Unification of world religions for world peace

dattaswami · 06-23-2005, 05:30 PM

UNIFICATION OF WORLD RELIGIONS

If anyone says that his/her religion is the only path to God and that other paths lead to hell, I have one humble question. The question is for every religion without any trace of partiality. The simple question is: Today I have heard your Religion and if I follow that, I reach God and if I refuse I will go to the hell for my own fault. This is very much reasonable. But before your ancestors discovered our country, the literature or even the name of your religion was not known to our ancestor and he could not reach God for no fault of him. But your ancestor reached God through your religion at that time.

Even if I assume that my ancestor will take rebirth now and will follow your religion to reach God, such possibility is ruled out because you say that there is no rebirth for the soul. Thus my ancestor suffered forever for no fault of him and the responsibility for this falls on the partiality of God. Had the God been impartial, He could have revealed your religion to all the countries at a time. Had that happened, my ancestor might have also reached God as your ancestor. Therefore your statement proves your own God partial.

The only way left over to you to make your God impartial is that you must accept that your God appeared in all the countries at a time in various forms and preached your path in various languages. The same form did not appear everywhere and the same language does not exist everywhere. The syllabus and explanation are one and the same, though the media and teachers are different. Can you give any alternative reasonable answer to my question other than this? Certainly not! Any person of any religion to any other religion can pose this question.

Moreover every religion states that their God only created this world. Unfortunately this world is one only and every God cannot create the same world. There are no many worlds to justify that each God created His own world. Therefore any human being with an iota of commonsense has to agree that there is only one impartial God who created this one world and He came in different forms to different countries and preached the same path in all the languages simultaneously at one time.

Let this logic sword of the divine knowledge cut the rigid conservatism of the religious fans in this world to establish the Universal Peace. I need not beg all these religious followers to be united and harmonious to each other for the sake of world peace. Such begging appeals are made enough in the past. The religious fans feel that there is no unity really in the religions but they have to be united since their kind hearts melted by these appeals. Thus a temporary change was only brought. At the maximum one generation of the followers got united. The next generation fights with each other because they feel that there is no real unity in them due to lack of the real unity in their religious scriptures.

A permanent solution for this does not lie in the begging appeals, which may or may not unite the followers. Even if the appeals unite such unity is not permanent. If the real unity in all the religious scriptures is exposed through the logical divine knowledge, the followers have to be united for generations together. Therefore, My attack is not on the hearts of the followers through love and kindness. My attack is on all the religious scriptures through intellectual logical analysis of divine knowledge. The unity of hearts through love can be only temporary. The unity of brains through intellectual analytical divine knowledge will be permanent. Hearts agree but brains realize. Agreement is temporary, but realization is permanent. Thus this is My first blow of My divine Conch shell for the permanent unity of all the religions aiming at eternal Universal Peace.

juantoo3 · 06-23-2005, 07:11 PM

Kindest Regards, dattaswami, and welcome to CR!

While I am inclined to agree with you in principle, your premise begs one inevitable question: Unite under the banner of which religion? I presume you mean your own. Would you be willing to unite under mine?

9Harmony · 06-23-2005, 07:47 PM

You may be interested in reading this statement from The Universal House of Justice to the World's Religious Leaders.

http://www.greaterbaltimorebahais.or...02_english.pdf

Have a great day!

Loving Greetings, Amy

Vajradhara · 06-23-2005, 08:03 PM

just an aside...

my religion doesn't say that God created anything, let alone everything!

arthra · 06-23-2005, 08:20 PM

Sounds a little like our previous discussion Vajra... If I may summarize your prose statement as in your last sentence:

"My attack is on all the religious scriptures through intellectual logical analysis of divine knowledge. The unity of hearts through love can be only temporary. The unity of brains through intellectual analytical divine knowledge will be permanent. Hearts agree but brains realize. Agreement is temporary, but realization is permanent. Thus this is My first blow of My divine Conch shell for the permanent unity of all the religions aiming at eternal Universal Peace."

My friend:

I don't think the correct approach is to "attack" the world's scriptures. "Attack" usually only makes people defensive and unwilling to accept what you're saying.

Hearts can be united even when there is diverse opinions.... We all are in this world together and have varying views and backgrounds but we do share things and have common interests. It is these common interests that should be emphasized.

Intellect changes with language changes and definitions so truth is relative depending... but we must all seek it. Realization also can be transformed...a truth learned once can be transformed later as the mind and heart open.

In the Bahá'í view, this has been largely due to incomplete understanding. Bahá'ís believe that truth is relative rather than absolute. In other words, any statement which is made is only true to a certain point, and can be challenged when knowledge has increased.

If science is discovered truth, then religion is revealed truth. Each Founder of religion is the vehicle for bringing to humanity that which is needed to advance society at that particular time:

"The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem....The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require."

The underlying theme is that:

"All mankind have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization".

"Weigh carefully in the balance of reason and science everything that is presented to you as religion. If it passes this test, then accept it, for it is truth! If, however, it does not so conform, then reject it, for it is ignorance."

In friendship,

- Art

Saponification · 06-24-2005, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dattaswami

Moreover every religion states that their God only created this world.

