From his latest News Letter, a response to a Nontraditional Christian in the Middle East:
I would find it an amazing opportunity to lead a conference or give lectures in the Middle East, but I doubt if that would be possible given the current tensions. Islam has many noble things about it which I admire, but Islam has yet to undergo the critical scholarship about the Koran that Christians have undergone about the Bible. There can be little real dialogue with or learning from another religious tradition so long as the claim to possess absolute truth in one's own religious forms is still operative. Every religious system the world over is plagued by that mentality, which hinders both dialogue and cross cultural learning. The fact is that there is no infallible Pope, no inerrant Bible, no one true faith and the Koran is not God's dictated words through the Prophet Mohammed. All of these things represent primitive stages in religious consciousness that must be sacrificed before interfaith practice can be developed. Thank you for writing. (UL added by RM)
John Shelby Spong
Will Mormonism ever out-grow its Juvenile state of egoism? If so when, and under what/whose influence? Roger
What is wrong with the claim of absolute truth if you have it? Everything is black and white anyway, There are no exceptions. What people perceive as grey areas are really just sets of sub questions wiith back and white answers waiting to be asked.
bcspace wrote:What is wrong with the claim of absolute truth if you have it? Everything is black and white anyway, There are no exceptions. What people perceive as grey areas are really just sets of sub questions wiith back and white answers waiting to be asked.
Go for it, bcspace! Bet the farm on the absolute truth of the CoJCoLDS! If it was good enough for Martin Harris, it should be good enough for you.
The rest of us will file your claim alongside that of the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the various Protestant sects that go in for absolutist ambitions, the Islamic groups with the same tendency, and so on, and so on ... fortunately, there now exist relatively secular civil societies in many parts of the world in which one can live unmolested while considering as irrelevant or meaninglesss many of the questions to which you all claim to have the only right answers.
But it's a free country. Whatever turns you on ...
Hi bcs, thanks for your prompt response. I ask for clarity below:
bcspace wrote:What is wrong with the claim of absolute truth if you have it? Everything is black and white anyway, There are no exceptions. What people perceive as grey areas are really just sets of sub questions wiith back and white answers waiting to be asked.
Do you mean: "... sub sets of questions with black and white answers..."? Dalmations, Zebras and Pandas anyway, eh? :-)
"...back and white answers waiting to be asked." ??
"Absolute truth" has given way to the "...law of probability..." in most serious scholarly-type-discussions, so i read in a book ;-)
What happens IF/WHEN, each one in a two person discussion considers themselve absolutely correct, while holding opposing views??? Warm regards, Roger