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Most religions mandate sets of religious rules. In theistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism, these are often presented as divinely ordained. But different religions have different sets of rules, which would imply that only one set of rules can possibly be of divine origin.

How have religious philosophers typically handled this problem? Is it more common to assert that one religion must be correct and the others wrong, to argue that all can be correct, or simply to ignore this as a non-issue?

Paul Ross
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this seems to be a history question. There's an SE for that. (There's a potentially related philosophy question about what makes something an authority but the focus here seems elsewhere at least to me). – virmaior Nov 08 '17 at 05:40
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    Watch your tone, please. He rightfully points out that the questions "who came up with the rules" and "how did these texts gain religious authority" are indeed subject of historical consideration. If you cannot cope with criticism but with answering aggressively, we'll have trouble at some point. To add another critical point: A thorough answer will probably be book-length. I suggest narrowing the scope down to one or two specific religions. – Philip Klöcking Nov 08 '17 at 07:21
  • @philip: Why would you even need a book-length answer, when the answer is clearly human or god. –  Nov 08 '17 at 07:43
  • @virmaior: Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The focus of this question is "How and Who was responsible for creating the rules of religion" That's all. Please stop your imaginative thoughts about my question and please just answer the question if you know. –  Nov 08 '17 at 07:44
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    This site asks for objective answers, i.e. in theory, there would have to be a source for the originator(s) (in Christianity alone, it's been more than 20 people, iirc) and a (sourced!) story on how it evolved. For every single religion, at least for the big five. You cannot just state things or cherry-pick aspects of a question here. – Philip Klöcking Nov 08 '17 at 07:53
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    @AbsoluteIdiot. God defines what is good and bad. There are many religions because people feel the need to worship God, but, rather than following the rules that God has given, they set out to create their own. –  Nov 08 '17 at 09:17
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    Please take a moment to realise that there is an actual human being on the other side of the screen, who is busy with lots of things but somehow finds time and enthusiasm to answer questions of people he doesn't know. "Just answer the question" kind of the demands or asking a three-line question about which entire books have been written without making the effort to do a basic literature survey do not help these people to find enthusiasm to answer the question, to say the least. –  Nov 08 '17 at 11:31
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    Very much agree with Keelan and Klocking. You would need to study comparative religion and the answer is too long for a forum. There are many religions but they usually fall into one of two categories, each of which has an utterly different method and motivation for defining teachings, methods and practices. If you can discern these two categories you'll be close to answering the question. For an introduction I'd recommend Keith Ward's 'God - A Guide for the Perplexed', since he clarifies the two very different ways we can interpret Christianity and religion in general. . . –  Nov 08 '17 at 14:06
  • Since your question was so close to being closed, I took the liberty of editing it rather heavily to highlight the on-topic question I perceived in it. Please feel free to revert these changes if they don't respect your intention. – Chris Sunami Nov 08 '17 at 15:54
  • Way too opinion based. – Daniel Goldman Nov 08 '17 at 17:18
  • It is also too narrow. Which religion? Which god? – Daniel Goldman Nov 08 '17 at 17:18
  • Since there are thousands of religions, asking "who came up with the rules in every religion" isn't really answerable unless you presuppose the answer is the same for each. And if that's the thrust of your argument, better to state it clearly rather than sneakily. Furthermore, it seems clear that a believer in a given religion would likely have a different answer than a non-believer, so that's probably why this was closed as opinion based. I'll take one more try at editing to see if we can get it reopened. – Chris Sunami Nov 08 '17 at 18:41
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    OK that's my best try at a edit. It has the advantage that Alexander King's excellent answer is still entirely appropriate. – Chris Sunami Nov 08 '17 at 18:56
  • @Chris Sunami : i thought you wrote "Hero of christ". My question is clearly non-religious. So why are you helping me. Thank you for the edit. Its way better than mine and it is clear as day. –  Nov 08 '17 at 18:57
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    @AbsoluteIdiot As a committed theist, I don't see any harm, and potentially some good in testing my beliefs against the strongest arguments against them. And in general I'm interested in helping this site and its users regardless if I share their beliefs or philosophical commitments. Also, this: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/8669/why-should-atheists-bother-debating-theists/15819#15819 – Chris Sunami Nov 08 '17 at 19:02
  • @Chris Sunami: Can you possibly edit this question too if you have time. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/47008/why-are-the-rules-of-religions-changing-over-time –  Nov 08 '17 at 19:04
  • In its edited from I upvoted the question. It's a really good one, and it deserves a good answer. It contains one error, I would say, which is to line up Hinduism with the Abrahamic faith-based religions. This is a big no-no and I'd suggest editing it out. This will make it easier to answer by saying that the Abrahamic religions depend on guesswork, so of course they will have idiosyncratic rules and beliefs. Hinduism is something else entirely. Note that the ancient Rig Veda warns us against the 'hymn-reciters' and the late Vedas throw away the rule-book. . –  Nov 09 '17 at 13:53
  • The question is not necessarily wholly opinion-based as it stands, in that it points to debates about Realism in cross-community religious discussion. There is a body of philosophical literature to refer to - unfortunately I don't know it in enough detail to give a proper account of the current state of the debate, but the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a brief section introducing anti-/Realism at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/religion/#SH1b – Paul Ross Nov 20 '17 at 22:58

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If (from a religious perspective) god supposedly created all the religious rules,

Not all religions subscribe to this. Buddhism for example doesn't really talk about who created the rules, and instead arrives at the rules empirically (See the 4 noble truths).

then why does every religion follow different rules?

Different religions have different answers to this. Christianity, for example, views its own rules as an update of the previous rules laid out in Jewish scripture.

Orthodox Sunni Islam, on the other hand, maintains that the rules of all the great monotheisms were the same, since they share the same divine origin, but that human authors corrupted past scriptures (i.e. the Torah and the New Testament) and that Islamic scripture is, among other things, a correction of those errors that restored the original rules for humanity.

In both cases, the tradition acknowledges different sets of rules, but considers only one set of rules to be correct, and provides an explanation for why that is the case.

Is this a strong argument against the idea that religious rules are divine in origin?

No it isn't. Some religious and philosophical traditions don't see any problem in the diversity of religious rules and rituals. In Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita states (I forgot the exact verse - I will need to look for it): God (Or The Truth - depending on the translation) is one, but the paths to Him are many.

Similarly some schools of Sufi Islam consider that there are many paths to God, Islam is just one of them. See Attar's "The Conference of The Birds" or several of Rumi's poems - again I need time to dig up the relevant verses.

More recently, Aldous Huxley (who was himself an atheist) develops this idea by presenting examples from the various religious traditions of the world in his book "The Perennial Philosophy". He argues that all (or most religious traditions) are just variations on a set of basic truths that is called the perennial philosophy.

Alexander S King
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  • Nice answer. I wish more religious folk would read texts like Attar''s 'Conference' and Huxley's book and peer deeper into what religion is actually saying. –  Nov 23 '17 at 12:56