On 2008-05-09, The Deep <dinprabhu@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> Richard,
>
> Thank you for a thoughtful article. It was timely, especially
> since the newsgroups seems to filled with inanities, and an
> unwillingness for people to find common ground. I quite agree that
> there is a good bit of similarity in the core beliefs (mystical core,
> if you will) of *all* religions. However, I think a good starting
> point would be to emphasize the similarities of the human animal in
> the "here and now," even before exploring exploring the similarities
> in the "abstract" civilizing force of religion. Just my thoughts. I
> wish you luck in your endeavors.
Thanks.
I wonder how much of the similarity in the civilising force could be
down to the similarities in the human animal. So much of the similarity
I see in religion is very much at the practical level - the idea that
greed is not helpful, compassion and helping other is, attachment to
material gain is not helpful.
(I note how some people do get rich and do very well for others from
it, but that seems to be a difference in their approach. I read about
Peter Gabriel yesterday as an example but wonder if his wealth came as
a side effect of him loving his job, and now he's in a great position
to help others. Someone else I know about has been greedy, but lives
in a back-stabbing world with it. That said, he re****ts that he is very
happy with it.)
All the religions seem to practice reverence for something 'other' even
if it's not a god as such for the Buddhists. Their prayer starts "In the
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha I take refuge...". Devotion is something I'd
like to understand more. There's also meditation in some form. I've not
studied Islam as yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to find it there too
even outside the Sufis.
Although the reasons and explanations in each religion are different,
they seem to get their people doing very similar things, at least
nowadays. There are a number of possible beliefs as to how that came to
be. There are some big differences between the religions. Differences
such as the need to evangelise or the belief that non-believers will go
to hell seem to be where the pain comes from.
By abstracting I am choosing to ignore the different actual beliefs and
explanations and just leave them as "unresolved" at the moment, which is
something that many people in each religion would not accept. I'm reducing
the relevance of whether or not Jesus was the son of God, whether Brahma
did create the world[1] and so on. It is things like this that the church
at least seems to emphasise above the non-greed, help others and so forth.
Would exploring the similarities at the human level be more akin to
humanism? Are you more humanist, or do you follow one (or more) of
the religions?
- Richard
[1] If Brahma is seen as the force of creation, then doesn't that become
true by definition? That would be a consideration of the Hindu
deities as personifications of aspects of a Brahman that is the
beauty/divinity of the world we live in. Such a Brahman would indeed
be phenomenal. I'm not sure how close to the mark or far from the mark
that understanding is, as it's not a "personal god". The best I've
been able to work out is that some believe that way, some don't. I
suspect from practice that more don't.
--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard dot Corfield at gmail dot com
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twilight Zone
|
