Do All Religions Lead to God? — Here’s Where Pluralism Falls Apart

Tim Barnett argues that religious pluralism–the idea that all religions are equally valid—fails because, even if religions share moral principles, these shared values do not eliminate the deeper contradictions between them.

#StandtoReason #Apologetics #Christianity #Worldviews

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[STRvideos]

Are all religions legitimate roads to God? The God of Scripture has always been narrow. Matthew 7:13 says, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it." Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.

Here are some additional resources to help you answer our question:

The Trouble with the Elephant

All Religions Cannot Be True

Religious Stew

Was Jesus a Religious Pluralist?

The God of Scripture Has Always Been Narrow

[dpete]

The car metaphor falls apart because it assumes that at least one person actually owns and has seen the whole car and can therefore correct everyone else.

[jamesratliff]

Many ways to debate this discussion. We can't see the big picture because many faiths are about practice. Unless you practice all other faiths to the end how can you say you understand the faith? You may think you understand it from an intellectual perspective but there is also the experience that each faith provides.

[Lwyrup]

The analogy of the elephant would only work if all religions only talked about one aspect of God e.g. Christians would only say God is merciful, Muslims would only say that God is powerful, Jews would only assert that God is a Guide. However, this is not the case. What the blind men say is not necessarily a contradiction since an animal consisting of many parts can have more properties, the whole animal therefore has snakelike qualities, wall-like properties etc. That way none of them has to be wrong. However, since all religions have viewpoints of all aspects of God only one of them can be right. This would better translate to all of the blind men touching the leg of the elephant and then make contradictory remarks about them, one would say it is cylindrical, another would say it has claws etc. Since this would be a more accurate analogy you can know that either only one of them is right or that they would all be wrong, since all remarks exclude the other remark from being true.

[zinmykouassi]

What you are assuming is that religious pluralism means that all religions are right, not equally right. Most of these contradictions can be explained either by the idea that neither belief is right or that one side may be right but the other may be right in a different field. (In the car example for instance the second person was right about how the car was white and the other person was right about how the car was a utility vehicle)

[glennsimonsen]

The Hindu elephant story is simply insulting to blind people none of whom would judge that way without much more exploration and intellect. Compare to Jesus' parables which have great depth and surprising revelation.

This guy doesn't even know the concept of religious pluralism. Perfect example of a straw-man fallacy.

[lostgamer]

This is precisely why we have less religious tolerance. He is speaking on so many assumptions and biases. If you watch closely, he fails to even name other religions and repeats Muslim twice. Just shows how much EXPLORATION he has done into Religion.

[niniv]

4:27 - Hey ... How about the ATHEISTS ? They did NOT take the word of a blind person to present what an elephant is, ever ! There are people who do not take anything on faith ... And these people have NO say in your story ? Why ...

[Armando]

The problems with pluralism I see:
1. their God, is not Christian God: Not a PARTICULAR Person but a UNIVERSAL, general CONCEPT, an empty set, a context without content, a category, class, a definition, an idea not a being.
2. what they mean by "truth" is not what "Christians" mean by it. They claim, Christian view is false, simply b/c other views exist. That's a false logic. It so may be other views do exist & contradict Christian views, but are not on that account false. Why not? B/c truth is the correspondence between a statement & a fact(reality), NOT a correspondence between statement and another statement. Just b/c 2 statements contradict one another, it doesn't follow that they are false, since they don't supposed to be consistent with one another but with facts to be true. The relation between a (Christian)statement & another (muslim) statement is not truth, like their argument presumes it is. Bill Clinton's ultimate statement that he did have sex with that woman contradicts his original statement that he did not have sex with her, but that doesn't follow that neither of his statements is true. One on his statement is NOT true, not b/c it contradicts another statement, but b/c it contradicts facts. His other statement, even though it contradicts some other statement, corresponds to facts & is thereby true

[DanSilfwerin]

Would it not be beneficial for this discussion if STR made a video responding to more philosophically sophisticated theories of religious pluralism? John Hick's pluralistic hypothesis, for example, could be defended rather efficiently against any of the objections raised in this video. To deepen the discussion perhaps this could be a way forward? Only a suggestion :)

[newjerseylion]

This video is best example why bigots shouldn’t run government .

[timbaumgartner]

Could you turn the volume up in the video?

[holy_chic_thrift]

India 🇮🇳 is motherland of many religions

[notacpu]

Religious pluralism is not everyone being right. Religious pluralism is not formally recognizing one religion over another. Try to find a successful society with a religious government. lmfao.

[AngelEpinoia]

You're wrong, debate me, I will school you.

[bafimto]

There is NO ONLY ONE TRUE FAITH. Each religion CLAIMS its own religion to be true based on its subjective presuppositions. Each religion is equally wrong.

[eugenemuhammad]

This is terrible reasoning. The religion of Christianity should not be conflated with "Truth." Also, God can't be reduced to our "concept" of God. This presentation is saturated with too many straw man fallacies. For one, Buddhism does NOT claim to be a path to God. Stop trying to "be right" and love people. That's how people can be identified as true Christians - by their Love.

[aged]

You are arrogant. You completely missed the point he was making with the elephant. The story is told from that point of view to fit a particular culture, so it is not to say the Rajah has the truth, it can also be changed to fit yours had the bible not been misinterpreted... We only communicate through metaphors as creatures, so very little is what it is, so we use myths. God is the most misunderstood metaphor

[TritiumCupcakes]

Thanks for helping reaffirm my faith in Religious pleurisy.

I would wager my life saving that I am more well read amongst religion than the speaker (at least in the context ALL religion and not Chirstianituy only).

Why do the exact doctrines of Islam and Christianity have to align perfectly for them to both be viable paths of serving the same God? The exact remembrance of the "myths" are irrelevant and change with time, translation, understanding.

When Muslims pray to Allah, they are praying to the God of Isreal, the same GOD of the Bible. Why would a merciful and loving God forsake someone for worshipping him but getting some historical details a little mixed up. It's just pure divisiveness and evil to think that way

I think if you were to reread the words of Jesus without