We human beings, though of different races and cultures in different parts of the earth, still have the same human structure and faculties such as seeing, hearing, feeling and reason. With these faculties limited by age and sickness, we experience the world around, react to the changing events, enjoy the richness of this earth and suffer the cold and heat of this earth. With our power of reasoning to find causes beyond events, we all have been searching, like groping in the dark about ultimate causes.
In such a context, the God of all creation, reveals himself/herself/itself to humans. We have experienced divine revelations in various ways. Accordingly at different times religions have emerged. (The word Religion Comes from the latin - re + ligare= to bind or connect the two - God and Man). People of good will and some form of divine experiences have shared their different divine revelations. These religions or religious practices have evolved with human history. We see them in the present established forms and further evolutions can take place. as we have them. They had their sacred scriptures and legends, rituals of expression and worship, of Habits and traditions....
The Basic tenets were often formulated and publicly acknowledged by ceremonies of initiation.
I, as a Christian, can only remind my friends of the Christian Religion to its present form of development. In our catholic Tradition we have formulated and accepted the Basics of our faith in a formula known as the Nicene Creed, agreed by the whole church several centuries ago.
The articles of this Credo, besides annunciating our belief in God, as Creator, in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and in the Holy Spirit as the one sent by God the father and Son, annunciates our belief in the church, in the communion of Saints and in the forgiveness of sins,
This Credo is not directly taken from the Bible, but a formulation of the community of believers based on the Revelation made by the bible, Jesus Christ and the first disciples of Jesus Christ.
The church is a community of disciples born out of the Pentecost Event and gradually took shape through centuries of doctrinal and hierarchical structure, liturgy etc. The Jerusalem Church was the original, but it soon became many churches in different areas under different leaderships and with different liturgies, traditions etc. At present beside my so called Roman Catholic church, there are more than 265 Christian churches, some called orthodox catholic churches and others churches or communities. During the last few decades I have visited many times, the Headquarters of the World Council of Churches (WCC) , and was invited more than twice to participate in their Meetings. In 2017, christians want to commemmorate 500 years after Martin Luther in Lund. Pope Francis is scheduled to take part.
With regard to other religions, as religions, similar developments and changes have taken place. The Chicago Parliament of Religions is an effort to mutually recognise and understand religions. When it Comes to a concluding Statement, Buddhism, beng a non-theistic Religion, makes some difficulties. But all the same, there grows within humanity, a coming-together with regard to beliefs and practices concerning this earth-planet and the humanity therein.
My contact with religions outside Christianity, dialoguing with them, and visits to their temples, including the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, an eloquent expression of the thirst of humanity to experience the divine, urge me to acknowledge the good will and inspirations present in all these movements to wards one humanity with basic unity in their views, wishes and goals.
Hence my wish is that though every religion formed from divine revelations by beleivers develop a set of basic truths, codes of conduct, ceremonies etc., we all have to keep on making efforts at mutual apreciations, understanding and common profession of our beliefs, so as to help humanity move forward towards peaceful coexistence.
In the Name of Religion, so much of evil, death and destruction are unleashed. Peaceful coexistence of peoples in the world is possible only when there is peaceful coexistence of religions.
Hence looking beyond the walls and borders of our own Religion, we have to understand every Religion as created by humans, existing to serve the well-being of man, and collect the Basic common denominators of their faith into trans-religious credo!
Threats to Humanity are experienced from to time, some times from nature eg. Tsunami 0f 2004 where thousands died with an hour. There are man-made threats from what we are doing to threaten others with atomic bombs. At present te threat of corona virus named covid-19 is threatening whole humanity. We are able only to hide ourselves from contamination. We are not able to bring the virus under our control! We are made to acknowledge the limitations of human sciences.
These threats and the helplessness of humanity urge us to get together closer to one another crossing all boundaries of nations ethnicities governments and colour. We are reminded of our common poverty and helplessness and look beyond to the infinit power who created the universe for help!
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