Thousands of Religious Sects - Which one is right?

So any of the ten vessels is acceptable, right? And all ten of them will produce the same exact reward if all the water is drunk through the mouth, right?

 

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no...
only one of the vessels will bring the greatest reward...because it takes less energy for person to travel to that vessel or move the body towards that vessel than to any other vessels.

 

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LG, you never answered my question though. Which vessel would you choose?

 

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sure
if the water is the same, and they are all composed in the same environment at the same time at the same level of quality, obviously the result will be the same

 

probably the closest one

 

Okay, the closest one.

So you would choose the vessel which takes the least effort to get the water out of then. It does make logical sense.

Onto the next issue:

Do you believe that Jesus is who he is presented as in the Bible? Do you believe Jesus is second to God in power, his ONLY SON, and that the only way to God is through Jesus? Also, do you believe that Jesus saved ALL OF MANKIND from our sins and that without his sacrifice, every man would go hell?

 

there is no God to begin with. no proof that God exists.

 

yes

Usually this standpoint is taken by christians on the strength of John 14:6 where Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
while not a biblical scholar, I have read an essay by someone who was, that the original transcript from which the english is taken is written in the present tense - hence it should read something more like "Right here, right now, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Given the social climate that jesus was preaching in, it sounds like a reasonable claim

 

So you are saying that these fundamental Christian beliefs are then: INCORRECT.

Beacause as we know, a belief can either be CORRECT or INCORRECT.

So you, LG, view Jesus as just another prophet. I'm not saying you are correct or incorrect because I'm in no position to decide that.

I'm glad though in any case that you and I both agree that beliefs can either be true or false. Correct or Incorrect.

 

I think I raised the issue before that they are not necessarily fundamental

agreed

I identified him as a saktya-avesa-avatar, which is to say that they are deserving of the same respect that one would usually muster for god, since they represent god so transparently (like a glass pane gives passage to the sunlight on the merit of its transparency).
I think it is an understatement to declare jesus to be 'just another prophet'

obviosuly a belief can be correct or incorrect - just because something is a belief doesn't automatically place it in either catagory

 

Fair enough.

 

Which God you see through this glass ? Vishnu/Krishna or YEHWEH ? Spell it baby.

Muslims are more honest in accepting Jesus as a prophet than your 'saktya-avesa-avatar' word jugglery.

 

Back to the vessel analogy.

LG, you stated that if you were thirsty and presented with 10 vessels of water all made of different material, you would choose the closest vessel.

So you wouldn't even look at the other vessels. You would simply choose the first vessel that you saw.

Let's say the vessel you choose contained asbestus in the material it was made of. Let's also say that some of this asbestus got into the water and poisoned it. Suddenly, that first vessel isn't looking so good anymore, and you wished you would have looked at all of your options and not just chose the first vessel you saw.

I think you see where I'm going with this LG.

Let's say a human was born on a remote island and never was exposed to any religion. Let's also say that at age 18 this human was concerned with the afterlife and wanted to assure that he would live his life the best possible way which would please God the best and give him the best spot he could possibly have in heaven.

So the human decides to research every scripture and every religion in existence in order to make the best desicion possible as to what religion or system of beliefs he will have.

He looks at the Bible, the Quaran, the Vedas, the Tipikada, the gospels which weren't included in the bible, the works of various other saints, etc., etc., etc.

He studies all of the hundreds of these scriptures which all say different things about the nature of reality, and he wants to choose the most truthful scripture or religion. He wants to choose the religion which is the closest to reality.

He knows that each religion and scripture contradicts the others in many areas, so either ONE or NONE of them are 100% correct. Most likely, they are all suboptimal, or below 100%.

What religion does this man go with? Which is the most true and accurate religion in terms of: Beliefs on the nature of God, beliefs on what God wants from us or requires from us, beliefs on sacraments and baptism, beliefs on eating animals, beliefs on restrictions, beliefs on fasting, beliefs on sin and what it is, beliefs on heaven or karma, beliefs on hell, beliefs on accepting Jesus as second to God, beliefs that Jesus is the King of everything, beliefs that Muhammad's visions were real and Christianity is wrong, etc.

What religion does this man go with?

