Religious Tolerance Issues - Essay Example

Religious tolerance Religious tolerance Human beings are the only species on the world that are endowed with the potential to embrace religion. However, over the years, religion has evolved in distinct ways and has acquired different aspects in distinct cultures. It is true that most people view the world via their own cultural preferences, this makes it hard to understand how inherently religion has evolved or changed into something different and weird in other people’s religion. It is from this perspective that it is important to study all world religion and tries to understand what they entail. In addition, the reorganization and study of distinct religious tradition offers different way of conceptualizing and organizing the differing ideas about god and social organization that arise from these different opinions concerning the understanding of God. For long time, religion has been helpful to mankind in that it is very for humans to live without order orientation or religion. This is because; religion provides a basis on which people, societies and different world cultures built their lives and institutions. In order to embrace religious tolerance, it is important for people to establish a basic familiarity with other traditions and develop an open mind to be comfortable with the concept that it is possible for others to apply different conceptual systems to organize the same experience and aspirations that we posses. Additionally, it is also ital to recognize and understand how that in modern age, religion is playing a big role in social and political arena thus we need to be very careful on how we asses and evaluate other religions and develop a mechanism on how to deal with variety of religions and tolerate divergent practices. It is significant to note that religious diversity and the role of religion should play in people’s lives are not new issues. This is because encouraging religious toleration makes people to shun away from religious fanaticism and challenges them to pursue life, liberty, and happiness commanded by rational choice and personal judgment. It is worth noting that awareness of religions distinct from ours and tolerance for them is a rare virtue in any world society. But based on rational choice and personal judgment, makes such awareness essential or important. Religious toleration is very important in maintaining a harmonious civic society and promoting personal religious or spiritual aspirations (Esposito et al, 2002). Hindu religion In order to understand the Hindu religion, it is vital to look at the brief history of Hindu religion and its virtues. Hindu is a religion that is found in South Asia, whereby the inhabitants of this region practice Hindu tradition, which is comprised in the Vedas. There existed a culture in the Northwestern part of the Indian region that predates the Sanskrit speaking Vedic tradition. Tolerance of Hindu religion began when the inhabitants of the Indus river valley encountered the indo-European people that moved in the same region between 2000 and 1400 BCE from Central Asia. The religious culture that emerged from this interaction later became to be known as Hinduism. In addition, the belief system of Hindu religion has changed when compared to its origin from the Vedas (Ruthven, 1997). Contemporary Hinduism has evolved in such a manner that it shares some of its basic ideals with the Vedas, which is distinct from the Vedic religious tradition. For instance, according to the Vedic, nature of gods is rarely worshipped by current Hindus, although it plays a vital role in the Hindu myths. In the same manner, Buddhism which began as a reform movement with the Indian culture shares some basic outlook of life with Hinduism like belief in rebirth but also differs in some social belief like religious hierarchy. The Indo-European Indians who settled in Indus valley were a group of people who were culturally and ethnically different from the original inhabitants of the Indus valley civilization (Ruthven, 1997). But it is amazing to note that the interaction between these two groups of people led to establishment of Hindu religion where they shared basic social and religious beliefs of their societies. The Vedic population slowly changed from pastoral to agricultural economy after the socialization with the new comers. In addition, the hymnal composition of the Vedas indicates that the population worshipped various forces of nature as gods and believed that their prosperity and security depended on keeping the nature gods happy. For centuries, the Hindu belief system has changed because of civilization but despite the fact that the Hindu belief system has changed from the Vedic times, many of the Vedic hymns are still recited in modern worship and social ceremonies such as funerals and weddings (Chilton, 2008). This is the process that preserves and sustains the continuity of Hindu religious culture. Also, it is reasonable to argue that the Vedic hymns composed by different poets and thus, the Vedas does not represent any one person’s religious belief but instead, it represents a plurality of spiritual concerns of the Aryans who lived in India. Christianity Christianity developed as between 16th century in Jerusalem since it started as a