RELIGION
About this chapter
The subject of this chapter is a particularly thorny issue and requires a
certain maturity on the part of the reader: for this reason the authors of this site
decided to write the chapter for children no younger than ten or twelve, who will
have to be helped by their teachers.
There are three basic ideas:
1) there are many religions in the world
2) some people say that human beings are religious animals by nature
3) there is a variety of possible attitudes towards religions that are different
from one’s own.
The first part (which underlines the variety of religious traditions) deals with
the concrete aspects of religious experience (i.e., religious practices), which are the
aspects that children may relate to more easily. First of all, we provide some basic
notions about each of the major world religions (while readers are asked to send us
brief presentations of the many religions that are missing from our list), in an
attempt to eradicate some of the most deeply-rooted prejudices, and we refer
those readers who are interested in finding out more about each religious tradition
to sites that are specifically dedicated to them. The points of view of atheists and
agnostics will also be presented. Next, we shall try to encourage a balanced
understanding of the various traditions by comparing and contrasting various
religious ceremonies: for example, in the section dealing with those ceremonies
that mark people’s passage through the most important stages of
existence, we shall compare the ways in which Hindus, Jews, Christians, etc.,
celebrate marriages, funerals, and other ceremonies.
In the second part of this chapter (which deals with the answers that each
religion provides for the great universal questions) we shall try to demonstrate
how, faced with the same existential problems, the various religions have worked
out specific solutions. Of course, we won’t be able to supply in-depth analyses of
the positions adopted by each religious doctrine vis à vis the origins of the
universe, life and death, suffering, good and evil: we shall therefore limit ourselves
to providing some examples and, once again, we shall ask the readers to fill out
our “in progress” collection with their contributions.
Whereas the first two parts are devoted to a description of the different
religions, in the third part (regarding the various possible attitudes towards
religions that are different from one’s own) we shall also talk about conflicts,
persecutions, wars, and exterminations perpetrated in the name of religious belief.
Then we will ask the children whether they perceive a contradiction between the
abstract principles of the religions in question and such forms of behaviour. The
aim is to stimulate group discussion so as to encourage the children themselves to
suggest possible ways in which the different religious faiths can co-exist peacefully.
As with the previous chapter of Accepting Diversity, each of the three parts
will be subdivided into five sections: Basic Idea, More About, Examples, Exercises
and Quotations (to find out more about the purpose of these sections, go to
Umberto Eco’s Introduction).
Pre-basic idea
by Umberto Eco
In order to begin to tackle the difficult subject of religion, the teacher should
first of all ask the kids whether their family or their neighbours’ families take part in
the religious rites that are practised in their country. Then he/she should ask them
whether they know of anyone who, in their country, practices the rites of a
different religion (or whether they have read in some book, or seen at the cinema
or on television, that there are people who profess different religions – including
ancient religions that are no longer professed, such as those of the Ancient Romans
or Egyptians). Starting off from this observation, that different religions exist, the
teacher may pass on to the question “what is a religion?”.
Religious feeling
It has been said that human beings are religious animals. We do not know
what goes through a cat’s, a dog’s, or a bird’s head, but, as far as we can see,
animals do not have any religion (even though someone once said that when a dog
bays at the moon it is in fact recognizing the existence of Something that does not
belong to its world). Instead, all the peoples that we know anything about have
shown they have religious feelings.
As we shall see later on, there are religions that believe in a single God
(monotheistic religions), and others that believe in a multitude of religious entities,
such as the ancient gods, or the spirits of water, trees, etc., (polytheistic religions);
there are religions that have churches or temples, and others that honour their
gods amidst a natural environment; there are religions that represent their gods in
the forms of statues or paintings, others that venerate them through a rock, and
others still that don’t seem to have any object to venerate or adore. But, before we
decide what a religion really is, we ought to establish the nature of religious
feeling, which seems to be present in all human communities, past and present.
Why?
Children very soon begin to ask their parents lots of “whys”, why does the
sun give light?, why does water make things wet?, etcetera etcetera. Religious
feeling sets in when people ask themselves why they exist, or why the Universe
(the World, the Sky, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars) exists and how it came into
being.
These “whys” regard first of all the Past, the Present, and the Future. As far
as the Past is concerned, human beings ask themselves whether the Universe was
made by Someone. As for the Present, they ask themselves how they must live and
behave with their kin, and whether the Being that made the world in any way
helps, protects, judges, rewards or punishes them – perhaps through the mediation
of His/Her “helpers”, such as angels, spirits, or other forces of nature. And
because all human beings feel that certain things are bad (for example sickness,
death, the loss of loved ones, or of the things they are most attached to) they ask
themselves why things in the world do not happen the way they would like them
to, and whether that which they perceive as bad is allowed by the Being that
created the world, and for what reason. Finally, they ask themselves what will
happen to them or to others after death. Do all things end in nothingness or will
the Creator of the world look after them?
All of these questions (which we shall be talking about in the second part of
this chapter) are expressions of religious feeling, and it is from them that the
various religions (which we shall be talking about in the first part) originally sprang.
Transcendent Principle and Immanent Principle
Generally speaking, religions acknowledge the existence of something that is
superior to us, something Sacred, something we cannot see or touch, but from
which we depend. Religions are divided into those that recognize a Transcendent
Principle and those that recognize an Immanent Principle.
By Transcendent Principle we mean a Deity that does not belong to our own
Universe and is fundamentally different from us. It has a spiritual nature and lives
in the sky or somewhere else. According to some religions, such a Transcendent
Principle not only created the Universe, but also manifested Itself to human beings
through a Revelation, which is handed down to us through some Sacred Texts.
By Immanent Principle we mean a Cause (or a set of different Causes) that
belongs to our own Universe, and that is often considered as the Deity itself; or,
alternatively, it is believed that the many forces at work in the Universe (air, fire,
and the various natural powers such as the winds, the Sun or the Stars) are
different aspects of the Sacred dimension.
What do non believers believe in?
In some ways, those people who do not recognize any religion also have a
religious feeling. This includes agnostics and atheists.
Agnostics are people who believe that no answers can be provided for the
questions we mentioned earlier. Thus they do not accept the answers offered by
the various religions. This does not mean, however, that they underestimate many
of these questions. Therefore they try to find their own life values (see Ethical
Systems).
Atheists are people who do not believe that the Universe was created by a
transcendent entity, and they often think that they can prove this scientifically.
They also think that the Revelations of the various religions cannot be proved to be
true. Some of them accept an Immanent Principle, but feel that if the Deity is
identified with the Universe of which we are a part, then this means that there is
no God outside of us. However, just like agnostics, atheists also try to follow
certain life values.
Some people do not believe in any Deity. They think that, as God does not
exist, then human beings are free to do what they will, and in order to satisfy all
their desires, they can kill, steal, or ride roughshod over other people’s rights. But
such cases are less frequent than one may think. It is very rare for a human being
not to ask him/herself what is good and what is bad, and not to feel tied to others
by bonds of affection, duty, and common responsibilities. This happens because
human beings are essentially social animals, which means that they can live only if
other people recognize them, love them, and help them. When people ask
themselves questions about their relationship with others, and wonder why they
feel attached to them, they express some form of religious feeling, even if they do
not believe in any religion.
1. BASIC IDEA: There are many religions in the world
There are many religions in the world: from Hinduism, which includes several
different religious movements, other religious traditions, such as Buddhism,
Jainism and Sikhism, were derived and became distinct religions. The three
monotheistic Semitic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Some
religions are rooted in the cultural life of a specific people, such as Confucianism,
Daoism, Shintoism and the Native African, American and Australasian
religions. Others, such as Baha’ism, combine elements taken from different
traditions.
The list of religions that you will find in these pages is, inevitably, incomplete. If you wish to help
us make it more exhaustive, you may send us a brief presentation of one of the many missing
religions. Get in touch with the editors who will send you a style-sheet to guide you as you write
the presentation.
RELIGIONS AND DATES
Different religions count the years in different ways. For example, Jews count
them from the presumed date of the creation of the world (the year 2001 would be
5761), while Muslims count them from the date of the Hegira (2001 would be
1379).
The calendar that is usually used in international affairs is the Christian calendar,
which starts from the year in which Jesus Christ was presumably born: in the
Christian world it is the year 2001 AD (Anno Domini, “the Year of Our Lord”), or
2001 of the Common Era (CE).
