Dr. Alvin Plantinga - "Can Many Religions All be True?" (by Intelligent Faith 315)
Vložit
- čas přidán 12. 12. 2012
- Is it possible for opposite truth claims to be true simultaneously?
For example: Can 1+1=2, but also 7, 9.5, and 1356.3 - and simultaneously all be equally true in the same way?
Can a square also be a circle, a triangle, and a trapezoid at the same time and in the same way?
Can Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Odinism all be equally true in their religious claims, in the same way and at the same time?
Turns out that Dr. Alvin Plantinga (perhaps the brightest Christian philosopher alive today), along with the Law of Non-contradiction, claim the answer is a definitive "NO".
If that is the case, then what can/should be done in the presence of competing truth claims? Examine and evaluate the evidence for each one (philosophically, historically, scientifically, etc...), and slowly but surely, eliminate impossibilities from the list of options until you are left with only one Worldview that is verifiable, compatible, logical, and liveable - the Truth.
Dr. Alvin Plantinga (and myself) believes this to be the Christian Worldview.
Is it possible for different truth claims to be true simultaneously?
For example: Can 1+1=2, but also 2+3=5 simultaneously both be equally true in the same way?
What we know about God is what he chooses to reveal to us. If God is just, he won't arbitrarily share himself with one culture and turn his back on another. So if you see a religion that's culturally confined, it's not from God. It's man-made. That's how religious diversity tips us off to the falsehood of regional faiths like Christianity. And they're all regional. If you think a just God would naturally favor your culture over others because your culture is, of course, better than the others, you may indeed be egotistical and arrogant.
All Religions believe in Light... surely this is the simple answer to the essentially simple question - is our common ground. Charles Mugleston Omar Khayyam Theatre Company
:) If you are a person of faith, go ahead... start listening to these men. This is how I started thinking when I was a child. My belief evolved, yours can as well. Peace.
LoL
At 9:28, he says, "I look at my own religion, it seems to me right." Yet this is was exactly every non-Christian says about his or her own religion. The social and cultural factors which go into determining beliefs about the sacred cannot be dismissed as easily Plantigna thinks they can, and this may be simply because his training is in analytic philosophy and not anthropology, sociology or even cultural psychology. The only true religion, if there is one, must be the one that lies hidden behind the formal expression of every religion known to man: the perennial philosophy.
...and here it is:
www.vedabase.com
Can different classes in school teach many different things that are true? Yes.
Many different religions can also be true.
Truth by definition excludes, not all religious claims can be true because they all believe differently. They may look superficially the same but they are fundamentally different.
+Buster Grimes indeed they can all be false, but they can't all be true. By the law of contradiction alone something cannot be and be at the same time.
+Buster Grimes That's a semantics game. What needs to be clarified is context and meaning. Because if what you mean by God is a completely different thing of what I mean by God then there's always gonna be misunderstandings. Language perception has absolutely nothing to do with universal truth.
+Buster Grimes Religions are only the expression of what some people think God is, or ought to be, but that doesn't say anything about the ultimate true reality of God or weather He exist or not. They part from the universal premise of "yes there is a God", where they differ is in doctrine or the attributes of this God.
What if The God, gods and angels are all real.
But they just do not believe that we humans execute because we are only mysterious creatures in their ancient legends, just as they are in ours?
And every religion is created because a few from time to time find their way to our world and want to develop their own philosophy?
Therefore, they are all very similar and different.
let me guess, you get it from Ravi ?
12:20: honest and disheartening statement for every Humanist on earth.
Why disheartening ? can't we just agree to disagree ? A true bible believing christian will never say that islam is also true. But they will respect muslims and their beliefs. Tolerance doesn't mean we have to agree.
What humanism are you talking about? Surely not that humanism that begs Marxism for its worldview because that would make it the most anti-human philosophy to exist.
Disheartening? Everybody believes that other people who hold basic views that diverge from their own are mistaken. As a humanist, you believe that Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus are all mistaken in fundamental ways. Why is this not “disheartening”?
