RELIGIOUS PLURALISM 69Jahweh, the Father, Allah, etc. have an existence that depends on our
minds and experiences. Put without evasion, RP has this to say to
religious traditions: what you believe in simply does not exist. So far, it
agrees with naturalism.
This comes out in another way when RP claims that religious
traditions are really extended metaphors or myths that are, not true or
false, but useful. I deny that there are roses if I say that there are no
roses. I also deny that there are roses if I say that all talk of roses is an
extended metaphor or a myth which is useful if it produces a certain sort
of behavior. The same goes for parallel claims regarding God or nirvana.
Second, if RP is true, then no one has any of the problems that any
religious tradition says they have. The one religious problem is that we
are not morally nice. The one solution to that is to respond to something
in such a way as to become nice. If things the traditions believe in do not
exist, then the problems they think need solution do not actually plague
anyone.
Third, evangelism is anathema to RP. Any member of any religious
tradition who tries to convert someone is guilty of “treason against the
peace and diversity of the human family.”^11 Evangelism for RP of course
comes under no such condemnation.
It is hardly obvious that, whatever the intent, one actually shows great
respect for all religions by holding a view that denies that anything they
think exists does exist and denying that what they take to be deep
problems are problems at all. The same goes for holding a view that
proposes replacing them by different claims that do not claim that any of
the things they believe in exist or any of the problems they take seriously
exist either. Further, RP itself looks suspiciously like an attempt at a new
world religion which gives us a diagnosis of what it takes our deep
problem to be really, though it has yet to propose a cure of its own.
There remains, then, the philosophical question to which everything
said here thus far is preparatory: what reason, if any, is there to accept or
reject RP?
A critical discussion of RP: Part one
It is on the face of it implausible to think that all religious experience is
experience of the same thing. Neither the content nor the structure of such
experience indicates that this suggestion is anything better than fanciful.^12
Thus there is a considerable hurdle over which RP must jump in order to
have any initial promise. But set this aside.