Intro to World Religions

Transcription

1 Intro to World Religions

2 Why Study World Religions?

3 Why Study World Religions? 1. Learning about world religions empowers us to enter into fascinating conversations about the most important things in life: birth and death, faith and doubt, meaning and confusion.

4 Why Study World Religions? 2. Learning about world religions helps us ask good questions and get into important conversations. Asking questions is distinctly human. We want to know why. Why are we here? Where are we going? How are we to live? What is the purpose of life? Does God exist? Does evil exist? Do we exist?

5 Why Study World Religions? 3. Learning about world religions helps us explore and understand our own faith better. 4. Learning about world religions helps us better understand other people.

6 Why Study World Religions? Whether religion divides or unites depends on whether we can learn to talk about it with some measure of empathetic understanding. To reckon with the world as it is, we need religious literacy. We need to know something about the basic beliefs and practices of the world s religions.

7 The Reality for most of the World With the notable exception of Western Europe, the rest of the world is furiously religious. Yet, all too often world history is told as if religion didn t matter.

8 The Reality for most of the World Most of the world s greatest paintings, novels, sculptures, buildings, and musical compositions were religiously inspired. If you want to make sense of the world you need to make sense of religion for it is often the number one thing that drives people, communities and societies.

9 The Reality for most of the World Religion is one of the greatest forces of evil in world history. Religion is one of the greatest forces for good in world history. Like all forms of ignorance, not understanding religion (and denying our differences) makes our world a more dangerous place to live in.

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11 Aren t all Religions the Same? No one argues that communism and capitalism are the same because they are both economic systems. No one says Platonism and Aristotelian philosophy are the same because they are both philosophies. Yet many continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity are essentially the same.

12 Aren t all Religions the Same? They will say, The essentials of all religions are the same. There is difference only in the non-essentials. This is a lovely sentiment but it is dangerous, disrespectful and untrue.

13 Examples One mistake Christians can make is to assume that salvation from sin is the goal of all religions and then argue that only Christianity achieves this goal. But salvation from sin is not something that Confucians or Buddhists seek as they do not even believe in sin.

14 Examples Christians believe Jesus died on the cross. Muslims do not believe that Jesus died on the cross, but that someone took Jesus place. Muslims believe in the physical resurrection of the body. Buddhists believe in the total annihilation of the self.

15 Examples The Baha'i faith believes that all major religions have the same spiritual source and come from the same God. The Jewish faith emphatically denies this. All these beliefs cannot be correct as they contradict each other. Jesus could not have died and not died on the cross. Either Christians or the Muslims are wrong.

16 Why Have so Many Come to Believe all Religions are the Same?

17 Why Have so Many Come to Believe all Religions are the Same? 1. We have become uncomfortable with argument when it comes to religion because we have seen the extremely ugly side of religious intolerance. The ideal of religious tolerance (a good thing) has now morphed into the straitjacket of religious agreement (a bad thing).

18 Intolerance is usually the product of ignorance. Is this T-shirt correct?

19 Why Have so Many Come to Believe all Religions are the Same? 2. In North America today we are far more likely to say I feel rather than I think. We see religion as subjective rather than objective. We see religion as personal and private and not social and public.

20 Godthink is ideological rather than actual it s a naive desire and does not reflect reality. In fact, it is just another religion that claims that it is right and all others are wrong or less right than they are.

21 Understanding Others Rather than beginning with Godthink that lumps all religions together in one big soup, we must understand the fundamental differences in both belief and practice between religions like Islam and Christianity and Buddhism and Hinduism.

22 Understanding Others What is required in any relationship is knowing who the other person really is. This is only frustrated by the naïve hope that somehow you and your partner are magically the same. In relationship and religions, denying differences is a recipe for ill-health and disaster.

23 Understanding Others Real dialogue across religions must recognize the existence of differences and respect them enough to take them seriously enough to be argued with.

24 Understanding Others Remember that people are individuals (not ideas) and should be treated as such. Remember that there is much diversity even within each world religion. As we study them try to get to know the people within these faith and their own particular beliefs.

25 What is the Same across World Religions? What the world s religions share is not so much a finish line as a starting point. They all begin with the observation that something is wrong with this world. Each religion presents a problem, a solution, a technique and an exemplar.

26 Goals 1. Gain a better understanding and compassion for people and their different religious beliefs. 2. Gain a better understanding of our own religious beliefs. 3. Learn to respectfully dialogue with people of other faiths to learn from them and challenge them (and yourself) in their religious convictions. 4. To grow in love for God and others.

27 The Six World Religions We Will Look At Western Judaism: The Way of Exile and Return Christianity: The Way of Salvation Islam: The Way of Submission Eastern Confucianism: The Way of Propriety Hinduism: The Way of Devotion Buddhism: The Way of Awakening

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