Monday, September 19, 2011

Valuing all the great religions

Artist: Jan van Eyck

The quotation I have for you this evening is sadly controversial. Fundamentalism is rampant in our world today and fundamentalists of every stripe believe that those who follow a faith other than their own are damned. I know that there are traditionalist members of my own church who would brand me a heretic for saying I agree with these words of Gandhi and yet I will say it anyway. We need to mature past the desire to feel secure that we're "in" by knowing that other people are "out".

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. I believe that they are all God-given and I believe that they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoints of the followers of these faiths, we should find that they were at bottom all one and were all helpful to one another.

- MK Gandhi

Adherents of different faith traditions can come together with great success through meditation. The mind works the way the mind works. This is true for all of us regardless of our belief system.
~~~

3 comments:

  1. Ellie-
    this is exactly where your Light of Compassion shines so bright*!
    we are All One.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Ellie for the courage to take a stand against the destructive mind set of ALL fundamentalists.

    annie c

    ReplyDelete
  3. All fundamentalism comes from the same mindset, an extreme discomfort or intolerance for uncertainty or for not having final answers. All fundamentalism is therefore about eliminating all uncertainty by offering final answers.

    ReplyDelete

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