yourself in your flesh or become history's biggest monster or save all the starving children, you end up the same. The path is life, and life always ends. And after it ends you return to the world. After all, the saying is "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust".

Of course I'm a filthy hermetic wizard so yeah...

 

[Xenophon]

What I meant wasn't that the paths were 'the same', but at the end of the path, no matter which way it goes, ends roughly the same way.

"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive." - Elbert Hubbard

We all die in the end and all that we are returns to The All (even though it never really left in the first place), so regardless if you deify yourself in your flesh or become history's biggest monster or save all the starving children, you end up the same. The path is life, and life always ends. And after it ends you return to the world. After all, the saying is "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust".

Of course I'm a filthy hermetic wizard so yeah...

Well said and all logical.

Still, that is perhaps the issue. Does life end? Lives end, yes. Life? There be folks like old Marc Aurel who seem to have considered life as an interlude of serving as herdsman to one's assigned portion of perduring nous. How one did that duty mattered a great deal. Still matters.

In the interlude between my post this morning and this, I took a long walk. Coming home, I walked in on the end of the old film 董存瑞 （Dong Cunrui） Dong, an historical character aged 19, died holding a satchel charge against the floor of a Nationalist blockhouse. I have never been called the coward. And I do not have much liking for Dong's politics or its attendant worldview. Still I happily grant he was a better man than my sexagenarian self who will most likely die in bed. Sure, in the end Dong and I are reduced to meat. Still his smells better somehow.

It occurs to me that we are mayhap talking past one another here, though.

 

[8Lou1]

all religions are not the same. within the reformation the interpretation of just one word in scripture could make war, families split, etc. go to a church, a voudou peristyle, a budhist temple and feel how the energy is very different.

if one would for example take great Britain and and look at the different districts they have there. like wales, scotland, et. one would see they are even on dna level not intermarrying, they speak different languages and they have different old gods. same goes worldwide.

wanting to go to walhallah isnt the same as giving the other cheek like a jesus follower would.

and why india???? maybe that has to do with england trying to get ride of the roman church in the past? idk, i havent researched it, but its not an average idea.


here in the netherlands we have 'together we go' church communities. these are communities from different dominations who are working on working together under god with the focus on what they agree upon, not on what seperates them. to much of those might make you think we are 1 under god, but look outside of what they agree upon and see the chaos.

 

[Sabbatius]

There were religious conflicts outside the JCI. Admittedly, not many- mostly squabbles over practices and protocols based on etiquette and sacrifices to Apollo created conflicts in the city-states of Greece. There were conflicts among religious etiquette towards castes in India which caused conflicts between tribes. The Toltecs and Mayans fought due to the conflict of their gods- probably used as excuses for food and territory. Overall in the grand scheme of war, these were not huge, except the Toltec and Mayan conflict lasted for decades.

 

[Asteriskos]

There were religious conflicts outside the JCI. Admittedly, not many- mostly squabbles over practices and protocols based on etiquette and sacrifices to Apollo created conflicts in the city-states of Greece. There were conflicts among religious etiquette towards castes in India which caused conflicts between tribes. The Toltecs and Mayans fought due to the conflict of their gods- probably used as excuses for food and territory. Overall in the grand scheme of war, these were not huge, except the Toltec and Mayan conflict lasted for decades.

What's the JCI?

 

[HoldAll]

What's the JCI?

Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I suppose.

 

[Asteriskos]

Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I suppose.

Thanks, that's what I thought too, never hurts to ask though. If anyone can miss the obvious I can!

 

[Taudefindi]

So the question remains, are all creeds the same?

It's hard to even say anything about this because there are many creeds around the world, and it would be a lot of hard work to gather all of them in order to compare.

The only thing I can say that they all have in common is that they all seem to try to give people answers to matters related to the spiritual and the unknown.For some that may come in the shape of making you know that everyone and everything is part of the same "universal soul", for others that comes in the form of concepts like a forever happiness(heaven) or an eternal punishment(hell).Some speak of humanity being able to surpass their human condition, while others tell humanity to be true to themselves and their nature.

Many of them ended up(and still are) used as a moral guide of sorts, though if it is by making a person aware of their actions and words or if it is by making them fear punishment, that is anyone's guess.

 

[Sabbatius]

What's the JCI?

Just as HoldAll stated.

It's been habitual to use the shortened "JCI" in discussions to describe the Abrahamic Faiths, especially on Discord.

It's hard to even say anything about this because there are many creeds around the world, and it would be a lot of hard work to gather all of them in order to compare...
Many of them ended up(and still are) used as a moral guide of sorts, though if it is by making a person aware of their actions and words or if it is by making them fear punishment, that is anyone's guess.

Two factors come into play when looking at spiritual credos: 1) Grow the practice 2) Survive
Out of every religion, philosophy and tradition I have studied, this is about as basic in universality they have. One would think there would be an ethical practice like do not kill or avoid harming nature, but no. This is why there is no universal faith and practice because we have little in common, and even those who come close to their commonality cannot get over the differences in practice or interpretation and subtle changes turn into divisions, hence the East-West Schism of the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."
So, the universality of creeds are to procreate, survive and spread the message/teaching.