 

Can you find any descriptions on the nature of YEHWEH?
Or are they qualitative descriptions? (eg - all powerful, the origin of everything etc)

from this

given that, i would say that jesus is probably coming in at number 4 and 5.
Its not clear what the apparent contradictions are between this analysis and that advocated by muslims or even christians - in fact its not uncommon to encounter even hindus that are agreeable to the concept, which begs the question "What platform are you arguing from?"
(it appears to be closer to personal vendetta rather than anything scriptural)

 

then the analogy no longer holds because all the water in the vessels is not equal

Most people do not take to accepting religious principles by books alone (they could to some degree, but it would be a rare soul that would have the intelligence to go the full distance just by reading) - the ability to apply scripture comes about through associating with someone already fixed in knowledge - of course they would see contradictions in the different scriptures (if they didn't they would be off the conditioned platform and firmly fixed in transcendental knowledge).

so in answer to your q, which religion would they choose, they would probably take the one with whom has a practitioner that they come in contact with (alternatively, they could reject all existing practices in their environment and hover on the mental platform, ie speculate about what constitutes religiosity and manufacture a concoction)

 

Already fixed in knowledge?

How do you know if someone is "already fixed in knowledge," or if they are just talking BS?

Oh, by the way, there are many Catholics who chose to follow priests who were supposedly "already fixed in knowledge," but then were caught molesting children.

Oh yeah, how about that great Evangalist Reverand who had many followers until it was found out that he had been paying a gay prostitute for services. What was his name... Ted Haggard?

Let's not forget the great religious leaders of the Crusades as well, right?

Or how about those old Catholic leaders who urged the people to pay indulgences for their sins?

I could come up with hundreds of examples of people who are or were supposedly "already fixed in knowledge" who had no clue what the hell they were doing.

Your method doesn't work here.

What if they decide to contact practioners from every religion and every sect, and not just one practitioner as you have suggested.

Oh, that's right, you would just follow the first practitioner you came in contact with (the first vessel).

 

not all Christian beliefs are incorrect...but fundamental are incorrect. like suffering and existence of God are incorrect.

 

See below.

 

So, using your own words, the analogy DOES in fact hold up because all the water (H20) IS in fact equal in all ten vessels. Each vessel contains a certain percentage of water (H20), but some of them also contain sugar and other additives not visible to the naked eye. So there is no way to know which vessels contain pure H20 and which contain additives because they all look exactly the same.

So I could give you a vessel full of a liquid which I claim is 100% H20, when in fact it is 80% H20 and 20% sugar, and you wouldn't know the difference. You would just take my word for it and hope for the best.

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So the question is:

How can we tell which vessel contains the most pure water, or the least contaminents if the liquid in each vessel looks exactly the same (clear, no color)?

 

nds1

How can you determine between a qualified doctor and a quack?

many people get fooled by deceptive doctors as well

tends to illustrate how determining the quality of a bona fide religious practitioner is not so prominent at the moment - actually it is a subject thagt makes up more than 75% of the struggle of spiritual life (proper discrimination)

You can take any position of authority you like (politician, school teacher, parent, lawyer etc) and come up with examples of gross negligence on both individual and institutional levels - the question is whether it is appropriate to judge a genre by its worst stereotype

at a guess, it tends to indicate that they were attached to wealth, which rates as a notable disqualification for qualifying oneself as a transparent medium to god

and I could come up with quite a few examples of persons who did (admittedly, for everything that actually exists in this world, it is not uncommon for it to be outnumbered by scores more cheap imitations)

I would argue that your method of determining the quality of a genre by its worst stereotype doesn't work at all - does that mean we should abandon parents, abandon politics, abandon teachers - in fact abandon everyone and even society itself, since it is not too difficult to find examples of such persons who have misplaced the trust of others (I would hazard that it would be more productive to properly determine what the qualities of a person in authority should possess)

This is getting quite rhetorical.
I mean there could be any of a number of reasons - the most likely ones that come immediately to mind is that they would take to the one that they felt socially comfortable with/they would take to the one that appeals to their material desire (after all, they are not liberated) like for instance they may take to something outre becaus ethey perceive they will be outstanding and different and unique if they take up Sth American sun dried potato worship or something, they would take to the one that they felt they could relate to and communicate easily with (so maybe they wouldn't take to sun dried potato worship after all) etc etc - the possibilities seem endless!!!

only if they perceived that as the easiest and most effective