Religious Pluralism vs. Christian Exclusivism

Thanks to Con for his arguments!__________________________________________________________R1) LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION Con's arguments and choice of words are giving me the impression that we are not interpreting the terms "essential claims" and "religious pluralism" the same way. Let's start by re-stating the definition of Religious Pluralism as given in Round 1:"the idea that all major religions are (more or less) equally valid interpretations of a single divine reality"However, Con is consistently saying something along the lines of "all religions are true" when paraphrasing my arguments. This is not necessarily what Religious Pluralism claims.All religions being "more or less equally valid" does not mean that "all of them are true"; it means that they all hold roughly the same amount of truth, which is a completely different idea. They all have roughly the same amount of man-made doctrine (quite a bit), but they all also have a few, core, divinely-inspired truths throughout all of them.Some religions may be correct in parts where others are wrong, and some parts of the "divine reality" are probably being interpreted correctly by ALL religions (e.g. singular, all-loving, tri-omni God / human nature in general).Con has been, either knowingly or unknowingly, leading me into the trap of having to sort through the supposedly essential doctrines and dogmas of various religions and attempt to make compromises between them to ensure that all of them can be true at the same time, but, in reality, Religious Pluralism never makes the claim that all of them are sure to be true.I apologize if this sounds like "semantics" or "shifting the goal posts", but all I'm really doing is clarifying what Religious Pluralism is and is not, since I have just realized that I was beginning to drift away from the original resolution.Excuse the poor analogy, but if we pretend that a religion is a human, Con is calling its arms and legs "essential claims", but Pluralism is only calling its vital organs (e.g. heart, brain, lungs) "essential claims"...Basically, what I'm trying to get at here is that only the most essential of a religion's "essential claims" are going to be reflecting the actuality of the divine reality; much of the rest is man-made doctrine, due to the fact that all religions are practiced by and altered by imperfect human beings throughout the ages. Some man-made claims are MADE "essential" over time. Let's examine the examples provided by Con with this re-established idea of Religious Pluralism............Christianity vs. IslamIn this particular example, we can still see the idea of "different aspects of the same concept", as asserted last round."Pro's strategy is to reinterpret what Christians mean... [To Christians], Jesus is a distinct person from God the Father. Not only does that directly contradict the essential teachings of Islam, but it's even an unforgivable sin"My apologies for using the word "form"; it seems to have confused what I was trying to say. I realize that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons, but the Christian doctrine of the Trinity still recognizes all three of those persons as being aspects of the same God. Quote [1] :"The word Trinity describes the belief in Christian theology that the one God of the universe is comprised of three persons: the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit." It is clear that Christians DO believe that Jesus is, in some way, a part of God.Thus, the circle-divided-into-thirds analogy still does hold up. Muslims see it as a full circle, ignoring the lines inside; Christians see it as three distinct sectors. "Jesus was crucified to atone for sins, but in Islam, Jesus was not crucified at all (Surah 4:157-158)."Jesus not having been crucified is not an essential teaching of Islam; it is a historical inaccuracy within the Quran.Even the majority of atheists accept the crucifixion as a historical event. .Christianity vs. Judaism"Christ" or "messiah" means something specific. It refers to the person who will sit on the throne of David in fulfillment of God's promise"Sorry, I seem to have misunderstood the definition of "Christ" as "son of God" last round...Anyways, here, I will be arguing that the entire concept of a Messiah is a non-essential, man-made claim.The "promise" that God made to David is recorded in one place and one place only: the Bible, and even within the Bible, that "promise" is based off the testimony of just one man.Announcing that God himself had made a promise to him about preserving his lineage could easily have been a ploy to increase his political power, or even just something added on for dramatic effect by his biographers. We have no reason to believe that such a promise was actually divinely inspired.And before Con begins to claim that I have somehow changed the identities of Judaism