Children of Adam
Why a liberal, non-dogmatic •monotheism• is the best philosophical and religious system to achieve global ☮peace☮ and unity:
Atheism does not intrinsically foster universal morality. For example, communist Russia has murdered tens of millions of their own citizens. Khmer regime too murdered millions.
No religion means no universal morality.
Now it is true that religion DID cause centuries of wars: crusades and jihad and genocide. But- it wasn't a universalist non-dogmatic monotheism! Just the opposite! Christians killed others for rejecting the deity of Jzs, and Muslims killed others for rejecting the authority of Muhammed, REGARDLESS of the others' belief in G-od.
So it was the non-liberal, overly dogmatic approach to religion that causes wars.
In essence, all religions teach that Go'dly peace and morality are the ultimate virtue. But then all the sects get into dogmatic disputes about whose prophet is greater, or whose scriptures are to be followed. So the belief in Go-d doesn't cause wars, but our narrow factionalism does!
We should all be allowed to be loyal to OUR own 'flavor' of monotheism- as long as it does not threaten anyone!
As long as your religion does not promote inflicting harm or sectarian control of others, everyone should be free to live in peace. Shal/Ohm...
You're sort of correct when you say "no religion means no universal morality." It's actually "no God means no universal morality." Religion is irrelevant.
That's when your article falls apart. We should all be allowed to be loyal to our own flavour of monotheism? So we should all create our own standard as long as it doesn't violate others. Is not violating others part of your standard that you are imposing which is violating the creating of my standard? The problem is you have incorrectly evaluated the monotheistic "religions" and have not properly attributed the correlation between the teachings of said belief system and the actions of its adherents. Properly followed Islam will wage jihad. Properly followed Christians will not wage any type of violence. Just because an adherent does an action does not mean it is prescribed by their holy book.
of course people aren't perfect. of course we don't follow our respective religions 'perfectly'. But that wasnt my point.
My point was that at its core, all religions I know, teach Peace and coexistence. It is only through focusing on the non-essentials that the religious wars are waged, ex. shiyas vs. sunnis, xtians vs. muslims, etc.
All religions teach peace and coexistence? That's simply not true. Have you read the Quran? Islam only teaches peace when there is only Muslims on the earth. All religions at their core are exclusive. Only one can be true. In that one true religion is where we find that universal morality you mention.
well judaism is NOT 'exclusive'. Torah does not teach that non-jews are doomed or damned. Every moral ethical human being will see the eternal reward. While jews welcome sincere converts, it takes serious study under recognized rabbis to be allowed to convert, at least in the orthodox (Torah observant) judaism.
Hence my point about liberal monotheism. Both christianity and islam have a very strong dominant theology teaching that outside of their religion salvation is impossible.
It is slowly changing, but it will take a long time to change. The catholic ex-pope Ratzinger wrote that in his PERSONAL opinion, Torah jews aren't 'damned' or 'unsaved'. Some courageous imams too don't consider religious jews as wrong, notably imam Palazzi from italy, and imam Mohammed Tawhidi from Australia. Naturally they are overwhelmingly labeled by most muslims as 'sell-outs' and 'zionist shills'...
But the fact remains, if one focuses on Go'd -instead of His messangers, monotheism IS able to bring unity to our planet! ☮✡