Truth with a capital T

[qatarperegrine]

The phrase "All roads lead to the same place" came up in conversation yesterday, and I've been thinking more about it.

I don't, in fact, believe that all roads lead to the same place. The analogy is usually, I think, that the religions of the world are all paths leading up the same mountain, which is to say that they all converge on the same end goal. But is the goal the same in every religion? I don't think even the major religions share a vision of what it means to attain spiritual fulfillment -- becoming a boddhisatva is not quite the same as becoming a saint, or a tirthankara, or a Muslim prophet. I suppose one could say (to use Christian language) that the goal they converge upon is God, but I don't find God-as-object-of-quest to be a satisfying metaphor for religion. And this is ignoring the even further question of whether all religious beliefs and practices even lead towards and not away from what I consider to be holy.

I really don't think you have to believe that all religions are interchangable in order to have a profound respect for other religious traditions. I'm not sure you even have to see them as equal, to use the contested word of the week.

My central image of the relationships of the religions is more like a story I heard from Rev. Ben Silva-Netto at a training for Methodist lay speakers in California. He asked us to imagine a room full of art students circled around a model in the middle of the room. Because they all see the model from a unique perspective, and because they come to the assignment with their own personal background and skills, each of them portrays the model differently. One paints a portrait, one draws a silhouette in charcoal, one sketches the model's hands. At the end of the assignment, when the model has left the room and they start looking at each other's work, they are sure to find areas of disagreement in their portrayals. People sitting in very differerent places are likely not even to be able to recognize that each other's pictures are of the same model. (This was certainly true when I took an art class in college!)

Rev. Silva-Netto used this as an analogy for the theological task. When we start trying to explain how we understand "Truth with a capital T" we are likely to disagree with each other. And if I see my own painting rather than the model itself as the Truth, I am likely to see my neighbors' portrayal of the Truth as wrongheaded. But this is only because my own perspective is limited, and I am failing to recognize that the model itself exists in one more dimension than my version of it. So I see my version and my neighbor's as mutually exclusive, not realizing that our disagreements and contradictions don't have to be resolved, that our observations may both be valid even when they conflict. And, in fact, if I were to try to make the draw-er of the silhouette buy into my vision of the model's hands, I would be asking that person to go against the Truth that was disclosed to her.

Anyway, this metaphor is not entirely a satisfying metaphor for religion either, because I think God/The Truth/The Tao/Whatever is a lot more than a passive model. But for me it IS a more helpful metaphor for the intellectual, theological aspect of faith, because it explains how we can acknowledge and even learn from other people's visions of the Truth even when they disagree with ours, whereas (in my mind, at least) the paths-up-a-mountain metaphor requires that we ignore the very real differences between the religions.

So I hear a question like "Is Jesus divine?" and I wonder if yes/no is the right approach. I think there is truth in the Christian assertion that God is ultimately revealed through the life and death of Jesus. I think there is also truth in the Muslim assertion that the whole Trinity idea is a little weird. And I don't think it's violating the Christian tradition to see the perspective that might be gained from both sides of an issue; the Bible is, after all, full of different and contradictory perspectives. Was Abraham saved by faith or by works? The Bible includes (at least) two contradictory statements on the matter. I think things like that are an acknowledgement that different intellectualizations of an experience can be useful even when they completely contradict one another.

In Buddhist logic, a and not-a are not the only logical alternatives. Both a and not-a and neither a nor not-a are also logical perspectives. I see value in a both a and not-a approach to Truth: Jesus is God, Jesus is not God, there are spiritual insights we can gain from both positions. Or to be more apophatic, the divine mystery cannot be reduced to either "Jesus is God" or "Jesus is not God." Neti, neti, the Hindus would say: Ultimate Reality is neither simply this nor simply that, but always transcends any formulations we use to describe it. The Tao that can be described in words is not the real Tao.

I wanted to talk more about Christian particularism and the question of whether "Jesus is God" even is the central truth claim of Christianity. (Not to mention whether truth claims are the heart of religion in the first place.) But I think I'll have to leave that for another day....

Comments

[seetarkrun.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Pascal known as kind of a nutjob anyway? And you can't help what you believe. If you're an atheist pretending to go to church, I think God's gonna figure it out.


