DID YOU KNOW?
(President Barack Obama’s speech at Cairo University and recent news events prompted a repeat of the following. Many of you know this particular DID YOU KNOW? originally ran April 10, 2009.)
On CNN earlier this week, Dr. Rick Warren, Pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in California and bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life, said:
“There are 600,000 Buddhist in the world, there are 800,000 Hindus in the world, there are a billion Muslims in the world, there are 2.3 billion Christians in the world…you have to get along together.”
Dr. Warren, who was picked to deliver the religious invocation at the U.S. Presidential Inauguration earlier this year, spoke these words to Larry King on CNN’s Larry King Live.
There is no doubt there are different people worshiping different religions all over the world. Many of us know that. And we also know there are different things that are important to each of them.
From some religions we know ethics and codes of conduct matter. We see this, for example, in the practices of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. From other religions, we know it is the belief in a single God and established rules of orderly living—Islam, Judaism and Christianity come to mind. And from still other religions—primarily the indigenous ones on every continent—nature and ancestor worship figure prominently.
Differences, yes. But commonalities, also…yes!
Regardless of one’s religion, there is one thing that is common to all: The transcendence from the visible world around us to a spiritual one that is above and beyond our common human limitations. What does that mean? It means all religions are the result of an attempt by people to connect with a higher reality. Another way to look at: Religion exits because we want to be in touch with something that is bigger than us.
And religions have other things in common, too. Some can be seen in the following passages from:
The Qur’an-
Why do you dispute with us about GOD when He is equally your Lord and our Lord? To us belong our actions, to you yours. And we are true to Him.
The Torah-
Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt not in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am Lord.
The Bible-
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: there is no other commandment greater than these.
These three texts are representative of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. They are considered the Abrahamic Religions because all three are derived from the same source–Abraham. (It should be underscored there are other important Abrahamic Religions. They include: Bahá’í, Rastafarian, Samaritan, and Druze.)
Other similarities among the Abrahamic faiths are quite interesting. Along with the greatest similarity being the belief in one supreme God, there are, if one opens the pages of The Torah, The Bible and The Qur’an, the same names and familiar stories in each religious book– Adam, Eve, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Moses, David, Solomon and more.
These similarities could be the reason Mahatma Gandhi, who was born a Hindu, responded the way he did when he was asked was he a Hindu: “Yes, I am,” said Gandhi. “I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.”
In Washington, DC, on Massachusetts Avenue, just a few minutes from the White House, there is a memorial garden dedicated to Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-American author of The Prophet. One of the Mr. Gibran’s quotes at the memorial garden reads:
“I love you, my brother, whoever you are
Whether you worship in your church,
Kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque.
You and I are all children of one faith,
For the diverse paths of religion are
Fingers of the loving hand of one Supreme Being.
A hand extended to all.”
Mr. Gibran and Dr. Rick Warren must be allies because on CNN’s Larry King Live, Dr. Warren also said:
“We’re all human beings. We have to work on issues, even on issue we don’t always agree on. What people don’t understand is you don’t have to agree with every body in order to love them.”
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Sources:
The Alliance for Jewish, Christian and Muslim Understanding:
http://www.allianceforunderstanding.org/index_flash.html
Rick Warren and The Saddleback Church:
http://www.saddleback.com/index.html
CNN Larry King Live!
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/
National Geographic’s The Knowledge Book (forward by David Wallechinsky)
DID YOU KNOW? © is a product of The Tajiri Institute and is intended to share information and teach us something about ourselves, each other and our world. The Tajiri Institute, a Washington DC-based, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, works to promote understanding among “diverse” individuals and organizations by partnering with others to mobilize the incredible power of education, communication and collaboration. “Diverse” in this case refers to race, gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, age, disability, physical characteristics, language, sexual orientation and more. Please send all questions and comments to Floyd Nelson at communications@floydnelson.com. Thank you!
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