> (Jerusalem) it has been a bone of contention only in the last 60 years.
Ok we are really digressing now, but wasn't Jerusalem also declared as the reason for the Crusades? And even if you interpret the conflict as only a recent issue (and anti-Israel by implication) is it not so that this commonality failed to foster closeness over the centuries between the 3 religions which claim a common root?
Someone PM'd me an interesting quote, "the only true religion is one that all mankind can believe in". This goes hand in hand with another belief that I share and is better explained by Ewald Flugel:
The essential meaning of every religion is to answer the question "Why do I live, and what is my attitude to the limitless world which surrounds me?". There is not a single religion, from the most sophisticated to the most primitive, which does not have as its basis the definition of this attitude of a person to the world.
At the heart of all religions lies a single unifying truth. Let Persians bear the taovids, Jews wear their caps, Christians bear their cross, Muslims bear their sickle moon, but we have to remember that these are all only outer signs. The general essence of all religions is love to your neighbor, and that this is requested by Manuf, Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Saint Paul, and Mohammed alike.
Perhaps before we get down to teaching the specifics of each religion, we need to teach that tolerance and acceptance of different paths does not diminish one's own faith anymore than eating Greek food does not take away from the nutrition of Japanese diet. None of us expects to gain every vitamin and essential nutrients from a single dish. And yet when it comes to spiritual and ideological beliefs many are dead set that there must be a single correct answer (which of course is the one they believe in).
Sun Tzu |
