You would have to hypothesize an especially silly God to be concerned with whether his ‘name’ is the same across all languages, and the details of worship be the same across all cultures.
Except most classical religions claim exactly that. They don’t think that their deities are the same deity. And when they think the deities are the same they think it is vitally important to get which belief is correct. Look at what people have fought religious wars over.
Jesus was a pretty amazing personality, so if God did choose an avatar, I would assign a high probability to Jesus being one. But why not Mohammad as well? If anything, I would wonder why God doesn’t form avatars more frequently.
We only have secondary and tertiary sources for Jesus. Many aren’t even convinced he existed. While I think it is more likely than not that he did exist, judging that he was a “pretty amazing personality” is not something that one can reasonably conclude based on the evidence. And as for Mohammad- Muslims believe that he was a prophet, not an avatar or divine vessel. Saying that Mohammad was divine is one of the biggest heresies in Islam.
Well, it is hard to tell what are classical religions and what they claim.
It is possible to interpret some of them as “the others are worshipping the correct entity(ies), but in a very wrong way”.
Christianity considers Judaism proper faith for its time that needed an amendment. Islam considers Isa and Musa great prophets. Both Islam and Christianity hint that the followers of the previous faith should just admit the new prophet and convert.
Buddhism and Taoism can be overlayed over Hinduistic world—they have no inherent conflict, the question is of what is the right thing to do. Now, some factions in Buddhism can go as far as to admit that for some people some kind of Christianity can be a good path to Enlightenment if it teaches them to fo the right things and think the right thoughts.
Ah, and yes, Hinduism is now stated as a monotheistic religion. It is just the the Word is replaced with a Dream, but what’s the difference.
Bahaism.. Well, Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed and some more said what had to be said at those moments of time; for the nineteenth century and onwards Bab and Bahaullah have made some amendments that had to be made because the humanity has changed and could accept more grains of truth.
Now you can start drawing compatibility matrix. For example, Islam promises a last chance to Christians—which will be declared by the returning Isa. Zoroaster promised only final retribution and mostly for evil deeds and evil thoughts, so you can just look up zoroastrian moral teachings and try not to do anything outrageous according to it. And so on...
Right. But most of those religions aren’t religions that think that the others are going to get to heaven. The overlap between Christians who think Jews will go to heaven and Christians who think that incorrect beliefs can result in very bad afterlives is a small one.
Now you just need to find a set of practices and beliefs that allows you to be heaven-admissible in the most possible amount of branches of Christianity while still eligible for last-minute conversion to Islam if Jesus comes and says to do it and not doing any of the worst sins of Judaism (you still worship Yahweh as Christian, right?) and reducing wordly attachments in case Buddhism is right.
The funny thing is that you will have to do some things to gain eternal individual life if Jehova’s Witnesses are correct and to lose eternal indeividual life in reincarnations if Siddhartha Gautama found the truth.
So, this sort of thing sort of works. But is going to run into issues. So for example some Jews don’t consider Christianity to be an acceptable way of worshiping the same deity even as they think Islam generally is. (The whole divinity of a human being thing is a problem). And some religions specifically have issues with trying to hedge your bets. And many forms of Judaism have stricter rules for people who are descended from Jews. But as a general strategy it might work.
The most horrifying thing is that after you pick the optimal faith, you need to unbelieve everything you considered during your choice while keeping the belief that you have chosen right and acquiring the belief in the chosen faith.
The reason is that when choosing you suppose that everyone actually worships the same God, and you need to find just an optimal way of worship; but the closest faiths to it—I think they are Bahaism and most factions of Buddhism—are easy to satisfy by default, you need to believe not them, but one of the probably-least-true faiths—one of strict jealous faiths. Simply because the faith you considered right while choosing is permissive enough to forgive your move into a strict one you will choose to believe a faith which is furthest from your initial assumption.
I am not even sure whether you should ascribe divine nature to Jesus—Christianity is not united even in this question.
That doesn’t strike me as a practical definition of ‘Christianity’. Even most of the mutually incompatible Christian sects would agree that not ascribing divine nature to Jesus would disqualify them from even a heretical Christian sect. “Folks who believe Jesus was divine’ would be a reasonable description of what the word “Christian” means.
We-ell. Judaism is OK with a other-than-human-but-not-God angel evicting Adam and Eve. Jehova’s Witnesses are a Christian sect, but they ascribe Jesus a position higher than humans and angels but strictly lower than God.
