What among the traditional religious beliefs remains effective?
This can only be answered from the viewpoint and experience of each of the representatives, speaking for his own creed. As regards Buddhism, all its doctrines remain valid, and therefore all remain effective. In there some way in which the incompatible and competing claim among different systems of religious belief can be reconciled or reduced to a commonly acceptable denominator so that a rational mind can accept them? Various attempts have been made throughout history to reconcile different systems of religious belief, but none of them has been successful. To quote only one instance: Sikhism began as an effort to reconcile Hinduism and Islam. Circumstances decreed, however, that in a matter of a few generations the Sikhs were to become the greatest opponents of Islam in India. Syncretism in religion sometimes enriches human thought, but more often than not it ends in confusion and failure. The modern attempts in this direction, such as Theosophy, have never attracted any large follow
