How are two religions true?


How are both Christianity and Hinduism true in these movies? And also true are the UFO/Roswell/Ancient Astronaut/Crystal Skulls legends. It doesn't make sense to me.

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I think it's a reflection of George Lucas' own beliefs, in which he's said that all religions are more or less true and simply acts as "containers of faith".

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It still doesn't really make sense though. For example, either the Christian God is real and therefore the only God or the Hindu gods are real and there are many of them. Either reincarnation is real or it isn't.

I don't know about Hinduism but the UFO/Roswell/Ancient Astronaut hypothesis of the fourth Indy movie doesn't fit in a Christian universe either in my opinion.

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Not necessarily, only segments of the belief is confirmed. For example, IF Jesus was 100% confirmed to have lived, it doesn't mean he is the son of God, or that Buddha or Mohommed DIDN'T exist. The events of the 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' & ' The Last Crusade' (if real) would certainlt lend weight to the Christian faith, but wouldn't give certainty to tge whole story, or indeed renove the possibility of other Gods.

Let's say for example that there was a pantheon of Gods, with the Abrahamic God being one of many, but all people SAY he is the only one. The same events in this movie could take place AND Temple of Doom as well.

BTW, I myself am Christian, so do not say this as 'what I believe', but rather what could be in a fictional universe.

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No but if you criticize Jesus his followers won't cut your head off like criticizing Mohammed.

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The Bible never actually claims that God is the only god. Quite the opposite, in fact. Remember in Egypt, when Moses turned his staff into a snake? The Egyptian high priests did the same. Then Moses's snake devoured all the other snakes, symbolising that the Hebrew god was more powerful than all the Egyptian gods put together. That's an acknowledgement that other gods exist. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" is likewise an admission that other gods exist - but that the Hebrew god is the one the Hebrews should be concerned with.

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Exactly. There are other deities, or another theory is that the Hindu gods etc etc are the fallen angels worshiped as gods: baal, beelzebub, etc etc. Therefore Jehovah says He is the one TRUE God as opposed just another deity.

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Worth noting that if we look at old testament cannon there were a lot of angels interfering in the mortal realm, and they could have easily be mistaken for lesser gods. Not to mention that the devil himself is a former angel, and likes to pretend being a god.

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Good call, and something else worth noting, witch craft is also mentioned in the Old Testament, and its role within the supernatural realms.

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[–] Karl Aksel
The Bible never actually claims that God is the only god.

"I am the Lord, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me." - Isaiah 45:5

Never?

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Yeah, well, everyone sane knows the Christian Bible is complete BULLSHIT.

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[deleted]

"The Bible never actually claims that God is the only god." This is patently false. Isaiah 44:6, Deuteronomy 4:35, 1 Kings 8:60.
"gods" with little g is a reference to pagan "gods" which were the inventions of those who rejected the only God.

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The Bible does not suggest those gods are made up. Just the opposite, in fact. When Moses turns his staff into a snake, the Pharao's high priests scoff and say they can do the same. And they do. Then Moses's snake devours the snakes of the high priests. This to symbolise that the Hebrew god is stronger. Which means the Egyptian gods are weaker - but every bit as real.

I don't know why you talk about capitalisation, by the way. That's a modern thing. The Torah was written in Hebrew, which has no capitalisation.

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The Pharaoh was using "magicians" presumably some type of Satanic witchcraft. The text says nothing about a "god" performing these acts. In any case, Satan only has some type of power because God allows him to.

"The Bible does not suggest those gods are made up." Oh really?

Did u just ignore the verses I sent you? "I am the first and the last, besides me there is no god".

1 Tim 2:5 "For there is one God..."
1 Cor 8:6 "Yet for us there is one God"
Isaiah 43:10 "Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be after me"
Jude 1:25 "To the only God, our Saviour..."
Isaiah 46:9 ".... I am God there is no other, there is none like me".
2 Sam 7:22 " There is no God besides you..."

Nowhere in scripture supports polytheism unless, you are guilty of the cherry-picking fallacy.

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1. One god that counts
2. FOR US there is one god
3. BEFORE me, and AFTER me - meaning no god was made before I was made (not actually true, by the way, as Yahweh was one of several gods from the Canaanite pantheon), and no god will be my successor.
4. And earlier in the same chapter you'll see god specified as OUR only god. This, like Timothy, is also from the NT, where they ignore other religions a lot more than the OT does.
5. The Bible is here recording David's praise to God. I can point you to other bits of dialogue in the Bible which flatly contradicts this.

Also, bear in mind that these are translations you are dealing with. Sometimes they alter the meaning ever so slightly. For example, in the New International Version, Ex.22:28, it commands you not to blaspheme God. However, in the King James version, it says "Thou shalt not revile the gods". This is not an isolated incident: Luther, who translated the Bible from scratch using original sources, renders this sentence as "Den Göttern sollst du nicht fluchen". God, singular, is Gott in German. Plural is Götter, so this is quite deliberate. The 21st Century King James version makes a compromise, where it says "thou shalt not revile the judges". This is probably the best translation, because the next part of that verse is "nor curse the ruler of thy people". And Yahweh is never seen as chummy with other gods anywhere else in the Bible, so "judges" is possibly correct.

But the point is, when one is working off of translations, one should be very careful of taking things at face value.

