I once caught 5 minutes of Oprah discussing religion. She made the comment, in a very sage-sounding tone, that she believed all religions are true. The audience immediately interrupted her with resounding applause; camera shots caught audience members nodding in approval, clearly impressed with the wisdom of the claim just made.
This commonly heard platitude may sound clever, wise and sensible but let’s unpack it:
- All religions are true;
- Christianity is a religion;
- Christianity claims to be the only true religion;
Therefore:
- If all religions are true, Christianity is the only true religion.
[The same line of argument works with any religion which rejects the first premise.]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Oprah Winfrey · Pluralism19 Comments
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Not a valid argument!
You would need:
* All religions are true;
* Christianity is a religion;
* Christianity IS the only true religion;
Therefore:
* If all religions are true, Christianity is the only true religion.
You have switched from “Christianity claims to be the only true religion” in your premis to “Christianity is the only true religion” in your conclusion. People like Oprah would agree with the former (for SOME interpretations of Christianity at least) but would reject the latter.
Good try – but an over simplification.
Or else you need “All claims of all religions are true” as the first premise.. and obviously Oprah would reject this premise as well.
What she is saying is something like”
The central claims of all religions are true
Christisnity is a religion
—————————–
Therefore the central claims of Christianity are true.
And she would say the same about Islam, Judaism etc. Now obviously the debate moves to the question: What are the central claims. And here she would I assume have a list of rather vague things like love of mankind, connection with god and so on.
There is again no huge contradiction here. You merely disagree about what is “central” – but you are still over simplifying what she and others say.. as you well know.
To be even more fun, you could define atheism as a religious position and ask if that would be included đ
Well scrubone – if the central claim the speaker is interested in is moral truth – and they think that atheism as a philosophy leads to moral truth then your idea is not as silly as it seems… has been done… eg. Sea of Faith
Max,
Yeah, because a professional philosopher like Matt would be totally unaware of what a valid argument looks like. Use the principle of charity bro
Max,
I am sorry but I donât see the force in your objection
[1]All religions are true;
[2]Christianity is a religion;
[3]Christianity claims to be the only true religion;
I would take [1] and [2] to entail that whatever Christianity claims to be true is true. This conjoined with [3] entails that Christianity is the only true religion. So I donât see the invalidity. Sure the conclusion that religion is the only true religion goes beyond [3], but its not an inference from [3] alone its an inference from [3] conjoined with [1] and [2].
You go on to state (for SOME interpretations of Christianity at least) but would reject the latter. Here I am not so sure, I guess it depends on what you mean by â the only true religionâ if by this you mean that no other religion contains any truth then I think your correct. But thatâs not what I mean by that claim. Suppose however your correct, I only need one religion to claim this for the argument to work.
âAnd she would say the same about Islam, Judaism etc. Now obviously the debate moves to the question: What are the central claims. And here she would I assume have a list of rather vague things like love of mankind, connection with god and so on.â
Well I think it would be implausible to say that its not a central claim of Islam that there is one God and Mohamed is his prophet. Equally I think its implausible to suggest that the claim that Jesus is the Messiah , (or at least a prophet) is not a central claim of Christianity But I take your point, I think John Hick has a view a bit like what you say, which would require more work to critique, but the problem I see here is that it really trivalises the claim âall religions are trueâ what in reality is being claimed is that most of what these religions actually literally claim, and what there adherent take them to literally claim is false, however a small subset of what they all teach, which is fairly vague and non specific is true. Thatâs not to different, what the hardline exclusivist might claim. A really exclusivist Islam for example might grant there is a vague core of Hinduism and Christianity which is compatible with Islam, however nearly everything else it says is false, and this would really not be terribly different from what Oprah and co mean.
“Yeah, because a professional philosopher like Matt would be totally unaware of what a valid argument looks like. Use the principle of charity bro”
If it is a nonsense argument, I don’t care if he is the HOD of a philosophy department! Since when did logic involve charity? Charity indeed! Bah!
“Max,
I am sorry but I donât see the force in your objection
[1]All religions are true;
[2]Christianity is a religion;
[3]Christianity claims to be the only true religion;
I would take [1] and [2] to entail that whatever Christianity claims to be true is true.”
Fine â you can take it that way â but the question you should be asking is did Oprah, and others like her, intend it this way. I suspect not.
“This conjoined with [3] entails that Christianity is the only true religion.”
No it doesnât without directing equating âChristianity claimsâ with âThe truth of Christianity.â You could argue that these are identical statements if you like â but it requires some effort and is not a starting point everyone (like Oprah say – or Hick for that matter) agrees with.
