What do you think of these three religious viewpoints?

I think that religions that only/primarily concern themselves with the afterlife are sad.

I generally have nothing good to say about ‘exclusivist’ religions, whatsoever so let’s just leave it at that. The other two choices aren’t so hot either but at least the last choice allows for good conversation.

When it comes to religion. I only have an opinion on the religion I believe in. I don’t decide who gets to go to heaven or hell. Only God can make that decision.

One day everyone will have their own religion, there own temple. If that’s pluralist, than sign me up.

I don’t like the excluvist idea, but if someone wants to believe it I am fine with that, what I don’t like most is when the excluvist thinks they have to sign everyone up into that religion. It is one thing to believe only your people are getting into heaven, another thing to go a step farther and say everyone must believe the same way.

I like the idea that there are many paths to goodness. If there is a God, he would care we are good I think, no matter what religion or lack thereof.

I reject any dogma. Even my own. If you need commandments to live your life here are twelve good ones.

Treat others with respect. (Do unto others…)
This is the only life you have. Make the best of it.
Help others not as fortunate as you.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people. It’s not always thier fault.
Take responsibility for your own actions. If you sdcrew up don’t expect others to suffer.
You are not always right. Nor are you always wrong. Neither is the other person.
Don’t have a child if you cannot honestly say you will be a good parent.
Don’t be lazy. Do what you can do.
Don’t expect something for nothing.
Keep your body in the best shape possible. It’s the only one you will have.
Your actions are what is important, not what you tout or say you believe.
Always use virus protection and back up your PC at least once per week..

Those are the tenets of my ‘religion’. I exclude Exclusiivists but include Inclusivists and Pluralists – and I don’t charge admission nor expect a 10% tithe.

None of the three make any sense to me. There have been nearly ten thousand Gods invented by man.

Way 1—One or a specific and very limited combination of several is the way, the life and the light. If something as important as eternal well-being versus eternal damnation and suffering depended on picking the right one or few out of nearly 10,000; wouldn’t a loving God have made it clear which to chose? Many exclusivists claim that the truth was revealed to them by their god, but in fact worship the one they were first introduced to as children. People worshiping competing and mutually exclusive gods claim revealed knowledge confirms that their god is the only one. They can’t all be right, and that tells us that revealed knowledge is an imprecise guide that a very large number of people claim but many are obviously wrong about. I say that because, by their own conditions of rightness, they cannot all be right.

Way 2—My religion says “thou shalt not kill,” but the guys who said you had to sacrifice beating human hearts to Huitzilopochtli are getting into heaven just like I am. Sorry, but you just can’t get logic much more warped than that.

Way 3—How is this so different from what’s behind door 2? Certainly it suffers from the same problem as Way 2 does. If there are no rules to religion, why bother to have a religion at all?

I don’t buy into any any of those three but like my own idea best- all religions are a recipie for humans to try and connect with and define the interconnectivity felt amongst all living things while calling that vibe God/s.

Well, I’m a Unitarian Universalist. We believe no one is right or wrong and we can not know anything about the afterlife until we are there, if there is one. Some believe in it, some don’t, but we encourage each other in spiritual growth and development. We follow some principles that make life here easier on us all, but don’t have a written creed or dogma. Considering all that, I guess we would actually come as #4— that it’s all actually unknown whether we are right or wrong, but we can form opinions.

I’ve grown up believing in God. I even studied theology and got a college degree in it. This does not make me expert, but it does solidify that I believe in a God who is greater than I am. I am only human and have no right to include or exclude others from a belief system. I do pray that my love for God drives me to love others as I love myself. I pray that none shall perish, but as a mere human, with a love for humanity, this is all I can do.

I think that there is only one God, but that He will let you into Heaven regardless of your religion. It is your deeds and actions that matter and not what you label yourself as. That being said, it also works the other way around too. No matter how much you may call yourself a “good Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Jew etc…” you won’t be rewarded just because you went to church/mosque/temple or whatever every week. I don’t think any of that matters if you’re not living your life to the best of your ability. And I also think that people need to really think about the true meaning behind the words in a religious text instead of reading into things so literally. There’s a whole lot of room for misinterpretation.

As a Christian, I don’t believe that any of these are correct. In fact, I don’t know what is correct, because God will make that decision. He doesn’t need me or anyone else to help him.

I reject all organized religion, for myself. If there is a god of some kind, I don’t think he cares one whit about religion.

I particularly like this NOFX lyric with respect to organized religion (premise: Jesus’ return in the early 21st century):

“Sex and drugs, we abstain”
He thinks Christians are insane
They don’t know love,
they know fear and moral hauteur
Scare tactics I never taught

Or this Screeching Weasel lyric:

“See half the world sees the myth as fact
while it’s seen as a lie by the other half and
the simple truth is that it’s none of that and
somehow no matter what the world keeps turning
Somehow we get by without ever learning”

Gee, those punk rock guys are smart!

Exclusivist – makes me think of the jehovas. Also of fundamentalists including extremists and terrorists. I think alot of people in these religions are born into them and are not given a [reasonable] choice of their religion or lack therof (through severe cultural/social pressures and withholding of information, and of course mind manipulation). I also think, if given a proper choice much less people would fall into these types of religions.

Pluralist – so everybody will have prosperity in the afterlife as long as they are part of any religion? Then what of devil worshippers? What if I create my own religion today? This is just ridiculous, but then again so is all religion.

Religion was made by and for man and not man for the religion. The religions are only guilds to help us in our life to become a better person. There are many that take religion and use it for harm as the Dark Ages shows. Glean from religion what may help you become a better neighbor, a better person, a kinder father/mother, a loving person etc… And by the way you really don’t need religion to do any of those things but mankind has an inner self that seeks these things.