The Flawed Logic of "The One True Path"

[markie]

What is the point of "the path"?
Isn´t it to get you somewhere?

So if more than one path leads to the same goal, isn´t any of these paths a "true path" in this regard?

Assuming they do. If they don't one of them is not a right path, but in all honesty it would still be a true path, I mean it would truly be a path. Then it's possible to start out on the wrong path and go right or to start out on the right path and go wrong. It just depends on where you want to go.

 

[markie]

Why can't something be true for two people when two people have different outlooks.. Say youre walking on the road with a friend, and the road seperates into two paths, but they both lead to the same endpoint(you can't deny that some paths have a meeting point). Something about one of the paths draws you to it, and you want to follow it. Now your friend sees beauty in the other path that you might not have seen, so he/she, goes and follows that path. Are you gonna tell your friend hes wrong for it?

I choose that path less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

That would be the case of A=B to begin with. Yes, to each his own but unless they lead to the same goal one of them has to be wrong.

 

[CrownCaster]

What is the point of "the path"?
Isn´t it to get you somewhere?

So if more than one path leads to the same goal, isn´t any of these paths a "true path" in this regard?

And I stand firm that you are right. ALL paths Do lead to God Almighty. Problem is that all but one only lead you to His judgment seat and only one allows you to stay in His presence. Yep, they will all get you there.

 

[Chrono Traveler]

That would be the case of A=B to begin with. Yes, to each his own but unless they lead to the same goal one of them has to be wrong.

Ah, but if they don't lead to the same goal, then they are just seperate paths. If the don't go to the same place then you still can't say the other is wrong, if thats where your friends wants to go.

People can have different outlooks on things, or they are just different..

let me put it this way...If you are christian, follow a christian path, if you are buddhist, follow a buddhist path... if you are wiccan, follow a wiccan path.

 

[peaceful soul]

Ah, but if they don't lead to the same goal, then they are just seperate paths. If the don't go to the same place then you still can't say the other is wrong, if thats where your friends wants to go.

People can have different outlooks on things, or they are just different..

let me put it this way...If you are christian, follow a christian path, if you are buddhist, follow a buddhist path... if you are wiccan, follow a wiccan path.

Then you would have to devalue God. A true god has integrity and sovereignity. How would you deal with that issue if there are many ways to god?

 

[Kaonashi]

7) This Holy Book Says it is True, so it must be Right!
Welcome to the land of Circular Reasoning!
Here's how it usually works: "My Religion is Right!" "Why?" "Because my Holy Book says it is!" "Well, why should I believe your Holy Book is Right?" "Because my Religion says it is!"
You can not logically say "Here's my first premise, here's my second premise. My first premise is true because my second premise says it is. My second premise is true because my first premise says it is. Therefore, both premises are true and support each other!"
Unfortunately, this doesn't work when exposed to any form of logic or rationality. In order to provide "proof" there must be validation from outside of the condition being tested.
8) Divinity Said It Was True, so it must be Right!
This is almost identical to the last technique, but instead of a Holy Book saying it, some form of Divinity said it.
But who did they say it to? Was it someone you know is trustworthy? Are they alive?
Did you hear it? So it's at best second-hand knowledge (you personally know the person who Divinity spoke to), or most likely third-hand (usually more like 100-handed) knowledge.
Have you ever played the game of "Telephone"? People line up, and a message is whispered to the first person in the line, who whispers it to the second person, who whispers it to the third, and so on until the last person gets the message. They then say the message that they got and everybody laughs at how the simple message got completely mangled to the point of being unrecognizable.
Now, add to this process the following and shake, not stir: What century was it written in? What language was it in? How many translations has it gone through since then? How likely is it that there were words and phrases that did not translate literally, and the translator had to make an approximation across the languages? How many cultural differences go unstated that are not accounted for in translations? How many political or other agendas were able to influence the translations to sound more like the positions that they advocated?
As you can see, there are many issues that can take what could have been straight from Divinity and changed, confused or corrupted it on its way to the version you see today.
And we still haven't addressed the issues as to whether the person who originally said they heard it wrote it down correctly. Have you ever tried to write down what happened in a dream after you woke up? Have you ever had difficulty expressing a significant personal experience using nothing but words?
And then there is the most basic question of if they actually did receive a message from Divinity or not. Could they have just made it up? Were they trying to impress someone, become famous, influence people? Under the influence of a mind-altering substance? Suffered from a mental illness?
Do you know people who you trust who have told you important things that turned out not to be true?
Unless you personally experienced it, you have no unquestionable basis to believe it. And all of the other rules here also apply to why you should believe what someone else says is true.

Hey Fire, I think you missed the part above.

 

[Gilbert Switzer]

What does religion have to do with LOGIC?

I think it's flawed logic to say that there's more than one true path because if one path is true for one person and false for another it is not really true. What you're saying is nothing is true and nothing is false and that just doesn't make sense. If one path is true by the process of elimination all other paths have to be false. In other wordss if A=A. A doesn't = B unless A=B to begin with.

 

[firefromheaven]

Hey Fire, I think you missed the part above.

Just because you think my answer is incorrect doesn't mean that it is. Also just because you posed the question doesn't mean that my answer isn't correct or that your question is going to get answered the way you want it.

 

[CrownCaster]

What does religion have to do with LOGIC?

Religion has nothing to do with logic. Only a relationship with Jesus Christ does.

 

[Boomygrrl]

The Flawed Logic of "The One True Path"

In Conclusion...
I hope this helped to illustrate that there is no magic reason that anyone's belief system is right or wrong. It is, at best, a personal decision as to what criteria you use to find your spiritual path through life.
Most importantly, there is no way that you can make a logical case that your belief system is "more right" than anybody else's.
Therefore, please treat everyone with respect and courtesy when discussing your beliefs or theirs. If you try to find the core principles that guide most religions, you will find that they all share many similarities, and there is room in the world for all of them.
Blessed Be,
- Brian Gallagher

I have thought much of the same thing. I personally find it arrogant for any group of people (whether Christian, Jewish, Cthuluists, whatever) to say they know for sure what is in the mind of God and how to have a relationship with God and then go condemn those who think there is another way. If there is a God, I would assume He/she/it would be beyond our understanding. It would be mind boggling to even come close to understanding 1/100th of anything about God. I'm being arbitrary with my fraction there, but I think you get the point.
Whether God talked through the prophets, whether God took human form through Jesus, whether God did anything, I would think it would only be a fraction of what we could know about God. Perhaps God has done so much more and the other religions have picked up on some of that as well.

What do you mean by spiritual path? Is this a path to God? A path to spiritual fulfillment?
I am agnostic, so I'm unsure what to believe at this time. Where do atheists and agnostics fit in this path? This question is for Kaonashi.

Boomygrrl

 

[Motus]

I am sorry, Motus, I didn't made myself clear.
I don't think there's One patch. As I see it, there's one Law and one end.
Some learn faster, others slowly.

So, if someone on purpose go against the Law of Love, against his conscience, ... well, such person is loosing an oportunity and making things much more difficult to himself.

I agree with you that there are necessary lessons each one has to learn from life, but I disagree that it's the conscience dictates them. The conscience can be manipulated and formed by the society a person lives in, and their own life experiences. People can be made to think something is morally good which others elsewhere would find offensive.

What I think I'm trying to say is an objective moral code has to exist outside of man himself, apart from the subjective conscience. So the lessons learned can't be self-taught.