You're just saying that as a humanist, you think Plantinga is wrong. How is that, in practice, any different to what he's just said?
He says that yes it is likely that all religions are grappling at understanding the same fundamental reality but any claims that conflict with Christianity he rejects only because he has accepted one particular interpretation fully. I think it’s ok because he admits earlier in that he cannot change the beliefs. It’s kind of out of his control what he believes he say. Therefore it’s not so much as a clear objective truth for he ultimate religious process as it is a individual hunch or even simply what works for him. So using his only logic, which he exercised against the arguments from atheism and arguments of moral relativity (to say others don’t have the ability to know for sure is a self defeating argument) we can conclude that it is possible for both to be true - that all religions are an attempting to uncover the ultimate truth and his belief in the approach he follows being the one way.
Like there is room for a god under the roof of every believer’s skull for a god (a place where this entity should reside and be protected by all means because once he leaves this very limited surroundings he is bound to dissolve in thin air) so is there a religion for every believers basket case :)
Plantinga is wrong about "it's wrong to believe what you know others don't". Everyone carries beliefs that are part of the person and has nothing, necessarily, to do with religion. The proposition is based on the 'conviction' meaning of belief: you are so certain of that for which you have no evidence and of which you have no experience (or subscribe to it out of tradition, having not really thought about it deeply before), that you spend a large chunk of your life and thoughts towards a goal or state that you're sure is true. That is the way that that proposition could be interpreted as addressing arrogance, and it basically preaches agnosticism - "don't be so sure". He missed that, and talks about his misperception here.
The moderator/interviewer stole the elephant analogy from his interview with Dr. Timothy Keller.
It is used by adherents to the Bahai faith, who say that all religions lead to god.
It is actually from Rumi.
It could not be true though. Much that is taught is so very different between beliefs. It also carries contradictions. God is the universe, many gods & goddesses, & a single God, but not the Universe. To accept them all as true makes no sense. We have many lives, we have but one life, your deeds save you, Christ saves you because your deeds cannot save you, etc. It takes only a second to see the idea is off base.
Let me see if I understand you properly. You went from a worldview that is verifiable, compatible, logical, and liveable - the Truth. to one that is unverifiable, incompatible, illogical and unlivable - a lie?
Wow, that is some evolution!
There are different types of atheist Dogma, so none of them can be true.
Abraham Plantinga am I right?
No, it's Professor Alvin Lincoln.
Hindu is an ethnicity, not a religion.
Krishna is God's original name.
He seems to have little knowledge of the religion he claims to adhere to if he thinks the Judea/Christian religion has any comparision with its antithesis which is Islam!
+neogovernment How are they antithesis with one another? How are they that much different. Their central themes seem to be the same. God, monotheism, faith in God, Love and obedience to God, repent for your sins, prayer, church, worship, importance of scripture, prophets, commandments, obedience to commandments, the abrahamic tradition and history, and the list just goes on and on. The differences, when seen in that light, are really quite minor. The divinity of Jesus, the belief or non belief in Mohammad as a prophet and the Koran as scripture. And all other differences can be said about even christian sects in themselves, which don't agree on anything except those aforementioned fundamentals (and often not even those). For that matter though, it's worth pointing out that the differences between Judaism and Christianity are just as significant as those between Christianity and Islam.
Actually, Christians seem to have much more in common with Muslims than with Jews. Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, Jews don't. Muslims believe in an additional scripture on top of the Hebrew scriptures (New Testament in the case of Christianity, Koran in the case of Islam). Additionally, both Islam and Christianity believe in heaven, Judaism does not. Both Islam and Christianity place a great emphasis on faith. Judaism does not. It may be a condition to live correctly, but not the central goal. That's an antithesis to Christianity/Islam. There's also a great emphasis on the separation of spiritual and physical world in Christianity/Islam. People are commanded to be not of the world. Judaism is also opposite in this respect, as the worldly is not seen as other to Jewish life, but its very focus. The torah teaches people how to live in this world, not how to be worthy of or prepare for the next. I can keep going, but you get the idea. So it would seem that Christianity and Islam diverged along the same or parallel paths away from Judaism on almost all fronts. I think any perceived antithesis is more cultural and political, the result of animosities that spring from disputes over land and race, rather than anything fundamental in the doctrines.