“So I donât see the invalidity.”
Hopefully you do now.
“But thatâs not what I mean by that claim.”
Clearly! But again what should concern you is not what YOU mean by the claim â but what the person you are attacking means by the claim… otherwise you are fighting straw-women.
“Well I think it would be implausible to say that its not a central claim of Islam that there is one God and Mohamed is his prophet. Equally I think its implausible to suggest that the claim that Jesus is the Messiah , (or at least a prophet) is not a central claim of Christianity”
You may not like these interpretations Matt â but as you know there are adherents of both of these â so they are not exactly âimplausibleâ â and if these are the sorts of ideas of Islam and Christianity that Oprah has in mind then your argument just does not work.
“⊠it really trivalises the claim âall religions are trueâ what in reality is being claimed is that most of what these religions actually literally claim, and what there adherent take them to literally claim is false, however a small subset of what they all teach, which is fairly vague and non specific is true.”
This however is exactly what people like Oprah think. You disagree clearly â but if you really want to claim she has an INVALID argument â or contradictory truth claims you have to work with HER definitions NOT YOUR OWN! You know this, and should not make such rash straw-woman arguments to attack.
Max
As far as I can tell you havenât shown my argument invalid, what youâve suggested is that [1] if taken as Oprahâs claim, is false. I am not so convinced that Oprah or people who popularly make these claims, are as sophisticated to have adopted a Hickan position here. I suspect many know little about religion and are simply repeating a clichĂ© that they all say the same thing and are all true.
Suppose you are correct however and Oprah does hold a Hickan like position. Then I agree my argument does not show that particular version of pluralism is incoherent. I will note however that interpreted in a Hickan sense, what the claim [1] all religious are true. Really amounts to ( and Hick grants this) is they are all literally false, and certainly as most adherents of these religions understand them or have historically understood them they are all false. They are only all true if one interprets them in a way where most of the claims that adherents of these religions have typically taken to be central and important, and believed to be true, really are just peripheral and false.
Now perhaps that is Oprahâs view, but I am inclined to think that if it is, much of the appeal that people have for such a view is lost. At the popular level I suspect the reason the claim âall religions are trueâ appeals is that it sounds inclusive, as though you are including all religious people in the realm of truth and not excluding any. That one is avoiding the divisive stance of saying some are wrong and others right, certainly I think thatâs why many people resonate with this view. But if [1] is taken in the Hickan way this is really not what is being said at all. In fact Oprah is saying majority of muslims, Christians, Jews and so on, are actually mistaken and what they believe is false. The ones who have it correct are the small number of Hickan type thinkers. In otherwords I suspect that when most people hear [1] they donât think it means that most religions are literally false or that as understood by most of their adherents they are false.
This seems to be a storm in a teacup.
Yes – it is a storm in a teacup and in the spirit of the season let us just agree that Oprah is a moron! Merry Christmas!
Max,
http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html
Merry Christmas! đ
What it means is that Christianity no more true than any other religion.
More likely it means Oprah is a moron who made a publically recorded pronouncement on the nature and content of the wolds religions without actually knowing anything about most of them. TV personality as comparative religion expert, Oprah FTF.
David:
Irrelevant!
Merry Christmas!
No Oprah is not a moron.
Oprah is a RICH moron. đ
“Oprah is a RICH moron. :-)”
Fair call Paul. though this now says as much about he viewing audience as it does about herself.
Interesting. I’ll shake the teapot a little bit, if I may.
From Opera you can only get “all religions are true” not “Christianity claims to be the only true religion.” That is something you added to the common platitude. I suggest you start with the simple syllogism,
All religions are true
Christianity is a religion
Therefore, Christianity is true
Then, a second syllogism would say:
Christianity is true
Christianity claims to be the only true religion
Therefore Christianity is the only true religion
A flawless chain of reasoning if I say so myself :0)
It shows the original premise to be false through reductio ad absurdum. It does not, however, show Christianity to be true, it only demonstrates that “all religions are true” is not coherent. But I think that was your point, right?.
All religions are true
Christianity claims to be the only true religion
If the first claim is, all religion are true , how can Christianity make the claim of being the ony true religion
The claim all religion is true dismisses the claim Christianity claims to be the only true religion
Steve, the problem is Christainity or at least certain prominent forms of Christianity does claim to be the only true religion.
So your quite correct. 1 does contradict 2, the problem is 2 is correct.