Not all religions can be correct

I think what is causing such controversy here is that we are getting confused about what "truth" really means.

Hi,

There are many ways to approach this question. Let me try this way:

Suppose two people are approaching a traffic light, and one person yells out and says, Stop it is red! while the other person keeps walking and says, Why should I, it is green? What color is the stoplight?

Rich

Either red or green (or amber if its that kind of light), I don't know which because you havn't told me, but rest assured it can only be one of those options provided the lights are actually working.

Grrr, don't you smile at me!

Well firstly don't get me started on whether it is a "free" choice or not for that is a different topic, one that I know very well. Suffice to say I am as close to certain that it is not a free choice as I can be. But anyway, as regards not being able to "disentagle the observer from the observed", I'm not sure you really need to to get my point across. In a way, there are no individual entities except for the elementary particals like quarks and leptons and the like, everything else is in fact not an entitiy but a set of entities. Since one can apply a set to pretty much anything (even an empty set) one can apply a universal set and call it set god (i.e. the pantheistic view) and so on and so forth. Also I remember a bit from my physics class that observing something changes something slightly.

That is irrelevant to the matter at hand however. Set me, is not identical to set traffic light, why? Because I am not a traffic light, just because we both belong to the same universal set does not mean we are the same thing! As a result, the reality of the traffic light is not entirely dependant on me, why? Because other things besides me exist! & For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so there are all the causes flying about the place, and I am only liable for a very few of them.

Say a red light = R and a green light = G...what you are saying is that R = G, despite having different properties. This contradicts Leibniz's Law which states that if x has but a single property that is not also a property of y, then ~(x=y). You are essentially saying that two things with alterior properties are identical, this is of course impossible, i.e. False.

I am not talking about "my perception of the traffic light" nor "my knowledge or certainty of the traffic light", I am not talking about "me" at all. This is the heart of the issue, I am only talking about the traffic light, "me" has nothing to do with it. All I am saying, is that (if the lights are working that is) the light can either be Red, Or Green, it cannot be neither, it cannot be both at the same time, Red, or Green. If it is red, it is not green, if it is green, it is not red. Forget "you" or "me", forget the obersever all togethar! For universal reality, and universal truth does not revolve around what you know, or don't know, in fact it really does not care what you know or don't know; beliefs are merely our impression of the truth, they are not always accurate to what the universal truth is, and without certainty we cannot tell the difference between the lie and the truth...but that's not to say that makes a difference to what the real truth is.

My origional point was that not all religions can be correct, this is so based on the assumption of my new point which is that there is a universal, real truth that applies to everyone regardless of whether they are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether their beliefs coincide with it...and it is this universal, real truth that religions claim to represent, thus, as there is only one real truth, not all of them can be true! & Since there is no more evidence for any one over another, there is little point assuming any are the truth.

It is fine to take your point of view - i.e. that there is a truth, only there is no evidence that one religion is more true than another.

However, there are certainly people who believe that there is a truth and they have figured out how to perceive it

The same to truth:
If there is one truth (if you really subscribe to it) than it is subject to logics.
Dawoel has been analyzing on a merely logical level, this has nothing to do with how to perceive it.

We just need to respect and accept that we are not the center of the world, in the end it is round.

Ok.
There is a strong movement in the USA who work on removing the Darwinian theory of evolution from schools education - successfully.
How many of those christians might have read the book you mentioned?

Only, . . . only if the total sum of the tenets of the individual belief-systems can be shown to not naturally contradict themsleves--as two things held to be truths cannot contradict.

Is something (like wording, or presenation) getting in the way here? I'd be interested in seeing a fuller lay out of this, unless I can take the above to be saying that there is this natural fact, a truth, that the H. sapien is of some condition which is naturally (as by nature in whole) incorrect as measured against some natural scale.

So, the way I would read it is that the Baha'i Faith believes that the Messengers all come from the same source - God. But they are not saying that they are all correct, as far as I can make out.

Also, any religion that does not fit within their framework for God, is .... well, not recognized as a religion.

.
However we can see as a fact, that also the vast majority of religions have this demand of holding the ultimate truth.

It is true that in every religion, there are some who claim to have the one and only true path, the ultimate truth. But it is also true that in each of those same religions there are some who are not only tolerant of other faiths, but some who accept the validity of other faiths.

The problem however is often not the the people but the religion itself:
The idea of truth in its classical sense does not allow more than one truth.

So if you really respect the word (which ever), you have to stick to it.
If the word does not allow women to be priests, then you can simply not have female priests for reasons of tolerance.
Because if you put tolerance over the word, who decides how far one can go?
Nobody has the right to make such a decision, only the word has ultimate truth.

The other way could of course be to practise complete tolerance.
The result however is a self destruction for a religion.

We have such a situation today, people believe in Christ, Krishna reincarnation, Tarot and everything that fits their purpose.
As a result they experiment with a lot of hocuspocus but do not really have a religion they can hold on to.

The problem is that the diversity goes on cost of truth.
One sais: "I believe in god and reincarnation, but please stay away with this aura-crab.", while the other one sais "You must be kidding me, aura and reincarnation are proven facts, but this old-man-in-the-sky idea is ridiculous".
The number of intersections and contradictions between believes is huge.
From a logical perspective they can not all be right.
They are bound to be wrong.
At least most of them.

Considering that they recognize Buddhism, an atheist religion, I'm not convinced that this is a serious issue.

The foundation of all the divine religions is one. All are based upon reality. Reality does not admit plurality, yet amongst mankind there have arisen differences concerning the manifestations of God. Some have been Zoroastrians, some are Buddhists, some Jews, Christians, Mohammedans and so on. This has become a source of divergence whereas the teachings of the holy souls who founded the divine religions are one in essence and reality All these have served the world of humanity.... All have guided souls to the attainment of perfections, but among the nations certain imitations of ancestral forms of worship have arisen. These imitations are not the foundation and essence of the divine religions. Inasmuch as they differ from the reality and the essential teachings of the Manifestations of God, dissensions have arisen and prejudice has developed. Religious prejudice thus becomes the cause of warfare and battle. If we abandon these time-worn imitations and investigate reality all of us will be unified. No discord will remain; antagonism will disappear. All will associate in fellowship. All will enjoy the cordial bonds of friendship. The world of creation will then attain composure. The dark and gloomy clouds of blind imitations and dogmatic variances will be scattered and dispelled; the Sun of Reality will shine most gloriously.

I guess you would have to ask Mr. Green if he made it through the crosswalk alive.