Religious Pluralism vs. Christian Exclusivism

It should be quite an interesting one :D. .. C1) The Law of Non-Contradiction does not refute Religious PluralismMany opponents of religious pluralism immediately appeal to the Law of Non-Contradiction to refute it, saying that the contradicting claims of various religions automatically invalidates the possibility of all of them being true. However, there are a few problems with doing this. Religious Pluralism does NOT mandate that every part of every religion is true, so just because some parts of two religions seem to contradict does not mean that the two religions are mutually exclusive. Generally, pluralists explain differences between religions as one of two things:1. Unnecessary man-made doctrines2. Different interpretations of the same conceptNumber one is self-explanatory. The fact is, a religion may be divinely inspired, but no matter what, it will be altered by the people and cultures who practice it, causing some unnecessary man-made doctrines to become parts of the religion, often for materialistic purposes. Some examples of this include claims to exclusivity (see C4) and most of the elaborate rituals involved in many religions. Number two is a bit harder to grasp. Seemingly contradictory claims can be explained as different interpretations of the same concept. I've found the classic "blind men and an elephant" analogy useful in explaining this:Basically, a group of blind men walk up to an elephant and try to decide what it is using the sense of touch; one person feels the trunk, another person feels a tusk, another person feels a leg, and so on. Soon after, the men group back together and compare their observations, only to find that those observations completely contradict each other. They break into ferocious argumentation over who's actually right. None of them are wrong in what they found, but they lack the ability to see the "big picture" and realize that they are all feelings different parts of the same animal. In the same way, we can look at some of the differences between religions simply as different aspects of the same "big picture" concept. Some examples that readily come to mind are different versions of the afterlife, or the different ideas of what God really IS. So, in conclusion, using the Law of Non-Contradiction does not at all refute Religious Pluralism; the differences between religions are acknowledged and aptly explained by a Pluralistic view point. My other contentions will probably be much shorter than this; I had to devote much more space to this contention because the Law of NC is probably the single biggest argument against Religious Pluralism. .. .C2) The Universal Nature of Spiritual ExperiencesSpiritual experiences/divine interventions have been observed and recorded by people of all religions for as long as mankind has been able to record them [1]. There are two logical ways to look at this phenomenon:1) All such occurrences are lies, misinterpretations of natural phenomena, coincidences, or neurological effects (i. e. the atheistic perspective)2) Most such occurrences are actually caused by some sort of divine entityWhich of these explanations is more logical is a subject for an entirely different debate, but Religious Pluralism opts for the latter. However, Christian Exclusivism dictates that all non-Christian theists are believing in false Gods (or, at least, they aren't worshiping the right God correctly. .. ) and thus, logically, no non-Christian spiritual experiences can truly be divinely inspired. This is a somewhat illogical assumption to make; one cannot rationally assume that all spiritual experiences/divine interventions throughout history are false EXCEPT for the ones experienced by Christians. Pluralism clearly has the superior explanation for the universal nature of spiritual experiences. .. .C3) Christian Exclusivism violates the concept of an All-Loving GodFor the most part, the religion one is born into is the religion they end up practicing for the rest of their life. Meanwhile, Christianity does not really stand out above other religions in any real way significant enough to warrant a change in religion. Thus, it is not at all the "fault" of the 4.9 billion non-Christians for not choosing Christianity as their religion. Yet, if Christian Exclusivism holds true, none of those 4.9 billion non-Christians will never achieve Heaven / Union with God. This is completely and utterly unjust; an all-loving God would not allow for such a massive number of people to suffer such eternal separation for something that is not even their fault. It is impossible for an all-loving God to co-exist with the grievously flawed situation implicated by Christian Exclusivism. .. .C4) All Claims to Exclusivity are Man-MadeOne might be asking "Aren't Exclusivist Religions also part of the 'equally valid interpretations' that Pluralism speaks of? "The answer to that is YES. However, the argument is that those religions aren't necessarily Exclusivist. In C1, I mentioned that Pluralism explains some of the differences between various religions as being unnecessary man-made doctrines, often added for materialistic reasons. Since the opposing side of the debate is specifically Christian Exclusivism, I'll be concentrating solely on showing why Christian claims to exclusivity are man-made. The only real basis for Christian claims to exclusivity is a couple of lines in the Bible claiming that Jesus said faith in him is the only way to Heaven. However, there is no reason to believe that Jesus actually said those words, as it can easily be shown that the Gospels are not a very reliable sources of historical information:a) Motive for Fabrication-the Gospels were written by people trying to spread Christianity; speaking of things like exclusive claims to truth certainly helps increase the appeal of the new religion to potential converts. b) Internal Contradictions- the Gospels rarely agree on who said what, where and when, especially around the parts recounting Jesus's resurrection [2]. This, in combination with the fact that the Gospels were written a few decades after Jesus's death [3], shows that the Gospels are not at all accurate sources of information on the details of the events it speaks of. These two facts, in combination with C3, exemplify the high likelihood of any claims to exclusivity having never been made by Jesus, instead having been manufactured by the writers of the Gospels in order to attract converts and build a power base. .. .CONCLUSIONS C1- Religious Pluralism doesn't violate the Law of Non-Contradiction; it accounts for and explains doctrinal differencesC2- Religious Pluralism gives the only logical explanation (other than atheism) for why spiritual experiences are universal C3- The implications of Christian Exclusivism contradict the existence of the all-loving God that Jesus repeatedly spoke ofC4- All Christian claims to exclusivity are man-made; they are definitely not divinely inspired, especially given C3I rest my case. Quick reminder to Con:This round is ONLY for opening arguments; no rebuttals until Round 3. Good luck! SOURCES[1] . http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] . http://agnosticreview.com...[3] . http://carm.org...