Every time I start learning about a new faith tradition, part of me wonders if I'm going to end up being convinced that this one is The Truth. Instead, in every case I find things in the tradition that make me think, "How cool is that!" and things that make me think (at best), "Well... that's kinda weird...."

Have you read The Gospel According to Jesus? Those were the ideas I was raised on instead of the Bible- that Jesus was a good guy whose ideas were corrupted by the Catholic church.

I've been reading the New Testament for the first time, and Jesus seems to have a split personality. Half the time he's the "turn the other cheek" guy, and half the time he's the "all who don't follow me will burn in Hell!" guy. What the Gospel According to Jesus suggests (if I remember correctly... it's been a long time) is that much of the brimstone and fire stuff was put in Jesus' mouth by church officials decades later.


My main religious belief is this- God (assuming he exists) is probably a pretty smart guy, if he created the whole world. So I'm guessing he can come up with a system of judging souls a little more complex than "Do you believe in the correct religion/sect? Then you go to heaven." That's why I like Purgatory- lots of levels.


And returning to looking for the good in every religion:
I think the principle we use is simply emotional reaction and reason. If something doesn't feel right or doesn't make logical sense, there's no reason to believe it, but no reason to discard the things that do feel right. A flawed barometer? Of course. But what else do we have? Other people's instincts? Holy books written by other people? Science? The closest science has come (so far that I've heard of) is the 21 gram soul thing.


I'm thinking of writing a holy book, declaring myself a prophet, and seeing if anyone follows me.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Rats, I screwed up my HTML and LJ ate my post. I think I said something like...

"What the Gospel According to Jesus suggests (if I remember correctly... it's been a long time) is that much of the brimstone and fire stuff was put in Jesus' mouth by church officials decades later."

Well, the problem is that it was ALL put in Jesus' mouth decades later. The first gospel was written down around 70 CE, i.e. around 40 years after Jesus' death. People like the Jesus Seminar have tried to reconstruct what is most historically accurate, but I don't think they're going on too much more than emotional reaction and reason, either.

I'd also quibble with the term "church officials"; the first century church just wasn't all that organized, and there were people running around with all kinds of ideas about Jesus and writing all kinds of gospels. My impression is that there wasn't enough of a hierarchy to really suppress anything effectively! So I do think that the second-generation believers' interpretation of Jesus' life may not be the only fruitful one, but I don't think anyone was deliberately trying to misquote Jesus.

As for our own reason and experience as our best barometer, and God being a pretty smart guy, I agree (except for the "guy" part!). Personally I'm not all that concerned about the afterlife, if there is one. I think God wants me to live this life as best I can, and trust that the rest (if there is something else) will work itself out. I don't think God would be happy with the idea of embracing a religion out of fear.

FWIW I'd be interested in reading what you write about in your LJ, if you would care to friend me. No worries if not.

[seetarkrun.livejournal.com]

Sure! Consider yourself friended, although thought-provoking discussions like this are few and far between, while rants about trivial stuff fill in the rest.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Well, that's certainly true for my journal, too! In fact, I don't think there's ever been a discussion this intensive on my LJ before.

[seetarkrun.livejournal.com]

I need to learn more about religion and religious history, like that whole Catholic church thing. Any books you'd recommend? (or movies, for someone like me with a short attention span?)

[qatar.livejournal.com]

So that's... a little broad. You mean a book on the history of Catholicism? Nothing comes to mind, but let me think about it. (And ask my mother. Hey mum, what should she read?)

If you've never read Huston Smith's The World's Religions, that might be a good general religion book to start with. Although, if your upbringing was anything like my Unitarian nieces', world religions would probably not be the hole in your religious education. :-)

I'm more used to suggesting books on progressive Christianity to non-progressive Christians, but that's a totally different reading list (mostly consisting of lots of Marcus Borg, including The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, which he co-wrote with conservative scholar NT Wright; and Remedial Christianity, which despite a condescending name and a dismissive attitude towards conservatism is good and, more importantly, fun to read).

Human barometers

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I think the principle we use is simply emotional reaction and reason. If something doesn't feel right or doesn't make logical sense, there's no reason to believe it, but no reason to discard the things that do feel right.

