- Dalia Rubin
- Herzliya
- Israel
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Religious Bridge
It seems that the debate between the 3 major religions centers on the differences between them, instead of the similarities. Each one is based on the belief that it alone knows divinity on all its aspects.
It would be wiser to understand that one person - even a prophet or messiah - can learn only a narrow angle of the divinity, and build a bridge over these differences rather than sustain the theological battleground.
Further more: the evolution of each of these religions shows a huge gap between it's historical foundation and the way it is practiced today. Going back to these foundations will emphasize the similarities and reveal their mutual source - a fertile starting point for a change.
Jason Huffman
Rhona Pavis 50+
Peter Law 30+
:-)
Frans Kellner 100+
natasha nikulina 50+
Frans Kellner 100+
Gerald O'brian 50+
Helen Hupe 30+
natasha nikulina 50+
It can be interpreted differently, it's always the case, we find what we seek.
For me it is a triumph of naive wisdom over a kind of religious egocentricity. As to my experience, religious people quite often act like one extended ego, dividing all humanity into 'us' and 'them' .
The Jewish girl was right as many other wise intuitive people "All we need is love !"
Evelyn Underhill said,"it has been a tragedy of the founder of every great religion to have had re-erected in their wakes the very barriers they laboured to cast down."
A union of separately evolved, different religions, should happen within each of us, individually, and only then the "the very barriers" will be "cast down'.
And all sacred teachings, which I'd like to be celebrated will complement each other and different religions as different ways of perceiving the world will be bound together on the level of beauty and love.
Frans Kellner 100+
an ego is the accumulation of thoughts and beliefs about who you are and if you're raised within a religious family you identify yourself with all what such a religion prescribes and teaches. Ultimately you can't deny your religion without losing yourself or at least all you always thought you were. All worth and self esteem someone builds over time within their religious community falls apart if that person renounce the value of it. Family and friends will condemn you for the truth poses also a threat to their own values.
James R Jacobsen
Miracles are 98% effort, 1% faith & 1% patience.
Be careful what you wish for,all things are possible.
With effort, faith, and patience any being can change creation and/or build a bridge over the theological differences between all of the major world religions
If the best way to convince a fool it is wrong, is to give it exactly what it desires.
What is the best way to achieve your dreams?
Always Persevere, Never Give Up.
Asgar Fakhrudin
I refrain from elaborating further, for the fear of being misunderstood, but this is what I have understood. Take it or leave it.
Dalia Rubin
Asgar Fakhrudin
Dalia I do not like to impose or propagate my views, then it becomes messy, and the entire purpose is lost. Each one has to make their own call. The intrinsic purpose of all religion is to help in the evolution of humans into angelic beings. If any one who believes in the ONENESS - you may name it GOD - ALLAH - BEING whatever and follows their religious not dogmatic, but spiritual inherent teaching of their particular religion, believe me, that person is on his way, it may take eons, but he/she will finally be there.
If you feel interested you may log on to my home page www.hikmaah.com and although it is a particular faith and belief system based, you may find some nuggets of truth. In the shaitan ppxs I have tried to understand how Satan evolved, you can skip a few slides will be difficult to follow, none the less some may surely give you an insight
Mary M. 50+
It is eye opening.
http://youtu.be/eScDfYzMEEw
Dalia Rubin
I always enjoy George Carlin's view:
"Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We havn't learned how to care for one another."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
James R Jacobsen
A Google search for "interfaith action coalition" returns 7,290 hits
See URL below for an example:
http://www.azifm.org/
Dalia Rubin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith_and_the_unity_of_religion
James R Jacobsen
1. A variant on “We are one!”
a. Some version of the golden rule, (includes the idea of karma)
i. An awareness that if we are ever to experience world peace the various religions need to treat themselves and each other with kindness and respect
1. Balanced by an EGO centric belief that they possess or have special knowledge of the one true path and/or teaching, thus making their belief system superior to all others
2. We will actually have a true lasting world peace when we can really see how ridiculous this is and learn to laugh at ourselves.
James R Jacobsen
Phillip McKay
Gerald O'brian 50+
The brainwashed have no idea how mysterious and interesting the world is.
Phillip McKay
Let it go. Come with us.
Gerald O'brian 50+
Children should not be taught that myths are true. Period.
It seems easier, and safer, to educate little atheists than to bend existing belief systems.
Dalia Rubin
Let me tell you about me. I'm an artist and an amateur scientist, and from time to time I find myself looking around, wondring - not HOW this beauty was created, that I know (geology, astronomy, physics). As an artist I find myself thinking of a creator - an artist, just like me - not the kind of god that tells you what to do. This beauty - a smile, a flower, landscape - moves me in an unlogical way.
People believe in what they learn, mostly at home. Some reach out and look for a religion thay can belong to. It happens all over the world, even to highly educated people, scientist, former skeptics. We can't dismiss their need to believe because we believe in something else, like science.
Gerald O'brian 50+
I was thinking of something that, sadly, is missing in our schools. The right and the duty to say I don't know. Most teachers are uneasy with this, and would rather seem confident than doubtful. This is authority. And pupils are taught to yield their minds to it.
I know that people think they need their beliefs. But I don't think they would if they had been taught about rational ways of investigating reality.
And science is not a belief system.