1.1. MORE ABOUT…
1.1.1. What is a religion?
When you compare different religious traditions, you have to avoid taking for
granted your own definition of what a religion is. Indeed, the word “religion” may
be employed to refer to at least four different things.
Religion as a set of practices
A set of traditions, rites, stories, habits and ceremonies that are cultivated by a
certain group of people and are handed down from one generation to the next.
Religion as an overall vision of life
A series of beliefs, a system of rules, a conception of what is right and wrong
and, generally speaking, a certain overall vision of life.
Religion as a theological doctrine
A doctrine explains the relationship between human beings and all that lies
beyond concrete reality, i.e. the ultramundane dimension.
Religion as an intimate spiritual attitude
An individual relationship that each person establishes with the sacred
dimension, sometimes identifying wholly with a certain religion, and other times
interpreting the tradition he/she belongs to in a personal manner.
According to the specific meaning one attaches to the word “religion”, a
given spiritual tradition may or may not be considered to be a religion. For
example, some religious historians wonder whether Buddhism may be seen as a
religion in the same way as Judaism, Christianity or Islam: if by religion one means
the relationship between human beings and a Superior Being, then Buddhism
(which does not talk of God) is not a religion; but if one extends the meaning of
this word to a set of spiritual and moral teachings accepted in faith by a community
and practised in everyday life, then Buddhism can be totally included in this
definition.
1.1.2. How religions change
According to many historians of religion, religions are not fixed and perfectly
coherent systems, but are continuously evolving traditions.
Human beings who practice a certain religion, and who transmit it to the
following generations, live within their own culture and are influenced by it. If the
culture they belong to changes, then the religious tradition is also subject to the
pressure of change. For example, the caste system that was central to the Hindu
tradition has been abolished by the modern Indian Constitution, which forbids all
forms of discrimination on the basis of caste. Another example of the
transformations that may occur within a religious tradition is given by the role that
Buddhism assigns to women: the Dalai Lama has stated that it is necessary to
reconsider deeply the position of women (which, as in most other religions, was
originally marginal and subordinate to that of men) within Buddhism.
Changes are not always accepted by all members of a religious community:
at times they produce schisms, which result in a division within the religious
tradition. This is what happened to Christianity several times, for example when the
Orthodox Church and the Roman Church officially split in 1054 CE, or when
(starting from the 16th century) the Protestant Churches arose in opposition to the
Roman Catholic Church.
The encounter with other religions, which occurs when some members of a
certain tradition have contacts with members of different traditions, may also
trigger changes: at times these take the form of mutual exchanges and
adjustments, as for example between Jews, Muslims and Christians in 10 th-12th
century Spain. Other times the encounter can trigger conflicts, which may occur
when one religion tries to force the followers of other religions to convert, or
prevents them from respecting their precepts and rituals, or – in some extreme
cases – physically eliminates those who belong to the other religion.
Alchemy
A set of philosophical doctrines, magical practices and direct investigations of nature,
aimed at searching for the philosophers’ stone, i.e. the principle that allegedly makes it
possible to explain the secrets of life and to transform base metals into gold.
Anti-Semitism
Intolerance towards Jews.
Bodhisattva
For Mahayana Buddhists, a bodhisattva is someone who, having attained internal
illumination, stops at the doors of liberation in order to help others attain deliverance.
Canon
The corpus of texts concerning a religion, a philosophy or an ethical system, which a
certain culture traditionally considers to be fundamental.
Circumcision
The surgical removal of the prepuce (the fold of skin covering the end of the penis) which
Jews and Muslims practice on new-born babies and on people who wish to convert to one
of these religions. Circumcision is not particularly painful (given the young age of the
babies) and is in no way maiming for men. Circumcision was practised by other ancient
peoples before the Jews, and today it is often practised on non-Jews and non-Muslims for
medical reasons.
Cosmogony
Religious story or scientific theory about the origins of the Universe.
Cremation, interment and embalming
Different ways of disposing of the bodies of dead people: cremation is the incineration of a
corpse, whose ashes may then be dispersed or gathered and kept; interment is when the
body is buried under the ground; embalming (or mummification) is a treatment to stop or
slow down the decomposition of the corpse.
Diaspora
The dispersion of a people in the world following enforced displacement from its original
territory. In particular, the dispersion of the Jewish people after the Babylonian exile.
Divination
For some religions and popular traditions, especially in ancient times, divination was the
art of foreseeing the future through the interpretation of certain physical events that were
thought to have been brought about by the gods.
Ecumenism
A movement whose aim is to reunite the followers of different Christian churches.
Exorcism
Religious rite aimed at driving away demons or evil spirits from a person who is said to be
possessed by them.
Eucharist (also called Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper)
The most important Christian rite, introduced by Jesus during the last supper when he
gave his disciples some bread to eat and some wine to drink, in representation of his body
and his blood. In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, it is believed that, when the
Eucharist is celebrated, the body and the blood of Jesus Christ are really present in the
bread and wine even though their outward appearance remains unchanged. Some
Protestants (for example, Lutherans), adhere to this theory. Some Protestant Churches, on
the other hand, hold the bread and wine to be symbolic representations in which the body
and blood of Jesus are “spiritually present”.
Guru
Sanskrit for “teacher, religious or holy person”.
Hegira
(from the Arab, hijra)
Mohammed’s and his first followers’ migration from Mecca to Medina (622 CE), which
marks the beginning of the Muslim Era.
Jihad
Often (and erroneously) translated as “Holy War”, Jihad means “striving”. The Muslim
tradition recognizes two kinds of Jihad:
1. the greater Jihad consists in striving to combat evil, something every Muslim is
supposed to do during his life;
2. the lesser Jihad was originally the endeavour to combat polytheism. After the
Muslim expansion during the first centuries following the Hegira, the conviction
that Islam would conquer the whole world began to arise: polytheists would be
converted, while Christians and Jews would be subjugated and, at the same time,
protected. Some Islamic extremist movements have extended and transformed this
concept into an endeavour to combat anyone who does not respect Islam.
Kaaba
The cubical stone building standing in the middle of the courtyard of the Great Mosque in
Mecca. According to Muslim tradition, the Kaaba was built by Abraham together with his
son Ishmael. The black stone (which, according to the Muslim tradition, has absorbed all
the sins of the world) is inserted in the outer south-eastern corner of the Kaaba.
Monogamy/Polygamy
Monogamy is the matrimonial model/system according to which a man may marry only
one woman (and vice-versa), while polygamy is the system whereby a person (usually a
man) is allowed to marry more than one person of the opposite sex.
Pogrom
The word “pogrom” (Russian for “destruction”) refers to the periodic massacres of the
Jewish minorities in Russia, particularly between the end of the 19th and the beginning of
the 20th century.
Polytheism and monotheism
Polytheism is the belief that there are many supernatural beings, or gods. Monotheism is
the belief that there is only one god.
See Quotations: Ugo Volli.
Proselytism
The act of trying to convert people who belong to different faiths (or to none) to one’s
own religion, employing persuasion and, sometimes, violence.
Religion
The word religion derives from the Latin word religio: “collection (of formulae and ritual
acts)”.
The Chinese term that corresponds loosely to the same concept is jiao, which means
“teaching, doctrine, education”. In Japanese, religions are called kyo (“teaching”).
Relic
For the Christian religion, a relic is any object or bodily remnant which is supposed to have
belonged to a person considered to be saintly or blessed and which, as such, is also
venerated.
Rite
“The word rite derives from Sanskrit rita which, in the Vedas, refers to the participation of
man in the natural order and structure of beings and things. Each human science has
dealt with one of the particular aspects of rites, but they all acknowledge their collective,
repetitive, and efficacious nature. There are rules of conduct that tell people how to
behave with regard to holy things. […] Religious rites aim at introducing the individual or
the community to a dimension in which they can get in touch with the divine”.
(Michel Meslin, “Les rites”, in Encyclopédie des réligions, vol II p. 1947, Bayard 1997)
Schism
A split that occurs within a religious community as a result of internal conflicts.
Shoah
The extermination of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War.
Syncretism
Mixture of different doctrines and religious practices, whose fusion leads to a new religious
system. The New African Religions are a good example of religious syncretism: in these
religions, many elements taken from the traditional native beliefs coexist in a relatively
harmonious fashion with elements taken from the imported religions (particularly
Christianity).