Gods and the supernatural could exist and all religions could still be false, they do look like they are human inventions. I don't think all religions can be true and I've never had good reasons to allow me to choose between them so I'm not religious and I keep an open mind to the possibility of gods and the supernatural.
What if The God, gods and angels are all real.
But they just do not believe that we humans execute because we are only mysterious creatures in their ancient legends, just as they are in ours?
And every religion is created because a few from time to time find their way to our world and want to develop their own philosophy?
Therefore, they are all very similar and different.
You should intentionally look into it. Have you done any serious reading on the subject?
The questioner pointed out how one's religious affiliation often is predicated on one's cultural and social environment. Plantinga replies that science is too. What? He supports that false equivalence by stating that in time past "scientists" from different parts of the globe believed different things. That what "I as a scientist believed depended on when and where I was born".
He grossly mischaracterizes science as if it is a religion with different scientists believing different things depending on where they are born. Scientists did not believe different things because of where they were born. Scientists even in the same laboratory could have different hypotheses about some natural phenomena that was YET to be explained. But once a hypothesis was found that best explained the data, then all scientists accepted that hypothesis.
That is not the same thing as people adopting the religions of their culture. Each religious adherent continues to believe their particular religious heritage and ignores the others as false. It is astonishing that Plantinga should make such a false equivalence. The vacuity of that false equivalence should be obvious to any critical thinker.
Then Plantinga says, since the religions all contradict themselves that they can't all be right and that obviously his religion must be the one true religion. What Plantinga failed to entertain is that if all the religions cannot be right, due their conflicting beliefs, then maybe they all are wrong.
I cannot speak for him, but I think he was driving at a different point. He was saying that today's science fact is tommorow's disproven theory. That is the driving force in science.
Or maybe he meant that people talk about theoretical physics as if science has discovered something, but then later it is given up & we go off in a new direction. Well, the first thing was a great idea, but it was not true. When you look at it, there are about ten models of the Universe that are possible out there. Which you follow is very much based on camps, not on facts. They are evidentially equalivant. At this point, much of it is arbitrary.
Of course, the idea that because Dad believes in a certain religion has any bearing on if religion is true, is a completely separate issue. Like you rightly pointed out, what does the origin on Earth of an idea matter. Its validity is what you are after. So, does the fact that I believe something, that no one else believes make me wrong? What if everyone believed as I do? Neither senero tells you if I am holding truth. They both give you if I am in the norm or outside it for my geographic area. You evaluate ideas on what you know, why would you dismiss or accept anything due to geography? It might explain how you came about that belief, but not if it is true.
That is a larger point in this area.
@@mackdmara I must disagree with you about your first point. Most of us understand that scientifically and empirically derived information will change overtime as we develop better tools and as we learn more. As you know science is a method not simply a collection of information. Yes, what was accepted in earlier centuries, some of it was overturned by later discoveries. But that had nothing to do with geography. It is the nature of science that information will change as we learn more. That is expected of science. Scientist once believed the earth was the center of the solar system and our solar system was the universe. Then we learned that the sun was the center of solar system. Then we learned that our solar system was only part of a galaxy. Then we learned in the twentieth century that our galaxy was not alone that there were more galaxies. etc. So it is the nature of scientific discovery that some of our scientific information will be obsolete as we learn more. But that is not a matter of one's geographic birth parents.
At time 6:40 it was pointed out to Plantinga that today, one's religious affiliation has much to do with where one is born. The questioner contrasts that with science where there is universal acceptance independent of geography.
Plantinga responds at 7:00 by saying that science......
"there isn't uniformity over time. What I believe on these scientific matters depends on part on when and where I was born."
Note the questioner specifically said "today" and Plantinga gives an answer about changes in scientific understanding "over time". The question was about today.