Except most classical religions claim exactly that.
Just one of the things religions are wrong about. Meaning, I think there is some sense in distinguishing among theistic claims—that is, if theism were true; some theistic ideas are more reasonable than others. (I would expect that) the claim that ‘my particular religious beliefs are true and all others is false’ is not frequently maintained by thoughtful theists, and I could find references for specific examples if that would be helpful. (I know there are numerous examples to the contrary as well.) But religious people often (sometimes?) do allow for equivalence among different forms of worship. [edited for a softer, more reasonable argument]
While I think it is more likely than not that he did exist, judging that he was a “pretty amazing personality” is not something that one can reasonably conclude based on the evidence.
I’m not too concerned about an exact person. I see ‘Jesus’ as a historic phenomenon, with a very distinctive meme, that came from somewhere. It may have been a set of ideas that collectively developed over a couple hundred years (or, even more likely, was recycled from earlier philosophies.) But I also think it is likely there was a person that catalyzed or focused this particular paradigm shift.
And as for Mohammad- Muslims believe that he was a prophet, not an avatar or divine vessel. Saying that Mohammad was divine is one of the biggest heresies in Islam.
I’m sincerely sorry, since I didn’t intend to be offensive. When writing the comment, I felt a twinge of anxiety wondering if I might be overstepping but disregarded it. I’m not familiar with Islamic views.
Tangentially, Agora is a movie about early Christianity and early epistemology/science that Less Wrong readers might find interesting. I recall it because the movie reminded me that Christianity has echoed similar things regarding the importance of these divine/non-divine distinctions.
Pascal’s Wager though is only relevant for those religions generally. There’s not much in the way of religions that believe God will torture you forever or reward you forever based on your belief and don’t believe that believing in exactly the right version is really important. For purposes of this discussion, the moderate religions don’t matter much.
I’m sincerely sorry, since I didn’t intend to be offensive.
The point isn’t an issue of offensiveness or not. The point is that your imagined proposal doesn’t work.
religions that believe God will torture you forever or reward you forever based on your belief and don’t believe that believing in exactly the right version is really important.
There’s still logical room for the possibility that you are rewarded for having belief in any religion verses being atheist, but that would be overreaching. Because torture-or-reward-forever is one of the details, like the rule that you have to believe in this particular religion, that my imagined proposal wanted to dismiss.
Except most classical religions claim exactly that. They don’t think that their deities are the same deity. And when they think the deities are the same they think it is vitally important to get which belief is correct. Look at what people have fought religious wars over.
We only have secondary and tertiary sources for Jesus. Many aren’t even convinced he existed. While I think it is more likely than not that he did exist, judging that he was a “pretty amazing personality” is not something that one can reasonably conclude based on the evidence. And as for Mohammad- Muslims believe that he was a prophet, not an avatar or divine vessel. Saying that Mohammad was divine is one of the biggest heresies in Islam.
Well, it is hard to tell what are classical religions and what they claim.
It is possible to interpret some of them as “the others are worshipping the correct entity(ies), but in a very wrong way”.
Christianity considers Judaism proper faith for its time that needed an amendment. Islam considers Isa and Musa great prophets. Both Islam and Christianity hint that the followers of the previous faith should just admit the new prophet and convert.
Buddhism and Taoism can be overlayed over Hinduistic world—they have no inherent conflict, the question is of what is the right thing to do. Now, some factions in Buddhism can go as far as to admit that for some people some kind of Christianity can be a good path to Enlightenment if it teaches them to fo the right things and think the right thoughts.
Ah, and yes, Hinduism is now stated as a monotheistic religion. It is just the the Word is replaced with a Dream, but what’s the difference.
Bahaism.. Well, Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed and some more said what had to be said at those moments of time; for the nineteenth century and onwards Bab and Bahaullah have made some amendments that had to be made because the humanity has changed and could accept more grains of truth.
Now you can start drawing compatibility matrix. For example, Islam promises a last chance to Christians—which will be declared by the returning Isa. Zoroaster promised only final retribution and mostly for evil deeds and evil thoughts, so you can just look up zoroastrian moral teachings and try not to do anything outrageous according to it. And so on...
Right. But most of those religions aren’t religions that think that the others are going to get to heaven. The overlap between Christians who think Jews will go to heaven and Christians who think that incorrect beliefs can result in very bad afterlives is a small one.