Singh
Singh means lion (of faith), and is the surname adopted by all those who belong to the
Sikh community (the female equivalent is Kaur = lioness).
Sufism
Muslim mystical movement. The term “sufism” derives from the Arab suf, which means
wool, and refers to the coarse woollen habits that the first Muslim mystics used to wear.
Yoga
Philosophical system and method of self-discipline, traditionally cultivated by Hindus,
Buddhists and Jainas who – through the practice of certain physical techniques (especially
respiratory techniques) – makes it possible to reach a state of extreme concentration in
which the spirit may be led to unite with the Absolute.
1.1.3. World religions
Bahá’í Faith
Daoism
Judaism
Buddhism
Hinduism
Shinto
Christianity
Confucianism
Islam
Jainism
Sikhism
Traditional
African
Religions
The list of religions that you will find in these pages is, inevitably, incomplete. If you wish
to help us make it more exhaustive, you may send us a brief presentation of one of the
many missing religions. Get in touch with the editors who will send you a style-sheet to
guide you as you write the presentation.
1.1.3.1.
Bahá’í Faith
A nine-pointed star is generally used by Bahá'ís as a
symbol of their Faith. The number nine, as it is the highest
single-digit number, symbolizes the completeness of the
Bahá'í Faith.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
The Bahá’í faith is an independent monotheistic religion with a world-wide
population of some 5 million people, who come from more than two hundred
different countries. The most numerous Bahá’í communities are located in India
and Iran.
* History
The Bahá’í faith originated in Iran and derives from Babism. In 1844 CE Ali
Muhammad, the Báb (Arabic for “the Gate”) founded the Bábi faith, a religious
reform movement that announced the imminent appearance of another Teacher
who would lead humanity to an age of universal peace. In 1848, the Báb
proclaimed a complete break with Islam: accused by the Persian government of
having led revolutionary manoeuvres, in 1850 the Báb was executed, while his
followers were harshly persecuted, and 20 000 of them were massacred.
In 1863 Mirza Husain Ali Nuri explained to his followers that he was the
Bahá’u’lláh (“the Glory of God”) announced by the Báb, and thus the Bahá’í Faith
was born. The last forty years of Baha’u’llah’s life were spent in prison or in exile.
The last 22 years were spent in or near Acre, then a prison city, where, today, the
Bahá’í World Centre (the spiritual and administrative headquarters of the Bahá’í
Faith) is to be found.
The Shrines of the Báb on Mount Carmel in Haifa and of Bahá’u’lláh near
Acre are the two holiest places of the Bahá’í Faith.
* Sacred texts
The most holy book of the Bahá’í Faith is the Kitab al-akdas (“The Book of
Certitude”), written by Bahá’u’lláh in 1873. The Hidden Words (the “Seven
Valleys” and the “Four Valleys”) describe the path that leads to union with God.
Bahá’í liturgy also includes the reading of the sacred texts of other religions (the
Pentateuch, the New Testament, the Quran and the Bayan, the Babi sacred text),
seen as the demonstration of the levels of growing perfection of divine revelation.
* Main beliefs
According to the Bahá’í faith, the founders of the main world religions,
including Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus Christ, and
Mohammed, are divine Teachers sent by one God to educate humanity through
teachings and laws suited to its stage of development. The Bahá’í faith recognizes
two additional Teachers for this age: the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’ís believe that
religious revelation will continue in the future to provide guidance to an everadvancing civilization.
The main theme of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation is unity. He taught that “the earth
is but one country, and mankind its citizens”. His writings contain principles aimed
at attaining world civilization, including:
 abandonment of all forms of prejudice
 equality between the sexes
 recognition of the common source and essential oneness of the
world’s great religions
 elimination of the extremes of poverty and wealth
 universal compulsory education
 responsibility of each individual to search independently for truth
 establishment of a world federal system based on principles of
collective security
 recognition that religion is in harmony with reason and scientific
knowledge.
*Attitude towards other religions
The belief in the essential unity of all faiths makes the Bahá’í faith a
particularly open and tolerant religion. However, in their history (and to this day)
Bahá’ís have been persecuted, especially in Iran.
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/bahai.htm
Official site: www.bahai.org
1.1.3.2. Buddhism
The dharma wheel symbolizes the “setting in motion”, that is the proclamation and the diffusion
of Buddhist doctrine; the eight spokes stand for the Noble Eightfold Path.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
The number of Buddhists has been calculated at approximately 350 million
(6% of the world population), and this makes Buddhism the fourth most
widespread religion in the world.
The various Buddhist schools form two main traditions, which differ in the
way they interpret the Buddha’s doctrine:
the Theravada, or Way of the Elders, which corresponds to the
ancient doctrine and is practised mainly in Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos,
Bangladesh and Cambodia;
the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, which developed in Tibet, China, in
Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia and Japan. One of the most original
developments of the Mahayana tradition is the Vajrayana, the
Adamantine or Diamond Vehicle, which characterizes the Tibetan
tradition (one of whose leaders is the Dalai Lama).
* History
The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, lived in Northern India
between the 6th and the 5th century BCE. According to tradition, after having led a
very comfortable and protected existence, Siddhartha abandoned the wealth of his
father’s home and spent six years in absolute asceticism, according to the precepts
of the strictest Hindu schools that prescribed “renunciation” of the world (a life
devoted to charity, fasting, yoga and meditation in solitary places). Siddhartha was
disappointed by this experience and he mitigated the asperity of the ascetic
regime while meditating intensely, which ultimately led him to attain the state of
supreme consciousness that made him the Buddha (or “The Awakened One”).
From his preachings, and from the proselytism of his first disciples, a community
extraneous to the caste system was formed, one that anyone could join out of
personal choice, and one that gradually split from Hinduism.
* Sacred texts
Buddhist sacred texts are collected in two “Canons”, called Pali and Sanskrit
according to the language in which they are written. The Pali Canon of the
Theravada tradition is composed of three parts (the “three baskets”): the Vinaya
Pitaka (basket of discipline), containing the rules of monastic life; the Sutta Pitaka
(basket of doctrine), containing Buddha’s sermons; and the Abhidamma Pitaka
(basket of philosophy), containing the learned commentaries on the doctrine
expounded in the Sutta Pitaka. The names and the internal subdivisions of the
Sanskrit Canon (adopted by the Mahayana tradition) vary from country to country,
but preserve the same tripartite form.
* Main beliefs
Starting from some (radically re-elaborated) Hindu concepts like the cycle of
re-birth (samsara), the eternal soul of every living being (atman), and actions and
their consequences for future lives (karma), the central tenet of Buddhist teachings
hinges on finding the way that leads to the cessation of suffering and the
termination of the cycle of rebirth.
The central nucleus of Buddhist doctrine consists of the traditional Four
Noble Truths:
- The First Noble Truth is the universality of suffering (or dukkha): life is
pain, regret (for all that we had and no longer have), discontent (for what we
desire and do not have) and apprehension (for the flimsiness of what we have): we
suffer because we realize that everything is ephemeral.
- The Second Noble Truth is that suffering originates within us, in our
hopeless attempt to seek for happiness in transitory things, prompted by tanha
(“thirst”), a desire, yearning, or lust to have and control things or situations that we
consider attractive.
- The Third Noble Truth is that the only way to put an end to our suffering is
to learn to free ourselves from the deceptive scale of values, thus abandoning all
that is merely transitory in life (desires, passions, the mistaken idea that there is
such a thing as a permanent “self”), and quenching the “thirst”.
- The Fourth and last Noble Truth regards the path to be undertaken in order
to attain Nirvana (the extinction of the cycle of births and re-births), which Buddha
identifies with the Noble Eightfold Path: right understanding, right thinking, right
speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindedness, and right
concentration (where “right” means in accordance with the Buddhist teachings and
the precepts expressed by the various schools).
*Attitude towards other religions
Buddhism is very flexible in the ways it can coexist with other religions. It
adapts itself to each of the various cultural contexts into which it is introduced,
and often it has become deeply amalgamated with pre-existing cultures. According
to Buddhists, in fact, the goal pursued by all spiritual practices is humanity’s
progress towards Good. Many paths lead to salvation and they are not mutually
exclusive.