and Christianity by calling such a trivial doctrine "man-made", I will assert that Christianity's main claims of Jesus's divinity really aren't all that affected by his not being the heir to Israel's throne, and, as far as the Jews are concerned, this would be just another of the many promises supposedly made by God to them that has never been fulfilled [2]..Christianity vs. Hinduism(i.e. Abrahamic faiths vs. Eastern religions)"The Hindu worldview is completely different than the Christian worldview"This is a great example of different religions looking at the same thing through different perspectives.The Eastern worldview of the material world being an illusion could be the underlying basis of the Abrahamic worldview of the material world being real. Unfortunately, my limited number of remaining characters is going to prohibit me from expanding on this analogy, but it is sort of like the Holographic Principle of Quantum Mechanics [3]."Christians believe in a resurrection to eternal life, not [the] cotinuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth [of Hinduism]"Another case of looking at the same thing through different perspectives.In the Eastern worldview, the suffering associated with being entrenched in cycle of reincarnation is "Hell", and the eventual escape from that cycle and union with God is "Heaven", achieved through the removal of sin through moral conduct, prayer/meditation, and faith in God.In the Abrahamic worldview, humans are constantly sinning and destined for "Hell" anyways, and the only way to get to "Heaven" is through moral conduct, prayer, and faith in God (includes Jesus, if you're Christian).Are these two systems really all that different?We have sinful humans who are inevitably headed for/in Hell, with very similar paths to attaining Heaven.Of course, the details are unknown to me, as I am only human, but this similarity is very strong evidence for the possibility that they are both aspects of the same afterlife system.______________________________________________________________R2) ALL-LOVING GOD EXCLUSIVISM "Pro is being inconsistent here. On the one hand... he maintains his pluralism in spite of the Bible's claims to exclusivity. But now he's saying that just because the Bible teaches the damnation of all non-Christians that it therefore must be an essential teaching of Christianity."Con has misunderstood the point I was trying to make.The point was that since the Bible is the only grounds for Exclusivist Christianity, it logically follows that the punishments associated with Exclusivist Christianity should also follow the teachings of the Bible.The Bible is not the book of Christianity in general; however, the Bible IS the book of Exclusivist Christianity, since the only claims to exclusivity are made in the Bible (of course, that is assuming I have refuted Con's claims that the Law of Non-Contradiction is the basis of Christian exclusivity).That is my rationale for believing that Exclusivist Christianity, not Christianity is general, dictates the damnation of non-Christians. There is no lack of consistency here."I also pointed out in the last round that it isn't through no fault of their own that non-Christians are damned since they are damned for their moral failures and they do know right from wrong. Pro's response suffers from irrelevance. He doesn't dispute what I just said. Instead he points out that it is through no fault of their own that they don't accept Jesus and gain salvation. He's right, but the comment does not negate what I said."How so? According to Christian Exclusivism, all humans deserve hell, and the only way to escape that fate is accepting Jesus as savior. Thus, being Christian is the only way to save oneself, and Con has not disputed my points about why it is not the fault of non-Christians for not being Christian.So basically, Con concedes that the supposedly all-loving God of Christianity is allowing billions of people to run to their metaphorical deaths and only handing the keys of salvation to a select group of equally guilty people.How is it even possible for such a scenario to exist under an all-loving God?______________________________________________________________CONCLUSIONS1) The "all religions are more or less equally valid" in Religious Pluralism's definition does not equate to "all religions are true"2) The Law of Non-Contradiction does not refute Religious Pluralism; all differences are accounted for and explained3) Exclusivist Christianity is self-refuting because its implications of the afterlife contradict its concept of an all-loving God...Also, Round 3 was for rebuttals, yet Con has not responded at all to my C2 or C4 opening arguments (not directly, anyways).To the voters: Please do not penalize Con for including Counter-Rebuttals within his Rebuttals...SOURCES[1] http://www.religionfacts.com...[2] http://www.reformjudaism.org...[3] http://worldsciencefestival.com...