I address this square on when in the section sub-titled “The Salvation Impact.”

SmallAxe: This leads to a greater openness in terms of inter-religious perceptions

It doesn’t. What leads to a greater openness for inter-religious perceptions is the recognition of a permanent absence of a religious majority. That’s how ancient Persia got freedom of religion. That’s how Europe got it, and that’s how the United States got it. Read all about how the absence of a durable majority in any area leads to tolerance right here in Federalist #10.

As I state in my blog post:

what makes a society’s outlook pluralistic is it’s toleration of a wide variety of truth and authority claims without casting aspersions on maturity or desirability

You’re implicit disparagement of certain religions based on their alleged propensity to lead to a lower level of openness in terms of inter-religious perceptions is evidence that you do not have as pluralistic an outlook as perhaps you should.

I’m reminded of something that the English philosopher A. J. Ayer wrote about his own moral outlook. He was an atheist, and so people constantly accused him of being immoral or amoral. He wrote that he had very strong moral passions, and that he was anxious that other people share them. He just didn’t base those passions on religion. For some reason nowadays, would-be sophisticates deem it less mature to have strong moral passions, especially when they’re based on religion. Everyone wants to talk about how fanatics killed hundreds at Mountain Meadows and thousands at the Twin Towers, when historically, it’s been the dispassionate governments that have proven far more dangerous than religion and terrorism combined. Shoot, in our own lifetime, Janet Reno ordered attacks that lead to the deaths of 80 Americans — many of them innocent women and children. If she’d have been a cabinet official in a Muslim country, protesters would call such an attack (which basically wiped out a religion) genocide.

I agree with this (except for possibly the fact that you defend truth claims as exclusionary purely on a propositional basis in your original post).

I know that this is your key claim. I’ve stated that it is altogether beside the point, because (as I’ve stated above), “we can say that they embody ideas, and ideas gain expression through propositional truths. In the end, Mormons do some things, Catholics do other things, and Buddhists do something else; substituting behavior and practice for propositional beliefs results in the same brand of exclusivity.”

I agree with the universal necessity of exclusivity, but I disagree that all exclusivities are the same (i.e., “same brand”). I’m not making a point here about exclusivity on the basis of practice versus exclusivity on the basis propositional truth statements; but about the differing nature of exclusivity based on differing values of propositional statements (thereby refering back to your original argument). East Asian Buddhists have historically ascribed a functional role to many (but not all) propositional truth claims (this may or may not be directly related to “practice”, because the purpose here is to get you somewhere which may or may not be involved in how Buddhism is practiced). This leads to a greater openness in terms of inter-religious perceptions (evidenced by the Ricci quote above), and a higher tolerance for propositional contradictions/inconsistencies. Do they still make exclusive claims? Of course. Is it the “same brand”? Not in my store.

Catholics claim authority as well.

They also believe in the existence of the spirit world, I wonder if their perversion of the baptismal covenant, ie little kids, isn’t part of this belief. Like we believe if a person isn’t a member they go to a different place in the spirit world.

Well, Catholics believe this also. Purgatory, as my friend, the monk, explained to me, is simply a holding place in the spirit world.

It’s interesting that Catholics hold many very true beliefs. They also believe that something significant happened in Gethsemane, although they don’t totally understand it (who does?). They call it “the rapture.”

The thing I found in my study of religions and near death experiences is that we are ALL (all religions) more alike than we are different. The difference is more the outside, inside, all Christian religions teach doing good to others and serving God.

Bottom line, that’s the most important thing anyway.

SmallAxe, I’m not conflating etic and emic, because the story isn’t simply a pleasant bit of nonsense. Telling it has a purpose and a meaning that is experienced as such, and your explanation of it goes a long ways towards communicating it.

SmallAxe: I am claiming that religions assign different values to propositional claims; and religions which do not assign a particularly high value to them are more likely to be less systematic, more porous in terms of “membership”, and more averse to claims of being the one true religion.

I know that this is your key claim. I’ve stated that it is altogether beside the point, because (as I’ve stated above), “we can say that they embody ideas, and ideas gain expression through propositional truths. In the end, Mormons do some things, Catholics do other things, and Buddhists do something else; substituting behavior and practice for propositional beliefs results in the same brand of exclusivity.”

SmallAxe: To assert that “the house is on fire” (from the Lotus Sutra), is not to assert the “falseness of the entire set of statements that disagrees with that assertion.” Ultimately, there is no fire, there is no house. The house, fire, and material wealth promised outside the house are simply tools (literally a “trick” in Japanese) aimed at certain realization.

The fact that the phrase, “the house is on fire,” is used instead of (say) “I ate a Big Mac for breakfast” or “Oscar the Grouch lives in a trash can” indicates that it has a meaning that points to some things and excludes others.