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/buddhism.htm
www.buddhanet.net
1.1.3.3. Confucianism
Confucius (551-479 BCE)
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
Confucianism (a term used for the first time by the Jesuits in the 17th
century CE) is one of the three Chinese faiths (the other two being Daoism and
Buddhism). Outside of China, the major Confucian community is found in
Southern Korea.
* History
Born in the state of Lu (in the modern-day Shandong province) in 551 BCE,
Confucius (the Western name for Kongfu zi,) came from an impoverished noble
family and was an assiduous scholar of ancient traditions. He lived in a period of
bitter struggle (various states were fighting in an attempt to prevail over one
another through every possible means) and he realized that the ancient values
were falling into decline. Hence, Confucius decided to teach young people the
wisdom of their forefathers. As he himself declared, his task was to teach and to
hand down a tradition, not to create one.
Confucius collected and reorganized the ancient texts, but did not write any
of the things that he taught: thus his teachings have reached us through his
disciples, who handed down his words, and through all those who, later on,
extended and supplemented his teachings. Of their number, Mencius ( Mengzi, 372289 BCE) maintained that human nature was essentially good, while Xunzi (312238 BCE) asserted that it was essentially bad but could be amended through
education. Zhu Xi (1130 - 1200 CE) introduced some philosophical concepts to
Confucius’s original doctrine, giving birth to Neo-Confucianism which, in the last
decades of the 16th century, gradually took over from Confucianism itself.
* The canon
The number of books included in the Confucian canon is not fixed (certain
texts have been considered classics in some periods, and not in others). One of the
better-known subdivisions is the one that refers to the “Five Classics” ( Wu Jing)
and the “Four Books” (Si Shu).
The “Five Classics” include: the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu: a
history of the state of Lu), written by Confucius himself in the manner of a
chronicle; the Shijing (“Classic of Odes”) and the Shujing (“Classic of History”), two
anthologies collected by Confucius; the “Classic of Changes” ( Yijing), the
description of a divinatory system based on 64 hexagrams and on the principle of
yinyang; and the “Classic of Rites” (Li Ji), a collection of rules of conduct.
The “Four Books” are: the “Analects” (Lunyu), written after Confucius’s death
by his disciples; Mengzi, in which Mencius’s ideas are exposed in the form of a
dialogue; the “Great Learning” (Daxue) and the “Doctrine of the Mean”
(Zhongyong), which originally constituted two chapters of the “Book of rites” and
which Zhu Xi introduced in the “Four Books” that he recommended for the teaching
of his theories.
* Main beliefs
Confucian teachings are primarily concerned with the moral rules of conduct
that all persons must follow, not because they are obliged to, but because, after
having learned them through rigorous study, they know exactly how to behave in
society. A person who follows these rules is aware of the fact that family and State
are based on hierarchical relationships, which imply certain reciprocal duties, as
well as the recognition of authority: the relationship between prince and minister,
father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, older and younger
friend.
Human intercourse is governed by the values of righteousness (yi),
benevolence (ren) and filial devotion (xiao), as well as the respect for the rituals (li)
that regulate the relations between human beings and between men and the Sky.
Although bad conduct is considered reprehensible, Confucian teachings do
not deal with abstract concepts of good and evil as such. Likewise, there are no
concepts of sin, of a Transcendent Being, or of an afterlife. What there is,
however, is the society that people live in and, through study, a Confucian learns to
understand the world that surrounds him in a rational fashion and, therefore, to
follow a line of conduct suitable for every circumstance, without his actions causing
a contrast within the harmony that exists in every field, both human and natural.
Confucius did not object to the worship of the Sky (Tian), in the sense of an
immaterial being. Religious rituals were part of social life and, as such, they had to
be practised. In some way the Sky was considered to assure universal harmony, by
sending signs of approval or disapproval to men and their sovereign in order to
show them the right way to behave.
Although it paid particular attention to ethics and social behaviour, from the
st
1 century CE onwards Confucianism developed some religious aspects. For a brief
period Confucius himself was considered a divinity, and in the temples where his
statue was erected, it was venerated with sacrifices; however, the ceremonies
dedicated to him soon acquired characteristics that were more secular than
religious.
As a religion, Confucianism was opposed to all forms of popular worship that
believed in spirits, in exorcism, in forms of divination, and presented itself as an
authentic collective and civil faith, characterized by rituals and prayers, by
festivities and fairs.
The ancestors, whose names were engraved on wooden tablets and kept in the
home, were particularly venerated.
But it was precisely this ancestor worship in the course of the XVII century CE.
that gave rise to heated polemics in the West; in 1705 it was condemned by the
Papacy on the grounds that it was idolatrous, and it was not considered a
legitimate practice until 1939, when it was declared to be non-religious in nature.
In the 1970s Confucianism was subjected to harsh criticism and was heavily
attacked by the leaders of the People’s Republic, but to this day Neo-Confucianism
still survives in various strata of Chinese society.
*Attitude towards other religions
Confucianism, which cannot be considered a real religion, has always coexisted
relatively peacefully with Daoism and Buddhism, which are real religions: a
Chinese saying, sanjiao yijiao (“three religions, one religion”), provides a good
example of the Chinese people’s syncretistic attitude towards religion.
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/confuciu.htm
http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/springs/6339/Confucianism.html
http://chineseculture.about.com/culture/chineseculture/cs/confucius/index.htm
1.1.3.4. Christianity
Text by Mauro Pesce
The Cross reminds Christian believers that Jesus Christ gave his life voluntarily in sign of love for
all human beings: it invites Christians to imitate Christ in his love towards all human beings, in the
certainty that Good prevails over Evil, as is demonstrated by Christ’s resurrection after he was
crucified.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
Christians constitute the largest (approximately a billion and a half followers,
that is 32% of the world population) and the most widespread (Christians are
present in 225 countries all over the world) religious community in the world.
* History
Christianity arose in the land of Israel as a result of the preaching of Jesus of
Nazareth, a Jew who lived during the 1st century of the Common Era. Jesus was a
wandering preacher around whom gathered a movement made up of people from a
variety of social strata within the Jewish population, and a smaller nucleus of
disciples.
Jesus envisaged the advent of the Kingdom of God, that is of a future world
in which God’s will, love among all human beings, and respect for justice would be
accomplished. According to Jesus, in preparation for the coming of this Kingdom,
God would forgive all sinners who converted and who, in turn, were prepared to
forgive those who had done them harm. In the Final Universal Judgement, God
would punish all evil people, but most of all those who had oppressed the poor,
committed injustices, and persecuted the righteous.
Jesus was successful among the Jewish population in the Land of Israel, but
he encountered strong opposition on the part of some powerful religious groups
who unjustly denounced him to the Romans who, at that time, ruled the Land of
Israel. The Romans arrested him and put him to death by crucifixion, a typically
Roman form of capital punishment.
Immediately after Jesus’ death, a group of his most faithful disciples
witnessed a series of shocking apparitions and came to believe in the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. This marked the beginning of a period of intense evangelistic
activity that, within a few decades, was to spread Christianity to many parts of the
ancient world. Despite periods of persecution on the part of the political authorities,
in the centuries that followed Christianity greatly expanded and, under Emperor
Constantine, it obtained the support of the Empire. From the beginning of the 4 th
century to the middle of the 6th century CE, the Roman Empire gradually adopted
the Christian faith.
In the 7th century a new religion, Islam, arose in the Arabian peninsula and
spread rapidly throughout territories that, for many centuries, had been Christian
like, for example, the whole of North Africa. Christianity, however, continued to
spread; especially in Europe, but also in other parts of Africa and Asia.
At present, several forms of Christianity exist. Although Christianity is a
unitary religion, founded on a common faith in Jesus Christ, it is subdivided into
four groups of major Churches: the Orthodox Churches (which can be further
subdivided into those historically linked to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and
those historically linked to the Patriarchate of Moscow); the Catholic Church (which
was originally subject to the Church of Rome and represents Latin Christianity), the
Eastern Churches (like, for example, the Armenian Apostolic Church that dates back
to the 3rd century, and the Coptic Church), and the Protestant Churches that
originated following a split within the Latin Church at the beginning of the 16 th
century.
From the beginning of the 16th century, thanks to the expansion of European
powers in the wake of the development of modern technical and industrial society,
the various forms of Christianity spread all over the world. In the first decades of
the 20th century, the ecumenical movement embodied the aspiration to reunite
the separate Christian Churches: this ambition however is beset by many difficulties
linked to the doctrinal, institutional, and cultural differences between the various
Churches.