The major problem with this is that you are going to constantly be fighting human nature itself. From a purely biological POV, four major "behavioral flaws" can be demonstrated (in increasing order of strength):

1. "Subjectivity" - In general, our ability to respond to ANY situation, is only through the filter of our previous experiences. Trauma, both emotional and physical, can forever stain this filter, and prevent us from having any sort of coherent ability to know what "feels right". As a secondary-victim of childhood sexual abuse, I can tell you that I will never-ever be able to be "objective" about many issues even remotely related to sexuality, either because at some level I've been "programmed" to perceive them as "normal", or because I over-compensate in the opposite direction.


2. "Laziness" - Doing anything real, general takes actual effort. This means that animals, humans among them, will generally seek the path of least effort. This means they will be intrinsically inclined to rationalize avoiding doing things, even if, otherwise these things would "feel right".


3. "Self Gratification" - We are hard-wired such, that we derive varying levels of pleasure from activities such as eating and sexual intercourse, with a direct correlation to how important to survival they are, to both the individual "unit" and the species as a whole. We are quite literally [Endorphin] "junkies" for pleasure. So this too clouds our ability to know what "feels right", in this case because "feels good" can easily take precedence. As every guy knows "A stiff dick has no Conscience"...


4. "Self Preservation" - The Number #1 "motivator" for all living entities is to continue living, at practically any price. What happens when you conflict this with the mere "feels right"? It rather pales in comparison doesn't it? While the threat of actual death, is generally pretty rare, we often respond strongly to even the most tenuous threats, or potentially threatening situation (such as saving someone's life at personal risk). Do you think this won't impact your ability to know what "feels right"?

While this list bares some parallel to the Catholic list of Seven deadly sins - the first three matching: Anger-Pride, Slot and Gluttony-Lust, I am thinking of them in the sense of biological imperatives (and not "sin"), to show that your "barometer" is inherently incapable of working. I can't think of any biological imperatives that would even remotely match Avarice and Envy, the two that I'm "missing".

You further underestimate the flexibility of human "logic", to rationalize whatever we damn well please. I doubt there are many cultures in human history who were quite as rational, straitlaced and "logical" as the Germans. Yet it was precisely for this reason that they could, through "solid rational science" demonstrate that Jews and certain other minorities such as the Gypsies, were genetically inferior, and that logically, this called for their scientific extermination, to make room for the "superior races". While I DO highly value logic as a useful tool, it is extremely overrated.

This is precisely why Divine Revelation is needed to tell us how to behave. We have proved throughout history, that we are incapable of finding this out for ourselves.

Divine Revelation

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I'd say we've demonstrated plenty of times that "Divine Revelation" can lead to pretty bad behavior. For instance, the Crusades, certain jihads, or even Joshua's battle.

Well as a ["exclusivist"] Jew, I would say the Crusades and Jihad are just clear examples of claimed Revelation, and hardly the Real McCoy, but you had to throw Joshua in there to confound my "easy answer" option. ;-) So for starters I'll say that we Jews, have rather strict rules on what a claimed prophet can and can not claim, and how to test the validity of a prophet. Obviously, from our POV, none of the various Popes with their ex cathedra statements, nor any Immams, qualify. Regarding Joshua, you are also making the statement that assumes his decimating the Canaanites was actually a Bad Thing [Tm]. Current archaeological evidence pretty much supports the Biblical claims that these nations had sunk far beyond "redemption" with their depredations especially in context of murdering their own children, as human sacrifices. They had managed to combine the Three Cardinal Sins, while "keeping it all in the family", and this in the "name of G-d". You bet G-d is going to be steamed!

In any case, the above was not my point at all, as I was using the term "Divine Revelation" NOT in the present-progressive context of prophesy (which is always the exception to the general order of the world), but in context of G-d having to clearly define The Law for us humans (i.e. Give us the Torah), because we are clearly incapable of knowing "what is Right" by ourselves.

He says that everything we desire, we can fulfill...

Like WOW!? I know C.S. Lewis was weird, but that is just so totally bizarre and twisted, from a Jewish POV. Reducing our tendency to seek the Divine to the level of an "animal urge"? That's almost as pathetic as the proponents of The G-d Gene (see referenced articles). Never mind that his metaphor is so incredibly flawed, what if he don't have any food, or are still single? His metaphors and parables are usually superb, if often hard for a Jew to stomach (I loved the near-pagan Space Trilogy, but couldn't stand Narnia [Whoa qatar! Please put DOWN that pitchfork!])

I think he blames the Devil for the perversions we come up with.

