they believe its the only way FOR THEM.....otherwise, it wouldn't be a belief.
every denomination preaches theirs as the one and only
I could argue both sides of that statement. There are certainly degrees of dogma in there. Eastern religions have a much more syncretist streak to them, and we won't even
talk about mystics (of many, if not all, religions.)
So, Orthodox Jews (I won't drag Reform into this) say not that it's bad for anybody to eat ham; they say it's bad for
them to eat ham. I've talked to a Chabadnik rabbi who subjected himself to speaking to a college class on Judaism, where he answered questions. That one came up, of course (it's what most people equate Judaism with, after the "no Jesus" facet.) He stood there and told a young lady that it was fine for her to eat ham, just not for him to eat ham. "Some cars take leaded gas, and some take unleaded," was how he explained it to her.
We also have a prayer - all branches in Judaism - where we pray for the day to come when all will worship our God. So in that way, what you say is true of Judaism -- it's a messianic prayer, and it pretty much fixes what ails us, the problem of people worshipping other Gods. But we have no notion, for example, that nothing good can come to a gentile in the life to come... Rather, there's an ancient tradition that the righteous among the nations (you know, nations other than
ours,) explicitly
would share in anything good after this life.
Move on to something like Buddhism, which has a million schisms itself, and different religions are basically different kinds of illusion. It's all about whether you personally achieve enlightenment. From the Buddhist perspective, there's absolutely no issue with being a Christian and a Buddhist, or a Muslim and a Buddhist, or a Jew and a Buddhist, etc. Most often of course you're not, because it's a nifty trick to get by fully embracing Buddhist principles and simultaneously fully embracing some persnickety monotheistic faith. But the Buddha seemed to have very little concern about his religion being right, or even being a religion; he was concerned about people reaching enlightenment, regardless of their religions. If someone's a real Buddhist expert let me know if I've butchered this, but from what little I know, this is sort of the gist.
Hinduism is the parent religion to Buddhism and has a very similar attitude; your God is just one of the big ol' scads of gods. I honor and if given half a chance will worship your god... just don't get in the way of me worshipping all the other gods. Again, the following may not be a very good description... so any Hindu experts let me know. But I don't think a Hindu insists on Hinduism as a prerequisite of all righteousness; in fact, I think of Hinduism as sort of a convenient term to talk about the religions of the people of the Indus valley... you might be a heavy Ganesh town, and have a little bit of concern for the "heavy hitters" of Vishnu, Shiva, and Krishna; or you might be in a town where the other gods are sort of peripheral, or in a town where it's all the rage to figure out how many gods you can possibly worship and worship them all rabidly. Then there's the idea of the Atman (or oversoul,) and you may be part of a group that explores Atman and gives bare lip service to the gods.
Now -- I could also argue in the affirmative: That, in thinking best whatever they think is best, any confessional group therefore shuts out the rest.
I guess all this is to say that there are degrees. On one extreme is conversion by the sword "for their own good," while at the other extreme is a religion that says "meh, this is good for me, do what you want, it's just as valid." (I think some come close to that.)
Quick tribalism story. I'm riding home on the metro and surrounded by kids from Brigham Young. I knew because they had matching BYU jackets. So I'm eavesdropping, and I hear a young lady opine (talking to her friend) that they have a museum for "those people in the concentration camps," and "they should have one for Mormons."
I'm minding my own business but grinding my teeth a little. Then she continues "...because there was a lot of persecution etc. etc. etc."
And you know what? She's right. Mormons were pretty effectively driven west, and some of them out of the country. I don't know how many Mormons were killed during that period but I'd wager there were some.
Maybe it doesn't merit its own whole museum, but it sure deserves some national recognition. I didn't ever hear about the persecution of mormons until Mitt ran for office. Maybe we need a museum of religious intolerance.
Of course, the persecuting government was the U.S. government, so that's a bit problematic -- and one of the reasons for the persecution was polygamy, which throws in another big monkey wrench.
Just an interesting moment for me.
PFnV