* Sacred texts
The sacred text for Christianity is the Bible, which is made up of two parts:
the Old and the New Testament.
The Old Testament is essentially made up of the Holy Writ of Judaism, which
the Christian faith nevertheless interprets in a way radically divergent from the
Jewish interpretation. Some churches, like the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but
not the Protestant Churches, include in the Old Testament a certain number of
Jewish religious writings that the Jews do not however consider as revealed by
God.
The New Testament is made up of 27 works all written by Christians, most of
whom lived in the 1st century of the Common Era: of fundamental importance
among these are the four Gospels, those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
* Main beliefs
Christianity is a monotheistic religion, like the Judaism from which it
sprang. Christians believe that there is only one God. He is the creator of the
universe (which is considered a good thing) and all things are subject to Him. God
not only dominates creation, but also takes a hand in its history and guides it,
orientating it towards a positive future end. God makes his will manifest through
revelations transmitted by the prophets who also see to writing it down in the
books that go to make up the Bible. According to Christianity, while God is one
alone, he nonetheless possesses an inner dynamic that is manifested in three
divine persons who are none other than the one God. The doctrine of the Trinity
holds that the one God is manifested in the person of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost.
This doctrine is also the source of what is perhaps the most characteristic
belief of Christianity, that of the dual nature, human and divine, of Christ: Jesus,
while he was a real man, was also really God. Christians have been discussing this
doctrine for centuries and many of their doctrinal differences can be explained by
the difficulties involved in reconciling the humanity of Jesus Christ with his divinity.
The revelation of God has an essentially moral content that is summed up in
the Ten Commandments contained in the Old Testament. The worship of one God
and love for one’s neighbour are often presented as the Christian synthesis of these
precepts. Christianity, however, does not only exhort men to obey the will of God
by urging them to love their neighbour with all their hearts. It also insists on the
principle according to which one must pray God for the strength with which to do
good. Only the grace of God makes man really capable of doing good. But, what is
the role of human will and what is the role of the grace of God? This point has
been the source of profound divergences and even of bitter divisions, like for
example the 16th-century schism between Catholics and Protestants. In general, all
forms of Christianity endorse the liberty of man and the capacity of his will to do
good, but there has been no lack of pessimistic concepts regarding man’s effective
capacity to dominate the tendency of human nature to do evil.
The principle of the oneness of God, of the goodness of creation and of love
for all men led Christianity to the idea of equality among all men and between the
sexes, even though the different forms of Christianity in various periods have often
accepted (as indeed the other monotheistic religions have accepted) social
inequality, social stratification, and the subordination of women.
The purpose of human life, according to Christianity, is to participate in the
life of God himself. Man does not fulfil his destiny with death; he is destined to
conjoin with God after death in a condition of eternal bliss. The possibility of taking
part in the future divine life is subordinated to God’s judgement of the whole life of
every man. Christianity has always maintained that the reward of eternal bliss is
accompanied by the possibility of eternal damnation by divine decree.
*Attitude towards other religions
The religion with which Christianity has the closest links is Judaism because
Jesus was a Jew and Jews were his first disciples. From Judaism Christianity draws
a part of its own Scriptures (the Old Testament), the idea of God as the sole
creator, the sole source of revelation, and history’s guide, as well as the basis of its
own moral outlook. The substantial divergence with Judaism lies in the belief in
Jesus Christ God and man and in the interpretation of all the biblical revelations
deriving from this belief in Christ.
The fact that most of the Jews of the 1st century did not follow the preachings
of the Jew Jesus, and that in subsequent centuries Judaism continued to exist and
to develop, led to bitter theological and political polemics. From the theological
point of view Christians have often thought that the Jewish people, having refused
to believe in Jesus Christ, had lost the right to consider themselves God’s chosen
people and that the Church had become the new Israel that had supplanted the
Israel of ancient days.
When the Christians won power within the Roman Empire, they began to
persecute the Jews and to limit their freedoms and rights. The idea began to gain
credence that the Jews had lost their right to their land, which God had by then
destined for Christian possession. But the centuries-old history of the presence of
Jewish communities in lands dominated by Christian majorities is not solely a story
of intolerance and persecution and bears witness to a continuous and creative
exchange on both sides, even though there is no lack of periods and episodes of
extraordinary violence and drama. After the Shoah, especially in the Protestant
and Catholic Churches, a new and radical self-criticism of Christian anti-Semitism
led to a different type of relationship and a different theory of relations between
the two religions.
Relations between Christianity and Islam are essentially of two types:
religious and politico-cultural. From the religious standpoint, Islam shares with
Christianity a monotheistic concept and a remarkable number of elements that
Islam has drawn from the Jewish and the Christian faiths. Islam holds, for example,
that God revealed himself to Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. But the revelation of
Mohammed is the definitive one. This last point is unacceptable to Christianity, also
because the Quran, the sacred text of Islam, considers Jesus not as God, but
simply as a man, the son of Mary.
Where the Christian Gospels differ with respect to what the Quran says about
Jesus, Christianity does not accept the Quranic version. The difficulties of a politicocultural nature lie above all in the fact that Islam took root in countries that had
previously been largely Christian (e.g., Northern Africa, Turkey, and even
Mongolia). The clash, military and otherwise, that lasted for centuries on the shores
of the Mediterranean and in various countries of Southern and Eastern
Europe contributed to the cultural estrangement and hostility between the two
religions, a process that often became even more bitter following the recent
European colonization of various countries with a Muslim majority.
In the course of its millenary history, Christianity has often absorbed many
elements from the religions alongside which it spread. This holds not only for the
Graeco-Roman religions, but also for those of the populations that were gradually
Christianized. After the 16th century, colonial expansion was accompanied by
Christian missionary expansion that was often critical of the violent methods and
the exploitation of colonialism. But the concomitance of European expansion with
that of the Christian missions perforce led to an incorrect formulation of relations
between Christianity and the religions of the colonized peoples.
* Links
http://www.religioustolerance.org/christ.htm
http://www.geocities.com/michaeladamr/christoindex.htm
An encyclopaedia of Christianity:
http://www.newadvent.org/
Catholic Church (Vatican)
http://www.vatican.va/
Russian Orthodox Church:
http://utenti.tripod.it/Teotoco2/index.html
Waldensian Church (official site):
www.chiesavaldese.org
Mormons (official site):
www.lds.org
Jehovah’s Witnesses :
http://www.watchtower.org
1.1.3.5. Daoism (or Taoism)
Yin and yang are the two opposing and complementary forces that regulate the universe, by
acting on one another in a cyclical fashion.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
There are about 20 million Daoists in the world, mostly concentrated in
Taiwan.
* History
Tradition attributes the birth of Daoist (or Taoist) thought to Laozi (“Old
Master”, who was once known in the West as Lao Tze), a legendary figure that
apparently lived in the 6th century BCE. It is said that Laozi was born after an
eighty-one-year gestation period and that, having left the city of Luoyi (the capital
of the eastern Zhou dynasty), he headed towards the countries of the West on the
back of a buffalo in order to spread his doctrine among non-Chinese peoples. Laozi
is attributed with the compilation of one of the principal texts of philosophical
Daoism, originally known as the Laozi, and later called the Daodejing. Other
important Daoist philosophers were Zhuangzi (4th century BCE) and Liezi (4th
century BCE) to whom are attributed texts, in reality mostly compilations, in which
various aspects of Daoist thought emerge.
As an organized religion, Daoism is only documented from the 2 nd century of
the common era, even though the roots of religious Daoism are sunk in much older
magical practices. During the 3rd and 4th centuries, Mahayana Buddhism spread
throughout China during a period of extreme political instability (the country was
first divided into three states and then into two: the north was ruled by foreign
dynasties and the south by Chinese dynasties). It was at that time that the Daoists
began to organize themselves as a church, taking as their model Buddhist
institutions and rituals; Buddhism, for its part, found in Daoist terminology the
right vehicle with which to express concepts foreign to the Chinese language and
mentality.
From the 4th century onward the Daoist church was rigidly organized into
various levels (the lower levels were also occupied by women, who enjoyed relative
equality with men). A century later we find the documented existence of the man
popularly described as the “Daoist Pope” (Tianshi: “celestial Master”), whose last
descendant was still alive not so very long ago. The Tianshi never enjoyed much
recognition within the Chinese state.