His answer is still incorrect and not a truthful statement. Scientific information does not vary with geography and nor does it depend on the birthplaces of the scientists. A scientist in Germany follows the same fundamental basics of science as a scientist in China or Saudi Arabia. Now if we are talking about phenomena "unexplained" by science then different scientists may offer different hypotheses. But that has nothing to do with geography or the birthplaces of the scientists.
The question was not about what scientists understood in 1400 C.E. and what scientists believe today. That difference is explained by the process of discovery. The question to Plantinga was about science "today" in comparison to religions today. If you were born to a Saudi Arabian family the likelihood of you being a Muslim would be almost 100%. If you were born in India to Hindu parents then the likelihood that you would be Hindu also approaches 100%. Muslims and Hindus are not seeking for a uniformity of belief between themselves. They independently worship their respective gods and will continue to do so unless individuals convert. In science once one of the many hypotheses proves more consistent with the data, then all scientist will accept that hypothesis. Not so with the various religions.
Today a nuclear physicist in India would follow the same basics of quantum physics as a scientist in Germany. What one believes about quantum physics has nothing to do with the geographical location of one's birth parents. I think Plantinga obfuscates on the question that was asked. Excuse the long reply.
@@mylord9340
Interesting. We all have the same data, but your world view 100% will change how you evaluate it. The conclusions reached for one reason or another, may or may not match. Thus, we all have the same data about the Universe & the Big Bang, sure, but which of the ten viable choices you choose, comes down to philosophical beliefs often. He over stated it, but it is not off base.
I also do agree, to an extent, that geography will likely mean you believe certain things. That said, does it mean you will? Well, no. Even in Islamic countries, there are people who believe in other religions. They cannot be open about it, & often end up fleeing or dieing, but they are not 100% Islamic countries. The government is Islamic though. In a similar fashion, some people still disagree with quantum physics, but instead believe Newtonian physics is the only physics. They have the same data anyone has, but believe otherwise. They publish papers on it. It comes down to do you think the world is determined or a product of the the uncertainty principal.
That is what he is pointing at. There is a majority opinion that comes from the scientific culture, but it is not the only opinion. I think he has said it better before, but it is the point. Scientists around the world choose their believed theories more for philosophical reasons. There is not one conclusion in science, even if there is a majority opinion. The is not one science that we all follow, but rather a wider range of theories, that may or not be true.
Side note: I would hope no one dismisses theories by geographic origins of the theory.
@@mackdmara yes, that is why I said "approaching 100%". Some people in Saudi Arabia will convert to Christianity or Buddhism if they come to know about those religions. Likewise some people born to Christian parents will find Islam or Hinduism. The main point is that the vast majority of children born will adopt the religion of their parents, and the religion of their parents has much to do with geography.
In regards to theoretical science, scientist will have competing hypotheses about unexplained phenomena. That is how science works until a consensus develops. There will be varying hypotheses about the Big Bang and what happened before since those things are not settled science. The point is those competing hypotheses having nothing to do with the birth parents of the scientists or their geographical location. Scientist in the same college can have competing hypotheses. So please don't confuse settled scientific theories with theoretical science. When scientists are faced with an unexplained phenomena, it is their work to develop a variety of hypotheses, then test them to see which one best explains the data. This is not how religions work.
I do not think there are any scientists who reject quantum physics for Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics or classical mechanics has not been discarded or become obsolete. Newtonian mechanics describes the behavior of objects on the macro scale very well. It describes the motion of astronomical objects and machinery. It just doesn't apply to the quantum world. Just as the quantum world of particles popping into and out of existence doesn't apply to large objects. So your characterization of Newtonian and Quantum Physics as opposing each other is not accurate. They are not scientific theories in opposition to each other.
Scientific opinion only differs about phenomena that has not been fully explained. But where consensus has been developed, all scientists accept those principles, whether talking about nuclear physics, basic and organic chemistry, the standard model of particle physics, etc. A Bangladeshi particle physicist is not going to be teaching a different physics compared to a German particle physicist.
