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Ranny Kang

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If the world shared a common language, would religion be obsolete?

Call me crazy, but I have this idea that all religions in essence are all the same. Through the evolution of language and culture, humans have interpreted the same idea differently in order to understand spirituality in the context of their lives and their circumstances. And as human beings, we love to label, categorize and give everything names--Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, etc.--which eventually divides and creates the "other". What if we all shared a common language? I'm not talking English, Spanish or Chinese. I'm talking about love, transformation, peace and acceptance.

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Topics: language religion
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    Alex Smith

    • +1
    Aug 7 2011: having one language would eliminate more miscommunications, improving the world in a myriad of ways. so lets all learn chinese.
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      Rami Masri

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      TED Translator
      Aug 7 2011: yes i agree

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        Janet Karasz

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        Aug 8 2011: Recalling Pinker's discussions in the Language Instinct, Esperanto will never be viable universal until children are raised speaking it.
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          Fernando Inocencio

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          Aug 8 2011: That's nonsense.
          The idea of Esperanto is to be a non-national non-ethnic IAL used only for international comunication.
          Esperanto has been used successfully in international congresses for more than 110 years. It was always viable.

          Also there are children raised speaking it, but that's other history.
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        Alex Smith

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        Aug 8 2011: the only reason i chose Mandarin was the fact that it is the most popular language. i do not really have a bias toward any language in particular. Esperanto would be fine but it would take much more energy to implicate.
        i share your opinion that promulgation would be sinful but if we can simply let a language culturally take over then nobodies feeling would to be hurt.
        right?
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          Ben Jin

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          Aug 9 2011: "What if we all shared a common language? I'm not talking English, Spanish or Chinese. I'm talking about love, transformation, peace and acceptance."

          I think the original topic was discussing not verbal languages but more... emotional languages.

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