* The canon
The so-called Daoist canon (Daozang) is composed of various texts, of
which the best known are:
the Daodejing, or “Classic of the way and the virtue”, which has come down
to us in a version from the 4th century BCE: made up of two parts (the Daojing and
the Dejing), in their turn subdivided into a total of 81 sections, it contains
reflections on the world and advice for the sovereign;
the Zhuangzi (which probably antedates the Daodejing): a work of
remarkable literary value, compiled in part by the philosopher from whom it takes
its name, and whose 33 books, written in a witty and lively style, are made up of
texts on specific arguments, anecdotes, dialogues, allegories, and tales, it also
contains frequent attacks on Confucianism;
the Liezi, in part similar to the Zhuangzi, deals with supernatural beings or
characters from legendary epochs.
Among the sources not strictly connected to philosophy, in other words those
sources dealing with the popular quest for immortality, the best known is certainly
the Baopuzi (“the master who embraces simplicity”) by Ge Hong (284-364 CE). In
the Baopuzi the legends of the Immortals are used to explain the various practices
supposed to ensure the limitless survival of the body.
* Main beliefs
According to Daoist philosophy (which, from this point of view, does not
differ from Confucianism), all the levels of the universe (Earth, Human Beings,
and the Sky) are linked together by a universal harmony.
The principle upon which Daoism is founded is the dao (or, according to a
different transcription system, tao), a term that is very difficult to define, so much
so that a verse of the Daodejing states: “The dao that can be spoken about is not
the Absolute Dao ”. Dao, which is present in all things and influences them, is a
vital flux (from which all things originate) that flows incessantly, always changing
and always the same.
Connected to dao is the concept of yinyang. Yin and yang are the two
principles that preserve the natural order of dao: yin is the female, passive, and
dark principle, and is identified with the moon; yang is the male, active, luminous
principle, and is identified with the sun. Yin and Yang are opposite and
complementary concepts; they are relative (you can be yin under some respect and
yang under some other) and they imply one another: indeed, the fullness of one
implies the origin of the other. Their alternation determines all things.
The aim of philosophical Daoism is to reach a state of perfect harmony with
the natural world, a state that may be attained by adapting oneself to nature
through meditation and ecstasy, and by becoming one with the dao.
Nature must not be in any way altered by human action, and for this reason
Daoists practice and preach wu wei (no action) in all fields, including that of
politics, and believe that one should remain unscathed by changes (including
death). The Zhuangzi also underlines the need not to make any distinctions, in
order to reach a state of “no knowledge”, which can be achieved only after one has
known.
A part from being a philosophy, Daoism is also a popular religion, made of
practices such as those employed to strengthen the body and make it immortal:
these practices include various kinds of diets (as, for example, the ingestion of
products obtained by alchemistic experiments), breathing techniques (such as
Chinese yoga), specific forms of gymnastic, sexual and meditative techniques.
The numerous Daoist legends attribute great importance to the so-called
“Eight Immortals” (Baxian), a group of characters (men and women) who, having
obtained supernatural powers during their lives, were made saints after their death.
A part from the Immortals, and next to Laozi (who is often identified with Hunlao,
one of the five creators of the world), there are many Daoist divinities, all of whom
are organized within a hierarchy. These include: the guardians of the various trades
and crafts and of natural phenomena, the souls of diverse places (cemeteries,
streams, roads, etc.), demons, the souls of hanged or drowned men, ancestors,
Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist saints, and so on.
*Attitude towards other religions
As a philosophical system, Daoism sees itself as the exact opposite of the
formalism of Confucian doctrine. In everyday life, however, the Chinese people have
operated a sort of mixture between Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism.
* Links
http:// www.religioustolerance.org/taoism.htm
http://hkusuc.hku.hk/philodep/ch/Daoindex.html
http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/contaolink.htm
1.1.3.6. Judaism
The Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, is one of the most ancient symbols of the Jewish
Faith
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
Today, there are approximately 2,800,000 Jews in the world, and they are
distributed in more than a hundred countries. The only country where Judaism is
the religion followed by the majority of the population is Israel. Outside Israel, the
largest Jewish communities are found in the United States, in some European
countries (the largest Jewish communities in Europe are found in England and in
France), in Russia, in several Asian countries, in Latin America and in Australia.
* History
The history of Judaism begins some four thousand years ago when,
according to the Bible, God spoke to Abraham to make an Alliance with his people.
A part from Abraham, the other two founders of the Jewish religion are Isaac
(Abraham’s son) and Jacob (Isaac’s son, also known as Israel). The Bible tells the
story of the Jewish people, from its origins to the reconstruction of the Second
Temple in Jerusalem (516 BCE). According to the Bible, God (in Hebrew, JHVH, or
Jahveh) promised Abraham, the chief of a nomad tribe, that his descendants would
inherit the Promised Land as long as they would accept and respect His Law. The
twelve tribes of Israel, which descended from Jacob, eventually found their way to
Egypt. There, the Jews were enslaved by the Pharaoh and, after many tribulations,
Moses freed them from slavery and led them out of Egypt. For forty years after the
liberation from Egypt, the Jewish people wandered in the desert (where, on Mount
Sinai, God gave Moses the Tables of the Law) and, led by Joshua (Moses’
successor), they returned to the Promised Land, where the twelve tribes settled in
various parts of Palestine.
When the tribes eventually united, they demanded a king: the first king was
Saul, followed by David, who fought against the Philistines (a people living in
Palestine) and founded the “City of David”, later called Jerusalem. David’s son,
Solomon, ordered work to start on the construction of the first Temple of
Jerusalem. When Solomon died, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel withdrew their
allegiance, while the remaining two tribes remained loyal to Solomon’s son,
Rehoboam, and formed the kingdom of Judea. In 587 BCE Jerusalem was
destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar: the Temple was burnt down
and the Jews exiled to Babylon. The Babylonian exile marked the beginning of the
diaspora, that is the dispersion of the Jewish people in the world.
In 538 BCE the new king of Babylon authorized the return of the Jews to
Israel and the construction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem (which was later
destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE). The Jews were ruled by various powers until,
in the 2nd century BCE, the revolt of the Maccabees restored political independence
to the people of Israel, an independence that lasted until 63 BCE, when the
Romans conquered Judea.
Between the 1st and the 9th century CE the Mishnah and the two Talmudim
(the Talmud of Jerusalem and the Talmud of Babylon) were written: these are
fundamental texts for the Jewish religion and they contain the laws and the beliefs
of Judaism. During this period, the Jews were living in different empires: the
Roman empire, which was gradually turning to Christianity, and the Babylonian
empire, which was becoming Islamic.
Around the year One Thousand, two new poles of Jewish culture arose: in
Spain, the Sephardic community was formed (until the year 1492, when the Jews
were expelled from Spain), while Eastern Europe became the birthplace of
Ashkenazi Judaism.
Born in Cordoba (Spain) in 1138, Moses Maimonides was the foremost
intellectual figure of medieval Judaism: his writings, including the Guide to the
Perplexed, acquired great significance for all Jews. He wrote a code of Jewish law
that stimulated philosophers and religious scholars for generations afterward. One
of his essays, the “Thirteen Articles of Faith”, summarizes the teachings of Judaism.
Until the 19th century, Jews lived in various countries as a minority group, and
were often persecuted. From the mid 16th century, they were obliged to reside in
separate quarters – called ghettos – which were shut in the evening and re-opened
in the morning. Persecutions became harsher between the end of the 19 th and the
beginning of the 20th century, when the Jews in Russia were murdered and their
goods pillaged in ferocious massacres known as pogroms. Under the Nazi regime
(1933-1945), millions of Jews were persecuted, deported, and exterminated
(Shoah).
In that same period the Zionist movement arose: a cultural and political
movement aimed at leading Jews back to the Land of Israel in order to create a
national community, protected from persecution.
At present, Judaism is subdivided into various religious movements. The major
groups are: the Reformed Jews (for whom individual believers are relatively free in
their interpretation of the Bible’s teachings and in their observation of the ritual
laws), the Orthodox and Ultra-orthodox movements (who consider the ritual laws
to be unchangeable), and the Conservatives (a more moderate orthodoxy).