This latest comment changes your fixation from intentional meanings to a fixation on sharp differences between literal and figurative usage, as though figurative uses that are wildly different from literal interpretations somehow elude the characteristics of other meaningful assertions.

That said, a lot of things said in religions are simply nonsense intended to have some emotional impact based on the aesthetic characteristics of the story. We should lose no opportunity to point out that such sayings are, indeed, cognitively meaningless and have no truth value.

SmallAxe: Point being, some people who are critical of the “one true” claim, do so, not because they are self contradictory.

I’m not claiming that they are being self-contradictory. I’m not even claiming that they are being hypocritical. I’m saying that they mistake the logical consequences of their beliefs, which harbor latent exclusiveness by their very nature. Thus, my aim here isn’t to defend exclusionary truths, but to point out that its impossible for truths (whether explicitly propositional or embodied in behavior or actions) to be anything but exclusionary.

Anyhoo…

Another difference in structure or paradigm between us and many Protestant denominations such as Baptist, Evangelical and Pentecostal, is their affirmation that having correct doctrine/beliefs (ie, “being right”) gives them authority. Whereas we believe that having authrority “makes us “right.

Before he lost his faith, one of my evangelical friends impressed me by stating that observation of one of the main differences between us and Protestants.

I’m not claiming that you do. I’m not claiming it incorrect to assert that all religions make propositional claims (which by definition “exclude” others). I am claiming that religions assign different values to propositional claims; and religions which do not assign a particularly high value to them are more likely to be less systematic, more porous in terms of “membership”, and more averse to claims of being the one true religion. I would even go so far as to say that religion spoken of as a quest for truth defined propositionally reflects more of a Western philosophical heritage than a universal statement about religion itself (I’m not saying that you do this, I’m simply making a general observation). Point being, some people who are critical of the “one true” claim, do so, not because they are self contradictory (as John Hamer apparently was in your conversation), but because in their religious lives, they attribute less value to propositional statements.

And your statement that the story is purposefully illogical is belied by your quite logical description of what the story really tries to communicate.

You’re conflating etic and emic accounts here. The fact that I use the story in a logical manner does not make the emic account of the story such.
All you’re really talking about is a concept that philosophers call intentionality, and you seem to be supposing that intentionality grants personal beliefs some kind of exemption from the requirements of meaningful statements. It does not.
Of course intentionality is not exempt from meaningful statements. And I’ve been clear from the get go that I’m not exempting Eastern religions from propositional truth claims. The case of upaya, however, clearly denies your use of “every meaningful [propositional] statement” from the beginning of the post.
To start with, every meaningful statement entails the falsehood of an entire set of statements. For example, if I assert, “DKL drives a grey car,” then I’m asserting the falseness of the entire set of statements that disagrees with that assertion. This includes everything from “DKL drives a car is not grey” to “DKL drives a blue car,” “DKL doesn’t drive a car,” “There is no DKL,” and so on. So if you believe in any meaningful proposition at all, you are asserting the invalidity of an entire class of meaningful propositions.
To assert that “the house is on fire” (from the Lotus Sutra), is not to assert the “falseness of the entire set of statements that disagrees with that assertion.” Ultimately, there is no fire, there is no house. The house, fire, and material wealth promised outside the house are simply tools (literally a “trick” in Japanese) aimed at certain realization.
Now, you can ascribe a second layer discourse of propositional coherency in terms of “intentionality”, that’s fine. I agree with that and have never disagreed; but that wasn’t the original terms of the post.

I’m not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that I believe that propositional truth claims measure the truthfulness of any religion, eastern or western.

Committing to one belief necessarily excludes others. Everything that you’ve said indicates that eastern religions do in fact have beliefs, from which it follows that they also reject some beliefs. The entire point of the actions and narratives that you describe is that they embody, portray, or demonstrate certain propositional truths and not others. Once you reject any beliefs at all (be they religious or otherwise), you’ve entered the domain of exclusivity.

Your patriarch Lu passage is a perfect example the exact type of propositional truth that you say it repudiates. In other words, it’s a propositional truth truth that gains its meaning by referring to literal truths instead of embodying a literal truth. And your statement that the story is purposefully illogical is belied by your quite logical description of what the story really tries to communicate.

Moreover, you’ve missed the entire point of using a mathematical formula as an example. Following Frege, I’m mapping the meaning of a function (e.g., x + y = 16) to the set of statements that satisfy it. Given the example that I’ve used, that would include 4 + 10 = 16, 3 + 13 = 16, 1 + 15 = 16, etc. Sometimes, these functions are satisfied in original and surprising ways. Again, this fits the patriarch Lu example perfectly.

All you’re really talking about is a concept that philosophers call intentionality, and you seem to be supposing that intentionality grants personal beliefs some kind of exemption from the requirements of meaningful statements. It does not.