The Truth About Religion

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-laderman/truth-about-religion_b_3741189.html

Gary Laderman
Chair of the Department of Religion, Emory University

Posted: 08/13/2013 8:53 am




The news media continue to stretch the boundaries of religion far beyond the usual parameters in the American popular imagination. Is belief in climate change a religion, as Rep. Steve King asserts? Did Steve Jobs create a new iReligion with all his visionary iProducts? Has Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead achieved the status of a spiritual icon?

Look on the pages of HuffPost, follow the religion headlines in Google news, read through the posts at Patheos, and you will see that religion is no longer simply a matter of faith in God. Instead, it is ... anything and everything imaginable. The truth about religion is that there is no one Truth but rather multiple versions of many possible truths.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, called religion a neurosis and claimed that it was, at bottom, an illusion; Karl Marx, who called for the workers of the world to unite, famously stated that religion was the opiate of the masses; William James, American pragmatist and innovative psychologist, defined religion as the feelings, acts, and experiences of individuals in their solitude as it relates to their apprehension of the divine; 20th century theologian Paul Tillich asserted that religion is an expression of ultimate concern.

The great religious traditions all provide very different teachings about religious truth: no god and impermanence in Buddhism; multiple gods and one underlying cosmic reality in Hinduism; one God who created the cosmos and humans in the three monotheistic religions; and among indigenous religious cultures throughout the world, an understanding that sacred powers permeate the cosmos with a variety of spiritual truths tied to these powers.

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[Peacetrain]

1. I always find this comforting

All things that you would want done for you, Do for others.. Matt. 7:12
Christianity

What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowman...Talmud: Shabbat 31a
Judaism

Hurt not others in ways that you would not find hurtful Udana-Varga 5,18
Buddhism

This is sum of duty, Do naught unto others, which would cause you pain if done to you.. Mahaebharata 5,1517
Brahmanism

Surely it is the maxim of loving kindness: Do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you
Analects 15,23
Confucianism

Regard your neighbors gains as your own gains and your neighbors loss as your own T'ai Shang Kan Yingp P'ien
Taoism

That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself
Dadistan-I-Dinik 94,5
Zoroastrianism

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother which he desires for himself. Sumnah
Islam

[cbayer]

2. Great group of maxims. Did you put that together yourself.

I also have a few things I draw on that I ran across during particularly difficult times in my life.

[Peacetrain]

3. No I didn't

A UMC minister pulled that together years ago.. and I kept them. It keeps my grounded, to know that the same Spirit that speaks to me in my heart.. speaks to everyone.

[cbayer]

4. That's a beautiful thought.

I read "It's easier than you think" at one point in my life, and so much of it has stayed with me.

Returning to it from time to time has allowed me to alter a course that was detrimental.

Many of these could serve a similar purpose.

Thanks for sharing them.

[roguevalley]

5. Beautiful