I do not know if you have studied the sciences but what you describe that scientists choose their beloved theories as if choosing a religion is totally false. Maybe you can give me a specific example of this.
Now understand that I am critiquing a specific statement that Plantinga made. His statement that scientist have different theories depending on their geographic location, and if we follow the analogy that he is drawing, that scientists have different theories depending on the location of their birth parents, is entirely inappropriate.
Whatever point Plantinga was trying to make, this statement was totally wrongheaded.
@@mackdmara I am going to take another crack at this to demonstrate why Plantinga's statement was wrongheaded. Remember the question was about the observation that a person's religion is primarily determined by their geography. Again, we know this is not 100% true but the probability likely exceeds 80%. Now even though the question pointed to geography, it is the parents in those different geographical locations that are determining the religion of their children. Its is parents in different geographical locations that is the important factor. So in Saudi Arabia the majority of the parents are Muslim and so the children of those parents are Muslim. In the India, the majority of the parents are Hindu and so the majority of the children of those parents will be Hindu. It is not the "geography" that gives children their religion but the parents in those geographical areas.
Now Plantinga is suggesting that the same applies to science and scientists. Now do you see how erroneous the statement is? Scientist don't get their science from their parents. A Saudi Arabian parent may give their Muslim faith to their kid but the organic chemistry he will learn has nothing to do with his parents. Likewise an Indian parent will give Hinduism to their kid but when he learns organic chemistry, it will be the same organic chemistry that the kid in Saudi Arabia is learning. And both if they come to the United States of America will have learned the same organic chemistry taught here in the U.S.A. I hope that makes it clearer. If you still don't see the false equivalency here, then I will give up :)
Still I enjoy these discussions because they make me think. It is more enlightening debating people who think differently than myself. Best wishes.
I'm otherwise great fan of Platinga despite being an agnostic but this is the longest "I don't know" I have ever heard.
He is calm and have a very nice voice and he can speak very well but he is saying nothing like a politician he speaks and say really nothing
+martin van heusden, the fact that you can't understand him doesn't mean he is saying nothing, he properly and intelligently answered the questions.
It's not that he spoke nothing. It's that your mind told you nothing out of the video you've watched. It's idiotic to think that he spoke nothing, the act of speaking itself is something, you can get something out of it. But the way you can interpret what you hear tells you whether or not your mind is capable to extract a message out of the conversation.
Islam is absolute truth that truly connects human beings to the One God Who has no partners.
Catholicism is the only Biblical and historical Christian religion.
All other sects and religions are from the devil.
Psalms 95:5- "For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens."
1 Corinthians 10:20- "But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and
not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils."
Pope Leo XII, Ubi Primum (# 14), May 5, 1824: "It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members... by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism... This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church."
+PapalSoldier
"Catholicism is the only Biblical and historical Christian religion.
All other sects and religions are from the devil."
I agree with that, but citing Catholic Scriptures and Catholic teachings to demonstrate it is pretty well making a circular argument.
I don't know enough about other religions to really comment on them, but let me just stick with the Christians heresies. Most people do not realize this but Islam is a Christian heresy. Muhommed supplemented his paganism with what he learned from the Arians. Allah with his two daughters (cf. the satanic verses) is, after all, Muhommed's tribal god. Hence, the moon on the Islamic flag, as Allah was a moon god. But that is not enough to objectively declare it false.
How do we know that Protestantism is not the one true Religion? Confusion. There is no coherence in doctrine or belief. How do we know Islam is not the one true Religion? Muhommed. He is, according to Muhommedans, the most perfect of men and to be emulated in every way. Check out his life and get back to me on that one.
As for Judaism, without the Temple and the animal sacrifice there is no Judaism. The Temple and the animal sacrifice were so integral to Judaism that without them Judaism cannot exist. What we have today is not the Judaism of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, or Jesus. It is an invention of the Pharisees after the destruction of Jerusalem.
Buddhism? I don't know enough about it except that it is not a revealed religion, but a man-made religion. Same with Hinduism.
Hindu is an ethnicity, not a religion.