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Is there Anything Wrong with Cherry-Picking Ideas from Multiple Religions?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Serpent Child
Member
No..that's called syncretism
Considering the boxes we call "religions" are all ultimately constructs anyway? I'm hard-pressed to say "yes" in response to that question.
It relies on the seeker actually thinking for himself or doing some research, rather than accept a prepackaged set of rules and beliefs on faith.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I suppose cherry-picking would be more accurately portrayed as a religion "tailored to fit"
I suppose any aspect of wrongness to it would have to do with misrepresentation on part of a religion that is doing the "tailoring".
I suppose any aspect of wrongness to it would have to do with misrepresentation on part of a religion that is doing the "tailoring".
I go with the wiccan saying, "if it harms none do what you will".
Viviane LaFrance
Member
Aldous Huxley didn't think so when he wrote The Perennial Philosophy, and he was an atheist.
The Perennial Philosophy - Wikipedia
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
In general, no. My opinion is different.
Depends what criteria you're using for what to accept and what to leave.
Accepting some - but not all - of the tenets of a religion based on some appeal to the authority of the religion is bound to end up in some sort of hypocrisy, IMO.
OTOH, if you only accept the tenets that stand on their own merits, I don't see anything wrong with that.
stvdv
Veteran Member
Good question. I see no problem whatsoever in cherry-picking ideas from mutliple religions:
1: It's a good way to see the good in other religions
2: For me spirituality is about "Hurt Never Help Ever"; not about religion, so even more reason to focus on practical ideas
3: Anyone is cherry picking, I might hope. If Christians and Muslims are violence-picking ideas in Bible and Koran the world would be much worse
PureX
Veteran Member
I honestly don't see the reasoning behind NOT doing this. Why would we accept the ideals of one religious tradition when we could compare and contrast a multitude of them and extricate the best ideas from the lot, while leaving out the ideas that we find silly, objectionable, unworkable, or counter-productive?
Of course, doing this will require some mental effort on our part, and maybe that's really the main objection to it. I don't know. But even so, how is laziness and/or indifference a reasonable objection?
Then again, when have humans ever been reasonable?
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Nah. An open exchange and discourse of ideas is how we discard inferior ideas and replace them with better ideas.
Only if someone's doing it so they can get away with posting in all the DIRs.