Now you just need to find a set of practices and beliefs that allows you to be heaven-admissible in the most possible amount of branches of Christianity while still eligible for last-minute conversion to Islam if Jesus comes and says to do it and not doing any of the worst sins of Judaism (you still worship Yahweh as Christian, right?) and reducing wordly attachments in case Buddhism is right.
The funny thing is that you will have to do some things to gain eternal individual life if Jehova’s Witnesses are correct and to lose eternal indeividual life in reincarnations if Siddhartha Gautama found the truth.
So, this sort of thing sort of works. But is going to run into issues. So for example some Jews don’t consider Christianity to be an acceptable way of worshiping the same deity even as they think Islam generally is. (The whole divinity of a human being thing is a problem). And some religions specifically have issues with trying to hedge your bets. And many forms of Judaism have stricter rules for people who are descended from Jews. But as a general strategy it might work.
Separate comment for a separate point.
The most horrifying thing is that after you pick the optimal faith, you need to unbelieve everything you considered during your choice while keeping the belief that you have chosen right and acquiring the belief in the chosen faith.
The reason is that when choosing you suppose that everyone actually worships the same God, and you need to find just an optimal way of worship; but the closest faiths to it—I think they are Bahaism and most factions of Buddhism—are easy to satisfy by default, you need to believe not them, but one of the probably-least-true faiths—one of strict jealous faiths. Simply because the faith you considered right while choosing is permissive enough to forgive your move into a strict one you will choose to believe a faith which is furthest from your initial assumption.
You are embellishing the truth. You cannot even be saved by standards of both Russian Eastern Ortodox Church and Catholicism at once.
I am not even sure whether you should ascribe divine nature to Jesus—Christianity is not united even in this question.
So yes, bet-hedging will still give quite perverted result.
That doesn’t strike me as a practical definition of ‘Christianity’. Even most of the mutually incompatible Christian sects would agree that not ascribing divine nature to Jesus would disqualify them from even a heretical Christian sect. “Folks who believe Jesus was divine’ would be a reasonable description of what the word “Christian” means.
We-ell. Judaism is OK with a other-than-human-but-not-God angel evicting Adam and Eve. Jehova’s Witnesses are a Christian sect, but they ascribe Jesus a position higher than humans and angels but strictly lower than God.
Just one of the things religions are wrong about. Meaning, I think there is some sense in distinguishing among theistic claims—that is, if theism were true; some theistic ideas are more reasonable than others. (I would expect that) the claim that ‘my particular religious beliefs are true and all others is false’ is not frequently maintained by thoughtful theists, and I could find references for specific examples if that would be helpful. (I know there are numerous examples to the contrary as well.) But religious people often (sometimes?) do allow for equivalence among different forms of worship. [edited for a softer, more reasonable argument]
I’m not too concerned about an exact person. I see ‘Jesus’ as a historic phenomenon, with a very distinctive meme, that came from somewhere. It may have been a set of ideas that collectively developed over a couple hundred years (or, even more likely, was recycled from earlier philosophies.) But I also think it is likely there was a person that catalyzed or focused this particular paradigm shift.
I’m sincerely sorry, since I didn’t intend to be offensive. When writing the comment, I felt a twinge of anxiety wondering if I might be overstepping but disregarded it. I’m not familiar with Islamic views.
Tangentially, Agora is a movie about early Christianity and early epistemology/science that Less Wrong readers might find interesting. I recall it because the movie reminded me that Christianity has echoed similar things regarding the importance of these divine/non-divine distinctions.
Pascal’s Wager though is only relevant for those religions generally. There’s not much in the way of religions that believe God will torture you forever or reward you forever based on your belief and don’t believe that believing in exactly the right version is really important. For purposes of this discussion, the moderate religions don’t matter much.
The point isn’t an issue of offensiveness or not. The point is that your imagined proposal doesn’t work.
Oh, I see. Pascal’s wager depends upon:
There’s still logical room for the possibility that you are rewarded for having belief in any religion verses being atheist, but that would be overreaching. Because torture-or-reward-forever is one of the details, like the rule that you have to believe in this particular religion, that my imagined proposal wanted to dismiss.
Funny enough, in “City of the Sun” this is the official stance: any religion (they have to be compatible with general peace) is better than atheism.