minority movement within the Roman Empire and placed its faith on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It became a religious force in Israel after Emperor Constantine recognized it. In order to identify the issue of religious toleration in Christianity, it is wise to look at Christian communities and the history of scriptural tradition (Esposito et al, 2002). In addition, Paul contributed to the development of Christianity as a religion and lastly, Christianity as religion vividly depicted creedal belief system of worship that represents diversity. In looking at the history of Christianity, it is significant to look back to the 538 B.C when the Persian King CYRUS allowed the Jewish population that was exiled in Judah to return back to Jerusalem after he defeated the Babylonians. The coming years proved to be an interesting history of monotheism as there was emergence of Rabbic Judaism and creation of Christianity. In later parts of this period, Christianity arose and evolved greatly adopting different faiths on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Today, Christianity has continued to shape and change ways of society and culture of the western world. More so, Christianity adopted its teachings on Mosaic laws which focused on exclusive worship of God when political tension and Diaspora had scattered the descendants of Israel beyond its original homeland. As a result, there was a significant support for the view at the end of history in that non-Jewish and Gentiles nations joined the true righteous religion and their cultures tuned out to be compatible with the spirit of the Torah (Esposito et al, 2002). Therefore, the social, political and intellectual atmosphere in Jerusalem incorporated different responses to that central question as to how one should live in accordance with the Torah laws. In order to identify the issue of religious in Christianity, it is significant to look at the assimilation of local religious practices with the worship of Greek gods. It is true that religion and culture was deeply intertwined in ancient world. Due to this, the Greek culture was accepted in Christianity thus bringing in Greek patterns of worship. Also, the Romans adopted the political authority from the Greek, inherited this practice. The diversity of Greek society of the ancient time made it possible for other religions to flourish and worship their gods such as Isis and Mitras whose death and rebirth symbolized the hope for humanity. Christianity as a religion adopted many concepts and cultures from other societies thus encouraging religious tolerance by accepting cultures of other societies to influence some of its teachings. Islam Development of Islam is associated with Prophet Mohammed since he is perceived as the last biblical prophets of God. Muslim’s view Quran to be containing the record of the final, perfect and complete revelation of the divine design of mankind as said by prophet Mohammed who was inspired by God via angel Gabriel. Development of Islam took place during the period when people recognized that God’s rule indeed existed on earth. Islam represents religious tolerance in history in that Mohammed’s father came from a ruling Qu’rash clan in Mecca but he belonged to a less wealthy family, his father died before he was born while his mother died when he was six which made him move to go and live with his uncles thus learning cultures of other society different from his own (Fallows, 1998). Mohammed lived in different towns including Hijra. It is important to note that acceptance of Mohammed’s role as the moral and political authority by the early Ummah reveals that submission to God in Islam is an individual and community responsibility. In addition, Islam incorporated different beliefs of the Sunni’s and Shias during the golden age. In contemporary society, the Sufi piety has influenced some oriented people such as Hasan al Bana who founded the radical political group known as the Muslim Brother Hood which sought to bring ritual practices of Islam with Sufi mysticism, whereby every act would be incorporated with the spirit of Submission to Allah (Fallows, 1998). Monotheistic and other religions Other monotheistic religion such as Judaism, have used historical experiences as a symbol via which to explore the issue of morality, meaning of life and mortality. They view history as a repository of concrete learning examples provided by God unlike other religions such as Tao or Brahman (Chilton, 2008). Monotheistic religion view history as the correct path that human beings can use in worship of God who they believe is the controller of the earth and everything in it. In sum, there are many world religions such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism that develop their concept of worship in different manner in accordance with societal culture but aim at worshipping supernatural power. References Chilton, B. (2008). Religious tolerance in World Religions. New York: Templeton Press. Esposito, J, Darrell, F &Todd, L. (2002). World Religions Today. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fallows, W. J. (1998). Religions East and West. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Ruthven, M. (1997). Islam: A very short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More