Dalia Rubin
I agree with you about authority and the confidence of teachers (and alsoo parents). Luckily, I had some teachers that addmied they didn't know everything. One of them, a high school tacher, used to say so, and then suggested to explore the isuue with us in the library. We learned more from his "don't know" answers than from all the others, and so did he. What a way to learn... Most teachers Suffocate curiosity, but that teacher preserved my natural curiosity. I'm 52 and still learning :)
Gerry Atricks
Helen Hupe 30+
natasha nikulina 50+
Survival of the fittest, I guess :)
Helen Hupe 30+
Paul Lillebo
Glad you asked, Helen.
The same guide that religious people have: The mores that have been developed and been passed down through the tens of thousands of years of human social existence.
Religious people often think - perhaps encouraged by their priests - that morality and ethics are grounded in religion or in commandments of God. They are not. Something as useful as the "Golden Rule" was written by Confucius 1500 years before Jesus quoted it, and it was not based on religion or any god's words, but on already-long experience with the best way to live together.
In the distant past, priests - who served both ruler and society by promulgating and enforcing rules of behavior - found it very useful to give such rules the authority of deity. Thus ten laws coming from God were easier to enforce than the same from the ruler. But their inspiration was entirely worldly, long pre-dating their publication in stone.
I think you will find that those of us who don't use the concept of gods in our daily lives are just as ethical, just as moral as those who believe they should follow ethical and moral rules because someone above tells them to. We follow them because the history of humanity has shown them to be useful and in tune with our species' innate sense of conscience. The rules for living can perhaps best be summed up in Confucius' (secular) Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
I recommend Karen Armstrong's TED talk on the Golden Rule, at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_armstrong_let_s_revive_the_golden_rule.html
Helen Hupe 30+
Arthur Borges 50+
As an atheist, agnostic or polytheist, you have to assume full personal liability for all your deeds: there is no way to pass the buck by kicking it upstairs and claiming you were "just following orders."
Helen Hupe 30+
Comment deleted
Arthur Borges 50+
Arthur Borges 50+
Just an opinion.
Comment deleted
Helen Hupe 30+
edward long 100+
The Koran, the Holy Bible, and the Jewish Scriptures present three different truths.
If any one of these books is correct then the other two must be incorrect.
Harmony and co-existance, while better than what we have now, is not the same as spiritual truth.
You can't bundle mutually exclusive ideologies and call it spiritual truth.
Rhona Pavis 50+
edward long 100+
Dalia's question is about religion, specifically the three major ones.
What is the name of the religion you are advocating?
Rhona Pavis 50+
Frans Kellner 100+
Gerry Atricks
Rhona Pavis 50+
Kareem Fahim
Dalia Rubin
Paul Lillebo
What has happened is that the early religions based on the once-flexible, mythic stories of Abraham and his descendants lost their flexibility, while theologians came up with ever-new doctrinal details that split groups apart. And the uncertainty that was reflected in the mythic stories became doctrinaire "truth" that must be believed in order to be properly "saved." When Jesus failed to reform the Jewish faith in the 1st century, his adherents broke with Judaism and became the Christian faith, with their own belief system. The deification of Jesus in the 3rd-4th centuries, with the creation of the "trinity," led eventually to Mohammed's effort to return to the "one God" in the 7th century. And so forth. By now we have innumerable sects of all the Abrahamic religions, all claiming absolute truth and ready to wipe one another out, for the love of God.
The only solution to this situation, other than giving up the religions, is for the religions to move back from certainty and accept uncertainty in their beliefs: To understand that to "believe" does not mean to "know" absolutely, but to hold a view that one accepts as likely true, while allowing that other interpretations may possibly be true. And above all to respect one's differences.
Of course the key question is how to move three major religions and dozens of sects toward an acceptance of uncertainty. There has been some movement toward that in Christian modernist seminaries, but it hasn't touched most of traditional Christianity. And I'm afraid that it will be a long time before the tens of thousands of priests, ministers, rabbis, imams and mullahs will be affected by liberalizing thought. In the meantime we can support movements away from absolutism, but it's hard to see anything more concrete.
Frans Kellner 100+
Instead of to reform it all again wouldn't it be better to get rid of it all and to start all over?
One culture celebrating love, beauty and harmony.
Mohammad Marohombsar
Sometimes, a simple talk is enough to save the world. These dialogues can happen everywhere if we let them. Once these dialogues occur we will uncover: "Who's really practicing their religion?" "What's their religion about?" "What do they do about this issue?" "How can we collaborate?".
It is clear. Either we try to understand each other or make our lives harder by choosing to be ignorant and insecure.
We do not need to create new religions because God made one for us and we'll never find which if we shut up and try to go about our own business ignoring our fellow humans.
Gerry Atricks
Miloš Pálek
But consider few other opinions..the new age of riligions is coming to be there soon.
Dalia Rubin
Gerry Atricks
Kareem Fahim
Differences, on the other hand, are created by men to achieve their personal objectives. People see what they wanna see and hear what they wanna hear. Bu their is only One Truth.
Does any religion not encourage tolerance? They all do. But sadly Religion is being/has been used as an excuse to do all evil. If you can manage a nice marketing compaign you can easily justify your war.
"If you kill an innocent person, it would be as if you killed whole humanity" www.quran.com/5/32
Dalia Rubin
My grandfather told me once that the whole world is his worship place, and that synagogue for him is a duty and a place to share his belief with others. My father doesn't like the establishment, and says that he doesn't need a mediator between him and god. They both agreed that religion should have no orgenised power, only the power of internal morality and ethics that it teaches: love thy neighbor.