I thought you were a UU, or at least raised UU. (You mentioned it in a xanga entry back when your xanga was linked to from Leland's wiki.)
The "looking for the good in every religion" is something I've been thinking about lately. I very much do the same thing: I think that learning about all the major world religions teaches me more about God than just learning about one. What I start to wonder sometimes is where one's concept of "the good" comes from, though. If I am using some principle extrinsic to religions to evaluate them, what exactly is that principle and how did I decide on it?
So normally I'd have no problem saying that the extrinsic principle is my personal sense of discernment, since I have "that of God" in me (to use the Quaker term) that allows me to evaluate good from bad. But in some sense that is a cop-out. I think that hell is an abhorrent idea; I think that Kali is a scary goddess, I think that no war is holy... but is that real discernment, or is that just me being what my pagan friends would call a "fluffy bunny"? The Qur'an says, "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not." I sure don't like that idea, but it's hard to argue against. And, in a larger view, I think having a totally individualistic faith can also get us into trouble: I think of a woman who heard voices in her head and believed them to be demons taunting her, and I think it's good to be able to say, Our personal experience is not necessarily more reliable than the weight of religious tradition.
In the end I keep coming back to the Wesleyan quadrilateral, which says that a trustworthy theological position must take into account scripture, tradition, reason and experience. And still, Methodists of all stripes are using the quadrilateral to explain diametrically opposed viewpoints on, e.g., homosexuality, so that's hardly infallible either.
I'm not sure why I'm hoping for infallibility today. :-) I must be channeling my Catholic roots!
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The "looking for the good in every religion" is something I've been thinking about lately. I very much do the same thing: I think that learning about all the major world religions teaches me more about God than just learning about one. What I start to wonder sometimes is where one's concept of "the good" comes from, though. If I am using some principle extrinsic to religions to evaluate them, what exactly is that principle and how did I decide on it?
So normally I'd have no problem saying that the extrinsic principle is my personal sense of discernment, since I have "that of God" in me (to use the Quaker term) that allows me to evaluate good from bad. But in some sense that is a cop-out. I think that hell is an abhorrent idea; I think that Kali is a scary goddess, I think that no war is holy... but is that real discernment, or is that just me being what my pagan friends would call a "fluffy bunny"? The Qur'an says, "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not." I sure don't like that idea, but it's hard to argue against. And, in a larger view, I think having a totally individualistic faith can also get us into trouble: I think of a woman who heard voices in her head and believed them to be demons taunting her, and I think it's good to be able to say, Our personal experience is not necessarily more reliable than the weight of religious tradition.
In the end I keep coming back to the Wesleyan quadrilateral, which says that a trustworthy theological position must take into account scripture, tradition, reason and experience. And still, Methodists of all stripes are using the quadrilateral to explain diametrically opposed viewpoints on, e.g., homosexuality, so that's hardly infallible either.
I'm not sure why I'm hoping for infallibility today. :-) I must be channeling my Catholic roots!