What am I?
Many people classify their religion to other religions in three ways: exclusive, inclusive, and pluralist. I am none of these options. Exclusive means that there is only one way, inclusive means that God works in ways beyond our limits and understandings, and pluralist means that there are many valid religions and they are all mutually influenced. Religion is fascinating to me because so many religions stem from the same concept, but they are unable to see the similarities, only the differences. Personally, I do not have a religion, but I accept that every religion is correct because that is what the follower believes. Because I accept every religion as true, but I do not have my own religion, I choose to not identify with any of the categories.
The position exclusive is very narrow minded to me. Many religions are very similar, so how can there only be one right religion. As we discussed in class, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all founded on the same principles. They all believe in God, but most people think that Muslims do not believe in God. John Kaltner writes in his book …show more content…
There is nothing particularly wrong with this position; it just does not pertain to my nonreligious view. If a person believes in God, then this position is probably what they refer to when viewing other religions.
Last but not least, the pluralist position. The only reason I chose not to identify with this position is because I am not a religious person, so I felt it would be false. Every religion is valid because there are followers. Huston Smith was a scholar who was able to put world religions in three clusters: India, “Far East”, and West. Although we have also talked about Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, I am more familiar with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Throughout this paper, I will focus on the West religions because they relate to me
Many people classify their religion to other religions in three ways: exclusive, inclusive, and pluralist. I am none of these options. Exclusive means that there is only one way, inclusive means that God works in ways beyond our limits and understandings, and pluralist means that there are many valid religions and they are all mutually influenced. Religion is fascinating to me because so many religions stem from the same concept, but they are unable to see the similarities, only the differences. Personally, I do not have a religion, but I accept that every religion is correct because that is what the follower believes. Because I accept every religion as true, but I do not have my own religion, I choose to not identify with any of the categories.
The position exclusive is very narrow minded to me. Many religions are very similar, so how can there only be one right religion. As we discussed in class, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all founded on the same principles. They all believe in God, but most people think that Muslims do not believe in God. John Kaltner writes in his book …show more content…
There is nothing particularly wrong with this position; it just does not pertain to my nonreligious view. If a person believes in God, then this position is probably what they refer to when viewing other religions.
Last but not least, the pluralist position. The only reason I chose not to identify with this position is because I am not a religious person, so I felt it would be false. Every religion is valid because there are followers. Huston Smith was a scholar who was able to put world religions in three clusters: India, “Far East”, and West. Although we have also talked about Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, I am more familiar with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Throughout this paper, I will focus on the West religions because they relate to me