* Sacred texts
Judaism believes in the Divine Revelation recorded in the Bible (from the
Greek ta biblia, “the books”). The Jewish Bible is composed of 24 books, and is
subdivided into three sections: the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the
Jewish Bible), the Nev’im (“Prophets”) and the Ketuvim (“Writings”). The Bible
recounts the history of the Jewish people, the Alliance established between the
people and its God, and the principles that Jews have to follow in order not to
break the Alliance.
All the books of the Bible are written in Hebrew, except for a few brief
sections that are written in Aramaic. The books that make up the Bible were
written at different times: the most ancient ones date back to 1000 BCE, while the
majority of them were written around the 6th century BCE In the ancient world, the
Bible was translated into Greek and, in this version, its teachings and principles
spread very fast.
The Bible is also the sacred text of Christianity, which originally was
established by a group of Jews (Jesus and his disciples); it is also the basis for
Islam, which sees itself as the completion of both Judaism and Christianity.
Along with the Bible, the Talmud (which means “teaching”) is the great
sacred text of the Jewish Faith: unlike the Jewish Bible, the Talmud is exclusively
recognized by the Jews, who consider it as the “oral Torah”, revealed to Moses on
mount Sinai and handed down orally from one generation to the next, until the
Roman Conquest. The Talmud was set down in writing only when, with the
destruction of the Second Temple, the Jews feared that the religious foundations of
Israel might disappear.
The Talmud consists in a collection of discussions between scholars
(hakhamim) and teachers (rabbi) about the meanings and the applications of the
passages of the Torah, and can subdivided into two different levels: the Mishnah
(or “repeated study”), which includes the discussions of the most ancient teachers
(up to the 2nd century CE), and the Gemara (or “completion”), written between the
2nd and the 5th century, which provides an analytical comment to the Mishnah. The
Talmud exists in two different versions: the Talmud of Jerusalem (written between
the 4th and the 6th century in the Land of Israel) and the Talmud of Babylon
(written between the 5th and the 7th century in Babylon).
According to the contents, the Talmud can also be subdivided into two kinds
of text: a part on Jewish legislation, called the Halakhah, which includes the rules
governing everyday life that every Jew is expected to follow (even though there are
different opinions, and different schools of thought, as to their interpretation), and
a narrative part, called the Haggadah, in which rabbinical teachings are delivered in
the form of legends and stories.
* Main beliefs
The main belief on which the Jewish Faith is based is the belief in the
oneness of God who – after having created the world – revealed himself to men.
The Revelation has been recorded in the sacred texts and thus handed down: and
this is why Judaism is also known as the Religion of the Book.
Another fundamental principle, closely linked to the previous one, is the
belief in the Alliance between God and the Jewish people. Through the Alliance,
which God originally established with Abraham, the Jewish people undertake to
recognize God, support His design and respect His Laws. Through the acceptance
of this covenant, the Jews saw themselves as the “chosen people”: this does not
mean that the Jews expect to receive any particular privilege from God, or that
they feel they are better than others, but that they believe that God designated
them to testify to others – through the example set by their actions – the presence
of God on Earth.
The Alliance between God and the Jewish people is renewed when, in
everyday life, Jews observe the Laws of God: the Jewish ethical system is
underpinned by the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses at Mount Sinai.
Then there are 613 precepts, or mitzvot (365 prohibitions and 248 obligations),
recorded in Talmudic law, which regulate the daily existence of every practising
Jew, and include laws concerning each aspect of social life, from marriage to
ceremonial procedures, as well as several laws and prohibitions concerning food.
In the covenant between God and His people, the reward for good conduct is
possession of the land, which belongs to God. Each time the Jews transgress God’s
laws, thus breaking the Alliance, God punishes them by sending them into exile.
The hope in the return to the Promised Land, brought about by God’s will more
than by human actions, has in some periods given rise to the belief in the arrival of
a messiah, that is of a charismatic leader who would lead the Jews back to the
Land of Israel.
Another relevant aspect of the Jewish Religion is the importance that it
attaches to the study of the Torah and the Talmud. One cannot be a good believer
if one does not study, and studying means poring over the texts again and again,
in search of all their possible meanings.
*Attitude towards other religions
Judaism is not interested in active proselytism and does not encourage
(even though it does not exclude) conversion. However, the Jewish Faith
encourages collaboration between different religions as far as the social and the
ethical fields are concerned. According to the Talmud, a Jew has to respect the
laws of the country in which he lives. Through the centuries, Jews have suffered
severe discrimination and persecution on the part of other religions (particularly
Christianity).
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/judaism.htm
www.shamash.org
1.1.3.7. Jainism
The raised hand tells the believer to stop and think before performing any action; the hand
contains a wheel, which stands for the eternal cycle of rebirth, and which in turn contains the word
“Ahimsa” (non-violence).
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
There are some 4 million Jainas in the world, mostly concentrated in northwest India.
* History
Jainism is a very ancient religion whose roots – like those of Buddhism –
are sunk in the Hindu tradition. Like Buddhism, Jainism arose as a challenge to
Vedic and Brahmanic orthodoxy..
There are twenty-four great Jaina teachers (or Jina, which in Sanskrit means
“conquerors” – in the sense that they have conquered their passions): the last Jina
was Vardhamana (also known as Mahavira, or “Great Hero”), and he lived in the 6th
– 5th century B.C.E, more or less at the same time as the Buddha. According to
Jaina tradition, Vardhamana came from a noble family and, at the age of twentyeight, he left his wife and daughter to dedicate his life to religion and to ascetic
practices. He reached inner enlightenment, re-founded the Jaina community and
died of fasting at the age of seventy-two.
During the 1st century CE, the Jaina community split into two main currents:
the Digambara (“sky-clad”) were more conservative and believed that monks should
wear no clothes, while the Svetambaras (“white-clad”) clothed themselves with
seamless white cloth.
* Sacred texts
The Svetambara canon dates back to the 2nd –3rd century BCE and includes
parables and legends about Mahavira. The Digambaras reject these texts as
inauthentic, and their canon includes the writings of the monk Kundakunda (approx.
4th century CE).
* Main beliefs
Like Hindus and Buddhists, Jainas believe in reincarnation and in the cycle
of re-births (or samsara): the cycle is eternal because time has no beginning and no
end, and the ultimate aim of Jaina believers is to free themselves from their karma
(the sum of their actions and their consequences on successive lives), in order to
attain nirvana, the state of eternal quietude.
Deliverance from this world can be obtained only if one manages to separate
the soul’s (jiva) indestructible and eternal energy from its material bonds, which
result from harmful passions.
Jainas are expected to observe five vows:
-
Ahimsa (non-violence): respect all forms of life
Satya: speak truth
Asteya: do not steal
Brahmacharya: do not commit adultery: for monks, this is a chastity vow;
for other people, it is a vow of monogamy
Aparigraha: limit your possessions to what is strictly necessary to survive
day by day.
The principle of Ahimsa, on which Jaina ethics is founded, is linked to the
concept of karma: when you harm another creature (even if you do not mean to do
so, as when you step on an insect), you accumulate negative karmas which will
affect your future reincarnations. According to Jaina tradition, there are 8.4 million
jives (souls) in the universe, among animals, plants, mineral particles, and
atmospheric elements: in order to respect the principle of non-violence, one must
do all one can to limit the damage one inflicts on other living creatures. This is why
Jainas practice an extreme form of vegeterianism, only drink water that has already
been used to cook (so that the death of micro-organisms in the water is not their
responsibility), walk bare-footed - sometimes brushing the ground ahead of them
with a small broom so as to avoid stepping inadvertently on an insect - and, at
times, cover their mouths with a handkerchief to avoid inhaling some microscopic
creature.
* Attitude towards other religions
Jainism has many points in common with Hinduism, of which however it
rejects a few fundamental concepts, such as the division of society in castes.
Recently, however, the two traditions have moved closer to each other.
* Links
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jain.htm
http://www.umich.edu/~umjains/
http://www.mantraonline.com/channels/religion/jainism/
http://www.indiablessings.com/Jainism/
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/jainhlinks.html
1.1.3.8. Hinduism
The syllable “OM”, invocation used as a mantra (prayer).
