That seems simplistic to me. There are many truths within the doctrines of all the major religions.
Almost all literature contains nuggets of truth. Comic books contain truth. That doesn't make any of them holy or infallible.
I wouldn't call it a "truth", but most religions espouse some version of what we call "The Golden Rule":
Yeah, but unless you agree with them they do not follow it.
There are positive messages in religious writings. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" "Judge not lest ye be judged" "do into other as you wish done unto you" Are these messages true? Some truth can be found in things you might not accept as a whole. Here's one. "A broken clock is right twice a day" not a religious message but fitting.
I would not say "all" religion, which I know is the point of omni. But religion is not ALL bad. Sure it is bullshit, but even shit fertilzes life in its own way. The teaching parts of religion that have any merit are really just philosophical points, and those may have some merit. They just get lost in the wash of ritual and magical thinking nonesense.
Some principals widely shared across religions include the idea of promoting charitable effort and helping others, of practicing empathy toward others, some concept of honesty, and to practice patience as well as encouraging responsibilty.
Of course most screw all up by teaching contradictory things and elevating FAITH--aka gullibility-- to a high virtue,
"Even shit fertilizes life in its own way."
I want to embroider that on a pillow!
@dkp93 It just came to me, lol
@MikeInBatonRouge You need to copyright that!
The very essence of truth is the belief in it. One person's truth is not true for another. So, religion as a whole cannot be truth for nothing as a whole can be believed. Even the most "devout" find elements that they cannot truly believe and need to justify that by calling it "test of faith". There are however, elements within each religion that the followers fully believe and therefore that becomes their truth.
Put simply - truth can be found in anything provided you believe it is so.
You are saying that if children believe Santa Clause is real that makes it true!
Subjective perception of something to be true does not make it objectively true or real.
Truth is truth. It doesn't matter what you believe to be true. You might believe the earth is flat. It is still untrue. You are describing faith. You might have faith that the earth is flat, but it doesn't change the fact that the earth is not flat and therefore your faith isn't based on fact / truth. You can believe whatever you want, but facts and truth are independent of faith / belief.
It is a good insight IMO that truth is different for different people and there is no absolute standard for what is true.
Most people cannot fathom that idea, yet every logical system is based on assumptions and definitions.
The truth is people are scared of the unknown so they make up an imaginary protector.
"What truths are found in any religion?"
All the other religions are bollocks
This is true! They are all right about that.
Every religion has SOME truth, which is how they sell you the rest. If a religious leader tells you a truth and follows it with something you are not sure about, you trust them because they told you a truth first.
They key is that no religion is true about everything. I'd first dismiss anytign supernatural or magical. Then I'd dismiss anything that claims if you believe it makes you superior or favored in the eyes of god or the gods. Then dismiss anything that denigrates others just for being who they are. If you are lucky about half of what is left will be truthful, depending on which religion you started with.
In The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley wrote about ideas, concepts and beliefs that are common to nearly all religions. This is from the introduction:
“The metaphysic that recognises a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being — the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions.”
I would not describe all of those common concepts as “truths”, because instantly skeptics would demand evidence. The one idea that I would say is “true” is that our everyday world of the senses is only a symbolic and imaginary representation of “the ground of all being” or ultimate reality beyond.That concept has been thoroughly confirmed by science. Religions use different words, such as “God”, “heaven”, etc. but the meaning is the same
Is the first paragraph referring to the Scholastic idea of God as the ultimate reality and the second paragraph the idea Kant had that we only see appearances of reality and never the real thing?
@brentan The second paragraph, quoted from the book, speaks of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being, which of course would be called God by most people in our culture. The trouble with throwing around the god word is that it triggers visions of a magical, supernatural and mythical objective being. The Ground of all being is more palatable, not that anyone knows what that ground consists of.
I made up the last paragraph. I’ve heard that Kant said something like that but I can’t follow Kant’s inscrutable writing. But everyone should know that we only see appearances of reality and not the real thing. That concept is an integral part of physics, taken as fact since the days of Faraday and Maxwell. We should stop thinking of ultimate reality as some sort of airy religious supernatural thing. It is the world of the senses that is airy and insubstantial.
I think religions are generally founded on that philosophy but the basic truth gets watered down and reinterpreted and turned into rote dogma.
Thanks for that! I must have a look to see what Faraday and Maxwell have to say about it.
@brentan I don’t know that they wrote anything about philosophy but theIr field concept takes us away from the world of the senses into a more basic reality, and so does Einstein’s theory of relativity, and so does quantum physics.
If you are the member of any of these religious cults it is a truth that you will be the poorer for it. Religions are all about shearing the sheep, that's why they call it a flock.
A nice trend...but still built on a central idea that there's a mythical power out there.
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson explains it best...
There some truths in all total system ideologies, whether religious or political. But those are interwoven with false assumptions, myths, inaccurate perceptions, and outright fabrications., Don't waste your time trying to sort the wheat from the chaff.