Time on “The Religious Superiority Complex”

Time mag­a­zine has an inter­est­ing arti­cle on the idea that one’s reli­gion is bet­ter than anoth­er’s. The author paints a more nuanced pic­ture than you might guess based on the title.

As a devout believ­er, Boykin may also won­der why it is imper­mis­si­ble to say that the God you believe in is supe­ri­or to the God you don’t believe in. I won­der this same thing as a non­be­liev­er: Does­n’t one reli­gion’s gospel log­i­cal­ly pre­clude the oth­ers’? (Except, of course, where they over­lap with uni­ver­sal pre­cepts, such as not mur­der­ing peo­ple, that even we non­be­liev­ers can wrap our heads around.) Although Boyk­in’s ver­sion of Chris­tian­i­ty seems less like monothe­ism than the star of a high school poly­the­ism tour­na­ment, his basic point is that Chris­tian­i­ty is right and Islam is wrong. Does­n’t the one imply the oth­er? Pre­tend­ing that my reli­gion is no bet­ter than your reli­gion may make for few­er reli­gious wars, but it seems con­trary to the very idea of reli­gion. For this, you take a leap of faith?

Read The Reli­gious Supe­ri­or­i­ty Com­plex (check out Chris­tian­i­ty Today’s weblog for relat­ed info).

One thought on “Time on “The Religious Superiority Complex””

  1. You are cor­rect. Just because I say that my God is bet­ter than the Islam God does not mean that my God is bet­ter. As a mat­ter of fact, I find it quite inter­est­ing that the Islams seem to hon­or their God bet­ter than we hon­or ours. We are tru­ly shamed. Do you agree?

    The thing that makes my God bet­ter than the Islam God is that my God saved me even when I was a sin­ner. I still sin. Though I have not actu­al­ly killed any­one, some­times my heart is tru­ly ugly. I know this and I ask my God for help and guid­ance. He gives it to me. I know it because my atti­tude towards peo­ple change with time. I accept them for who they are and not what I desire them to be.

    Peace be with you

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