Every religion concerned with the idea of a Creator god, you mean.

dayaa · 06-25-2005, 12:12 AM

hello all

i can't help wondering, and please excuse me if i'm way out of line here, i admit i only have a very basic knowledge of buddhism.....but it occurs to me that possibly God was not mentioned, not so much for lack of belief in him, but more to stress that it is attitudes and behaviour here and now that matter rather than labelling beliefs. i feel sure that God knows everything and he is not going to put a bad christian (for example) in heaven just because of his label and a good hindu (for example) in hell just because he has got the "wrong" label.
maybe buddhism isn't denying the existence of God, rather leaving it up to the individual to find his own belief and avoiding the "labelling" and stressing the actions.

generally in terms of unification of religions.....maybe that is something that will take shape at some later point in history. i tend to think it is difficult to jump straight from the situation we have now to unification. for the time being the best approach (in my opinion) is to aim for acceptance of pluralism.
if we can at least try to view it as different paths to the same destination and respect each others views then open-minded discussions can take place and we can stop killing each other . i have a mixed cultural background from two opposing cultures and i can see good and bad in both. how nice it would be if the two could learn from each other instead of constantly criticizing each other or throwing bombs at each other. i think we need to take it one step at a time .

arthra · 06-25-2005, 12:56 AM

dayaa wrote:

i can't help wondering, and please excuse me if i'm way out of line here, i admit i only have a very basic knowledge of buddhism.....but it occurs to me that possibly God was not mentioned, not so much for lack of belief in him, but more to stress that it is attitudes and behaviour here and now that matter rather than labelling beliefs.

Comment:

I like that...the way you worded that. I've thought for some time that the reason the Buddha did not overtly mentione "God" was because it would have likely been tossed off as just another variation of the belief of the time and so he wanted to be differentiated from the schools at the time by teaching "via negativa".

- Art

Saponification · 06-25-2005, 02:38 AM

Perhaps. But Buddhism is incompatible with the idea of an external influence. It's all about the karma we create, not divine intervention. And Shakyamuni Buddha invented that whole negative thing? Not really, it was just a cultural thing. In the West we find it easiest to explain things in positive terms, but in some other cultures they find it easier to explain things in negative terms.

dayaa · 06-26-2005, 09:48 PM

hello saponification

i've been meaning to ask this for some time, but never got round to it.....you said that buddhism is incompatible with external influence because it is all about karma which we make.....but how did the whole system of karma come into being? does it not have an "engineer" ?, is it just there all by itself? can you explain please.

Saponification · 06-27-2005, 03:06 AM

Do you live near a river or pond?

If so, go there. Stand at the edge of the water, pick up a pebble and throw it into the water. Observe what happens.

Vajradhara · 06-27-2005, 06:53 PM

Namaste all,

India, at the time, had a well developed and solid understanding of conceptions of Creator Deity, which, i think is well established.. Buddha Shakyamuni was well aware of these conceptions and ideations and refuted them.

Buddha Shakyanmunis rejection of a Creator Deity is not a philosophical objection, it is, rather a religous rejection based on a radically different ontology that is presented by him.

however, it is also quite correct that Buddha Shakyamuni didn't want you to accept his teachings without engaging in the process of analysis for your own...

thus, whilst Buddhism, as a ligua franca, does not support the concept of a Creator Deity, any individual Buddhist could.

Mister Emu · 06-28-2005, 01:40 AM

Dattaswami,

I disagree, there is but one way to God, through Jesus the messiah. There is but one death.

For those who lived and died without knowledge of the Lord(in the past, this would be Judaism, today Christianity/Messianic Judaism), one of two things happens I believe, either you are judged according to the law written on your heart, or you are given a chance to know the Lord Jesus.

I believe that all other religion than Judaism and Christianity, are either the works of man, or demon.

InLove · 06-28-2005, 02:55 AM

Hello, and Peace to All Here--

From what I understand, it is the Law given to Moses which convicts--Jesus himself stated this. He actually said that He would not be judging anyone--only that He will rule, according to what the Father has sworn. It is my solid belief that the Christ will know those who know Him, and therefore the Father will also know them.

My hope is not in unification of "religion" or politics. My hope is peace. Does the blood of Christ save us? Well, yes, it saves me. Was Jesus just a good man? No (He actually said so, himself--either He has to be delusional or a great big liar). Did He draw all people to Him?

If not, then why are we all here talking about Him?

Can we "usher in" the Kingdom of Heaven? Maybe--each in our own hearts and minds and in the Spirit. But I don't think it is something that we can say for sure, unless we come as children (with those palm leaves--I love those palm leaves; for some reason, they will never leave my heart.)

Well, I have rambled on enough--peace to all and to all be peace.

InPeace,
InLove

InLove · 06-28-2005, 03:16 AM

Hi--Peace to All Here--

Better clarify that:

Quote:

Originally Posted by InLove

Was Jesus just a good man? No (He actually said so, himself--either He has to be delusional or a great big liar).

I left out two very important words--and it should read this way:

Quote:

Was Jesus just a good man? No (He actuallysaid so, Himself--IF NOT, either He has to be delusional or a great big liar).

Just needed to clear that up---

InPeace,
InLove