Blame it all on the Devil! Yeah, WTG. :-D We Jews don't believe in the Adversary at all, especially in this context, as it is G-d Almighty that comes out and puts the "blame" clearly at our own feet - "the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21). Back to your interpretation of "Divine Revelation", when Christian zealots tell that "Jesus talks to them" and guides them in their daily lives, I am always compelled to ask "How do you know this internal 'guiding voice' is that of Jesus, and not your natural Inclination for Evil?"

Hmm

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

On closer examination I see that indeed that essay is worded that way, but from memory and checking various other online sources (none concise enough to link to), I am almost certain this prohibition applies to ALL murder. It is possible that Rabbi Kaplan worded it this way, specifically because this was a common actual tactic of non-Jews to coerce Jews into murder, meaning this was the prevalent situation, that people would be familiar with.

If G-d created in us a built in need/urge to seek [alignment with] G-d, wouldn't this in turn tip the scales of Free-Will? If we are compelled to seek G-d, how we truly be said to have chosen this, or conversely how free are we then to choose to contravene G-d, and sin?

In that Genesis quote I bring above, G-d, at the time of The Flood, isn't attributing our "sinful nature" to the "Fall", but saying this is innate in Man's Nature, i.e. this isn't the result of the fall, but it's cause.

The interpretation of Satan hasn't changed much at all, over time. As our perception of Satan's job, is inherent in the actual meaning of Satan's name, as this FAQ clearly explains.

Re: Divine Revelation

[seetarkrun.livejournal.com]

The problem: how do us lowly humans distinguish legitimate Divine Revelation from claimed Revelation?

I'd argue for Divine Inspiration- genuine experiences with God twisted by human bias. And unfortunately, while I know my experience with God was real and my Divine works are perfect, I assume you're influenced by Satan/lying/insane.


And whatever we desire can be fulfilled... interesting. I'd have to ask what exactly we desire in religion? Answers? Meaning? Love? Comfort? Community? A sense of superiority? Hope? An end to fear of death? A sense of connection with God/the unknown? Some of those can be fulfilled, but I doubt we can ever find, for example, definite answers. I'd say that religions were created for this exact reason- people desired things that couldn't be fulfilled, so they created their own answers to fulfill them.

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

how do us lowly humans distinguish legitimate Divine Revelation from claimed Revelation?

I addressed this issue in other comments, above and below, in this subthread.

Re: Divine Revelation

[qatar.livejournal.com]

"Reducing our tendency to seek the Divine to the level of an 'animal urge'?"

<putting down the pitchfork>

C.S. Lewis doesn't say that our yearning for G-d is an animal urge. What he says is that G-d created humans the way we are for a reason; everything about us makes sense in some way. We experience hunger as a reminder to us that we need food; we experience thirst as a reminder that we need drink. We experience a longing for G-d as a reminder to us that we need G-d. It's not that it's an "animal urge" (he was unsure as to whether animals had an urge for G-d), it's that G-d created us in such a way that all our needs can be fulfilled.

That doesn't mean all our needs can be (or should be) fulfilled at any given moment. The fact that I'm hungry doesn't logically imply that there's a sandwich in front of me right now (more's the pity), but in C.S. Lewis' mind it does imply that food exists in the universe, because it wouldn't make sense for me to need something that doesn't exist.

I don't think C.S. Lewis sees it as a violation of free will that we have spiritual needs, because (as with any of our needs) we have choices as to how we try to fulfill those needs. Free will simply means that we can eat, have sex, worship G-d, etc. in ways that accord with G-d's will -- or not. That's the sin-as-perversion-of-good thing Leland brought up.

I adore C.S. Lewis, but I disagree with a lot of his theology. It's not at all surprising to me that the Narnia series (particularly the vicarious atonement deal and pretty much everything in The Last Battle) would be practically unpalatable to a non-Christian.

Re: Human barometers

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that humans are all experts at rationalization, and that logic can't get us everywhere we need to go. (My favorite Greek philosopher is Parmenides, who couldn't logically explain the creation of the universe and concluded, therefore, that it didn't exist.)