And seeing as you have done some very careful cherry-picking yourself, I would be more careful levelling that accusation on others.

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Matthew 13:11-14

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You mean to tell me there are people living today in the year 2023 who actually believe these stories about staffs turning into snakes was real?

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In Norway we have a little song that used to be taught to children when saying grace before a meal. Translated to English, it goes like this:

"O thou who feedest the smallest bird,
Bless our food, O God. Amen."

To my young ears, however - and I was far from the only one who misheard - it sounded more like this:

"O thou who eatest the smallest bird,
Bless our food, O God. Amen."

I think I was 15 or 16 before I realised what the words were actually supposed to be. My point in all this is that what we learn as children, no matter how nonsensical, can stick with us for a very long time unless we are taught that we're wrong. We don't believe in Santa Claus, because at some point our parents come clean and say "we fooled you". But they never come clean about God, and so the faithful by and large don't unlearn God. On the contrary, looking around they see their peers stuck with the same nonsensical beliefs that they never question, because "of course it's true. I've known it to be true all my life, and so has everyone around me."

And that's how people can believe in things like eg. the Israelites being led through the desert for 40 years to reach a destination 17 days' walk away.

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Because they're movies. The truth is neither can be true if the other is true, which is why religion is ridiculous. But it's an Indiana Jones film, so you have to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy it.

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I don't really see any contradiction. The Christianity in the movies seems to be a constant. The Hinduism never really confirmed that it was "true" over any other religion. They had some "magic" in TOD with the rocks and the heart removal, etc. but that doesn't contradict anything about Christianity necessarily. Neither do the aliens in Crystal Scull.


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dies ist meine unterschrift

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Crystal what now?

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Crystal what now?


"Crystal Skull," a reference to a fan-film widely considered to be an over-the-top parody of the Indiana Jones films, the "Spinal Tap" of adventure films

Maybe it's better that you don't know

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I KNOW, I was being RHETORICAL!

I wish I could forget that damned Skull movie, I seriously won't watch the assassination movie of Indy's death, that's for sure! Probably go to commentary reviews on YouTube about it instead.

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I KNOW you KNOW ... I was being facetious

I'd hoped the "fan film" term would've made it obvious, since it was made by Lucas and Spielberg themselves

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:)

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Magic is true in these movies, whether it looks like Christian miracles, Jewish vengeance, Hindu mind control or alien technology.

It's consistent with the pulp fiction motif, even if it's not consistent with the notion of a single "correct" religion.

Consider: maybe the grail, ark and Sankara stones are just objects with powers, and ancient people either wove mythologies around those powers OR shoehorned those objects into their existing belief systems.

E.g., Christians find a cup that heals, and presume it's the Holy Grail.

Just reverse cause & effect.

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This is a FANTASTIC answer!

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"Christians find a cup that heals, and presume it's the Holy Grail."
To be fair the Bible doesn't say anything about the cup Jesus drank from at the Last supper having healing power. That's all made up by people afterward.

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Its a mistranslation anyway. The original translation of Holy Grail simply means "great treasure". The "cup" part was added after all. The most likely theory is that it is a treasure captured during a crusade which was being brought back to europe but was lost/hidden. Nothing magical or holy about it.

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It may have something to do with Celtic myths, from what I've read.

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Good answer, but then you do have the Ark, in Raiders, which burned away the swastika of the crate it was stored in, on its own accord. So the power within the Ark of the Covenant clearly had a bias.

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Good point - pretty much brings us back to square one with this debate. Conflicting religions are somehow all true (or at least all internally consistent)

Still good point GreenGoblin raises - the grail's healing powers post-date biblical stories. So maybe it's not "the grail."

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A lot of fictional worlds do this. Comic universes like Marvel and DC usually go by the "all religions are true" mantra while also having a large variety of aliens.

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Even the old testament spoke of other gods being real, leading their own people. It was the belief of the time.

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OMG :) . Thos movies were done at the age of postmodernism. Noone gave a damn about thoi religions. They were just as cool to use as part of the story as the egyptian motives were cool to use as a set in Blade Runner. Its all for the looks or the mystique. That was when the term postmodernism wasnt misused by some SJWs yet ;) .

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Events and fantastical artifacts and retelling of stories associated with them will eventually and ultimately create myths and folklore and religions.

Religions and their stories are effects of something like this, they are not the cause.

These movies then give us what these causes may be. For example, a mystical box of destruction, magic stones, a cup of life and death and a flying saucer... how lores and religions use such fantastical elements in their own stories over time is anyone’s guess. But none of them can claim exclusivity.

In other words; the fact that these movies contradict those exclusive religions you mention, tells us neither actually can be “true” - even in this movie universe.... and I dare say, this more or less corresponds to what indy himself expresses a few times.

So the answer to your OP is that they are not.

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How do you claim to know how reality exactly works?

In "Ghostbusters", Gozer asked Ray if he was a god. This possibly implies that there's a whole realm of myriad deities governing the world. That's the doctrine of Hinduism and Kemetism at least, that there is an infinite number of deities. I don't believe in this, but movie universes can definitely take this idea and run with it. It's fun and interesting.

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Well since Elsa lost the grail and it's stated by the knight that only the water in the basin in the cave can heal you, there's no way to prove to others that it has healing powers anyway. They have 4 witnesses to claim it did but most people wouldn't believe them.

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