Answers to Tough Questions

Aren't all Religions the Same?

Apart from some common moral principles, all religions aren't the same. In fact, many of the ideas that Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus have about God, reality, truth, the basic human dilemma and the nature of salvation are contrary to each other.

For example, there is no question that in Islam, Allah is the religious ultimate. But that's not the case with Buddhism. In fact, there are several strains of Buddhism and only one thinks of God in terms even close to a personal being. And the rest have differing impersonal concepts of the religious ultimate. In Hinduism, there is also a variety of god concepts. Some consider Vishnu or Krishna as personal deities. Yet other Hindus consider the entire cosmic process as an impersonal ultimate. When religions differ about God any similarities they may have in ethical teachings is merely incidental.

Not only do most religions not make the same claims, they don't even address the same issues. Contrary statements can't all be true. There is the logical possibility that all religions may be false. But it is not even a logical possibility that all religions are true. This means that a person can't rule out the distinct possibility that only one religion may be true.

Some people assume that since religions function in roughly the same way in people's lives that there must be a common reality behind them. But even if this assumption is true, the conclusion does not follow.

Imagine two men, Fred and Barney, who are married to two women, Wilma and Betty. Just because Wilma functions in Fred's life roughly the same way Betty functions in Barney's life, is no reason to believe that Wilma and Betty are just different names for the same entity.1

Footnotes:

1. This is based on a similar response in Winfried Corduan's book, "Reasonable Faith: Basic Christian Apologetics," Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993, pp 258, 259.

Isn't this Disastrous to Peace and Unity?