But I don't see how we can get out of the predicament that we are forced to rely on our own subjective assessment of the world. There are, for example, countless people alive even right now who claim that they are receiving "Divine Revelation." (And some of them write to me!) Even if I accept the idea of divine revelation, I don't accept that all these people are actually receiving it. So I have to use some kind of criterion to judge whether something is divine or not, right? That criterion may not be entirely logic or entirely gut instinct, but whatever it is it's going to be subjective. (It may be something seemingly objective, like, "Was it approved at the Council of Carthage," but in that case I still subjectively determined that it's the Council of Carthage I give authority to and not the Council of Laodicea.)

So the very fact that divine revelation occurs is not, in and of itself, a way out of the "problem" of subjectivity, unless you are proposing that there is some entirely objective way to know if a given text is divinely revealed.

LOL on the Gopi Goodness!

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Now though, you can only read the beginning of the essay you wrote.

As I explained to lelandt above, I wasn't referring to that type of ongoing "revelation", but to the initial giving of the Law. Furthermore, the law itself explains how to test the validity of a so called "prophet", and limits the type of thing that a prophet can tell us. For starters, a prophet is strictly forbidden as such to rule on the Law (they can rule as a learned Rabbi, if they are such). This means that the Law once brought to earth, by Moses, is now under "jurisdiction" of the Rabbis - "For this commandment which I command thee this day, ... It is not in heaven," (Deuteronomy 30:11-12). So indeed we have "some kind of criterion to judge whether something is divine or not". As far as WE are concerned, this means the problem is solved.

For the record, Jewish Tradition is such, that the power/ability to prophesy passed from the world, with the last Bible prophet Malachi (this would obviously preclude Jesus and Mohamed), and is now in the gradual process of returning as we enter the pre-dawn twilight of the Messianic Era. And before you ask, yes we do believe in gentile prophets (Bilaam for example).

Re: LOL on the Gopi Goodness!

[qatar.livejournal.com]

But again, there's still a problem of recursion, if you will. The law may give seemingly objective criteria by which to test the validity of a prophet, but what are the objective criteria by which we test the validity of the law?

Back to Square 1. ;-)

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I was pretty sure, I mentioned this before, but apparently not. Cool Person jane_etrix recently posted a locked :-( entry on sunday, about her "aversion to doctrine" and how skeptical and contrary she was with regard to claims about people knowing G-d's Will. My reply to this part of her entry was:

---

Regarding the "how do we know?" question, you are also right in being so contrary and skeptical, considering that the vast majority of the world's religions and/or doctrines are the claimed result of Divine Revelation to single individuals (or at most VERY small groups, like the lucky-few Disciples who "saw the Resurrection of Jesus"). You would think that IF G-d had a specific Message to the World [Tm] that G-d wanted followed, then knowing how skeptical human nature is, G-d would know much better than to tell it to some single weirdo hiding in a cave, and expect the world to heed this "messenger". You would expect G-d and/or the Message to be revealed before a large group of people, making the divine source of the message clear, to all that were there. This in fact, in what we believe to have happened at Mt. Sinai, where G-d was revealed before an estimated two million people.

---

Strangle enough, in further comments on that entry, I referenced this one (which is probably why I'm so confused about what I posted where, what with having so much fun simultaneously with jane_etrix, spider88 and yourself). I also addressed this (halfway through the comment) in that monster thread of spider88's that we first "met" in.

To summarize my point, we know the initial revelation of the Torah was true, because this wasn't some mystical event that some prophet experienced by their lonesome self, and now must convince us all. Rather, it was a clearly miraculous event witnessed by millions of people.

You could claim this too, to be a circular claim, because we know of this event from the Torah itself, but that would be ignoring the fact that we also know that millions of people accepted the Torah as Divine within the immediate time-frame involved (read those links mentioned in my comment to spider88). Even without this physical "evidence", we have other documents from the near time-frame, that indicate this was accepted doctrine. Let's see you fool millions of people in a short time-period of the divinity of a "religion".

No go!

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

If you read the text carefully - (Exodus 32), you will find that only 3000 people (verse 28) sinned with the Golden Calf. Even so, yes indeed, this is the most serious transgression in Jewish History, to the extent that we are STILL paying the price for it, 3317 years later. Also from the text (verse 1), Aaron, was not the source of the initiative. These people came to him.

The following is an interesting review of Golden Calf incident.

Re: Back to Square 1. ;-)

[qatar.livejournal.com]

So... I know the Torah is true because the Torah tells me millions of people were there. I'm glad you realize how circular that is. ;-) From a completely skeptical perspective: there is no extrabiblical evidence that there were two million Hebrews at Sinai, and even if there were, there is no evidence other than the Torah itself of what they saw or heard. So that's hardly a convincing argument!

"Let's see you fool millions of people in a short time-period of the divinity of a 'religion.'"

If this is your criterion for judging true revelation, then you should be a Muslim. No religion has EVER spread as quickly as Islam.

Not so

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

there is no extrabiblical evidence that there were two million Hebrews at Sinai, and even if there were, there is no evidence other than the Torah itself of what they saw or heard.

Except that there is! There is very strong evidence that Canaan was conquered within the immediate time-frame of this Revelation (within a century, but that's about as accurate as layer-based /pottery-shard archeology gets), and further strong evidence that this "force", within the same general time-frame, was to whatever varying extent observing the Law and customs as set down in the Torah. I pointed out elsewhere two important such finds: Joshua's Altar on Mt. Eval and The Gilgal. The first is thoroughly researched and dated - I have a fascinating book [in Hebrew] written by Prof. Zertal who found it (archaeological evidence shows that the extensive sacrifices on site, were all only from Kosher animals), and the second is a much more recent find, which as such, is less well studied.

But let us presume, for the sake of argument, that it wasn't the Torah that was received at Sinai, or even that Sinai, did not even happen. We do know that at a certain point in time T, we have well established evidence that millions of people accepted the Torah, not only as Dogma, but as factual history. This T is very close time-wise to the actual Exodus time-line laid out, in the Torah, and continuous through the books of Joshua and the Early Prophets. At what point along that time-line, does the Cabal of Jewish Elders whip out these writings and declare "From this point onward, this is now our Official History [Tm]. Learn it, love it, and forget whatever your grandparents told you previously. This [and only this] is How It Was [Tm]" and manage to do so, in a culture that has skepticism and Asking Big Questions [Tm], practically built in to it? The smaller T is, or the larger the population gets, the less probable this becomes, wouldn't you agree? Most skeptics place T at Exodus+ ~800, with the later Kings, some agree to +400 (First Temple). The above evidence drops it to at most +100.

Taking Islam, Christianity or Mormonism (to name a modern example) in comparison, how many adherents were there at Revelation +50, or even +200. Now take those numbers and subtract those that came by this Revelation, by outside coercion, internal decree (Such as Constantine in 4th century Rome). How many of those remaining can say "This is my [great] grandparents we're talking about", very few. Sword-point can be extremely convincing in enabling one to See the Light [Tm]. This if anything, is why Islam spread so rapidly. While Christendom also had Jihad equivalents in the Crusades, this was, in reality, more about politics and internal power-games, than actually Spreading the Faith, which is clearly apparent in that for the most part, the general public did not get behind the Crusades half as much as the Muslim public did. [ In fact, this can probably be said about practically ALL wars originating in Christian countries. Which is why, the USA is presently doing so badly in Afghanistan and Iraq. ]

The Show MUST go on

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Well rather than have this thread drift off into a multitude of unrelated sub-threads, it would likely be best to start new ones, that way the rest of qatar's readers can follow them too. But it's up to you folks.

The answer to your question, which should nip this sub-thread off pretty quickly is inherent in the different nouns used in to two sentences of mine that you quoted. The first refers to "souls" while the second refers to "people". As a general rule, each person has one soul. ;-) But not all souls "have" one people. ;-) What we call "people" or a "person" in the singular, is in fact the living combination of a body and a soul. If you are dead, or as in this case yet-unborn, your soul will still exist, but you will be rather immaterial, and rather lacking in the Body Department.

So the two million, refer to the physical head-count, of the living flesh-and-blood people who were present, as derived from the Torah sources (the Torah actually refers to some 600,000 men (Exodus 12:37). Typically in such "counts" "men" refers to those aged 20 and up). The present 14 million is also a body-count. The number of souls present at Sinai, on the other hand, is not at all a body count, but rather refers to some sort of disembodied presence, and would more likely be in the order of a minimum of 30-50 million, for all Jews that have lived until the present. So I see no conflict at all.

It's cool to know that Islam and Christianity together, at 54 percent, are over half of the world. I had always thought that most of the world were idolaters of some kind. Although, I must say their number look strange considering that in India there are over 800,000 million Hindus alone, and I wonder what type of numbers they use for China which is "officially" Atheist (Yes, I saw their comments on China).