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
Hindus are the third largest religious community in the world (after the
Christians and the Muslims) and number almost 650 million (about 13% of the
world population), living in 84 countries. Most of them live in southern Asia,
particularly in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia
(Bali). There are Hindu communities in Africa (Mauritius), in Latin America (Guyana,
Trinidad), in the Fiji islands, the United States, and various European countries.
* History
Hinduism has no founder. More than a unitary religion, Hinduism is a set of
different religious movements, which nonetheless share some main beliefs.
There are various hypotheses regarding the prehistory of this religion and the
peoples of India. According to many experts, the origins of Hinduism date back to
over three thousand years ago, when the Indo-Aryan tribes settled in the north of
India and developed some philosophical concepts and social practices that
constitute the basis of the Hindu philosophical system. But some modern Indian
experts think that there was no external influence on the original Indian culture,
which they believe derived directly from the ancient Indus valley civilization (which
flourished over four thousand years ago), of which some important architectonic
traces remain, but whose history and whose end is very little known.
In any case, the history of the oldest form of Hinduism is subdivided into two
phases: the Vedic phase (c. 1500 - 900 BCE), characterized by sacrificial practices
and the worship of a very large number of divinities - including the powerful Indra
and Agni, the god of fire -, and the post-Vedic or Brahmanic phase (c. 900 - 400
BCE), in which both sacrificial practices and many of the Vedic divinities lost
importance, while the creator god Prajapati, who is identified with Brahman, the
absolute, appeared.
The word Hindu was introduced with the arrival of the Muslims (in the 8th
century CE), while those people who belong to this religion prefer the classic term
dharma, which means law, justice, and duty, and refers to the eternal order of
things.
* Sacred texts
At first handed down orally and then, much later, set down in words, the Four
Vedas (the Veda of hymns, the Veda of melodies, the Veda of sacrificial formulas,
and the Veda of magical formulas) constitute the foundations of Hinduism.
Every one of the four Vedas is subdivided into four sections, namely: the
Samhita, a considerable collection of hymns composed between 2000 and 1000
B.C.E.; the Brahmana, liturgical commentaries in prose; the Aranyaka, or books
“of the forest”; and the Upanishad, which are philosophical commentaries on the
Vedas.
The Mahabharata is a very long poem written between the 3rd century BCE
and the 3rd century CE, which sums up in 18 books the warrior code and various
philosophical and religious notions of Hinduism (especially in the Bhagavad-Gita, a
poem that deals with some fundamental moral questions and personal faith in a
redeeming divinity, Krishna/Vishnu). The Ramayana is another great epic that tells
the story of a hero (subsequently identified with the god Vishnu) obliged to fight a
war against the demonic king of Lanka (Ceylon, or Sri Lanka) in order to win back
his abducted bride. Finally, the Purana are 36 collections of myths ad legends,
biographies and philosophical teachings that make up a kind of encyclopaedia of
Hinduism.
* Main beliefs
The Vedic divinities are not so much superior beings, as representations of
the power of nature. In the course of centuries, after the Vedic period, two of these
divinities, Vishnu (a beneficent god associated with the sun, of whom Rama and
Krishna are the principal incarnations) and Shiva (a god at once a destroyer and
restorer, probably connected to the Vedic divinity Rudra) have acquired particular
importance, thus giving rise to various traditions: Vaishnavism and Shivaism (which
is the tradition followed by most Indians today). A third tradition is Shaktism
(Shakti, the wife of Shiva, is the creative energy of divinity). However, the different
schools are not mutually exclusive since one of the characteristic aspects of
Hinduism is that it envisages a variety of paths to salvation.
The various schools agree on some fundamental points. These are:
The cycle of rebirth (samsara): at death, every creature is reborn in another
body, vegetable, animal, or human. The succession of rebirths is seen as a dramatic
problem from which people wish to free themselves with the aid of determined
techniques, like yoga and meditation. Liberation - or moksha – consists in
discovering the identity of the most profound nucleus of the self (atman), with
Brahman, the absolute, the indivisible One that pervades the entire universe.
Respect for life: the soul of an individual can be reborn in animal or vegetable
form. It follows from this that Hindus tend to show great respect for all kinds of
living beings (for example, many Hindus are vegetarians).
Karma (“action”): on the basis of this concept, the condition into which a
determined individual is born in his next life depends on the things he did in his
previous life. In other words, every action that the individual performs in his present
life will have repercussions on his future lives.
Society was at first divided into social groups (varna: “colour”): Brahmans
(brahmana), warriors (kshatriya), farmers and merchants (vaishya) and servants
(shudra), as well as the outcasts, who have no place in the system. Later, society
was broken up into a large number (from 2000 to 3000) of castes (jati) and subcastes. Belonging to one caste or another depends on the individual’s karma and
therefore on his conduct in his previous lives. Those born into a certain caste must
be aware of the duties and the consequences of their own condition (for example
one may marry or sit at the same table only with members of one’s own caste):
fulfilling one’s caste duties correctly is necessary for an improved rebirth. It ought to
be added, however, that the Constitution of modern India forbids all discrimination
on the basis of caste although, in practice, the caste system is still applied.
*Attitude towards other religions
Given the Hindu principle according to which the paths leading to the
Absolute are many and not mutually exclusive, this religion declares itself to be
tolerant both of other religions and of the various religious expressions it contains
within itself. What Hinduism rejects is the absolutization of any particular form of
worship, as well as, in most cases, proselytism.
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/hinduism.htm
www.snowcrest.net/dougbnt/hindu.html
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology2.html
1.1.3.9. Islam
The crescent moon (hilal) is the most important symbol in the Muslim tradition because in the
Muslim calendar (which is lunar) it determines among other things the beginning of the pilgrimage
and of the fast during the month of Ramadan.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
There are about 1,300 million Muslims in the world, which makes Islam the
second most widespread religion in the world.
It is necessary to avoid confusing the words “Arab” and “Muslim”. Arabs are
those who live in countries where the official language is Arabic, and they may be
Muslims, Christians or Jews. Muslims, instead, are those who adhere to the
Muslim religion, and they are not found only in Arab countries, but also in Iran,
Turkey, various African countries, among some peoples of central Asia, in Pakistan,
in India, in China, in Malaysia, in Indonesia and (as a minority) in the Philippines.
* History
Islam (a term that means literally “submission to the will of God”) originated
at the beginning of the 7th century of the Common Era in the Arabian peninsula.
Many nomadic tribes lived in that area, but there were also groups of
merchants living mostly in the two principal cities, Mecca and Yathrib (the future
Medina).
Mohammed (in Arabic Muhammad), the founder of the Muslim religion,
belonged to one of the wealthy families of Mecca. Since his early youth,
Mohammed travelled and broadened his understanding, driven by a profound inner
search for truth. According to the Muslim tradition, in 610, during one of his
spiritual retreats on the slopes of Mount Hira, he was visited by the Angel Gabriel,
who asked him to recite some verses, in other words the first verses of the
Revelation, thus making Mohammed the human vehicle of God’s word.
But the Revelation stopped for three years, during which Mohammed feared
that God had abandoned him. Starting from 613, however, the Revelations began
again and Mohammed began to tell his fellow citizens about the precepts of the
new religion. Until then the religion of the Arabian peninsula had been
polytheism, therefore Mohammed’s first task was to persuade his fellow citizens
to believe in one God alone. But the opposition was such that in 622 Mohammed
decided to make the Hegira (in Arabic hijra), in other words to move to Yathrib
(the future Medina, or “the city of the Prophet”) where, welcomed by the Arab
tribes of that place, he founded the true Muslim state, where he had the first
mosque built. As well as representing the Messenger of God, Mohammed also
managed to have himself accepted as the political head of the city and of the
Muslim community.
From the moment of his arrival in Yathrib, Mohammed had a sole objective:
to revenge himself on the people of Mecca and to return to his home town as a
conqueror. There were many battles between those faithful to the Prophet and the
Meccans. In 629, after one failed attempt, Mohammed successfully made the
pilgrimage to Mecca, and especially to the Kaaba, which he wanted to transform
from a pagan shrine into a shrine devoted to the new God Allah. In 630 he entered
Mecca in triumph, declaring it a holy city of Islam, and established the ritual of the
pilgrimage. In 632 Mohammed died in Medina, which became the second holy city
of Islam, and in the place where he died there now stands a mosque.
Since Mohammed had left neither male heirs nor any instructions regarding
the succession, his death led to much debate about who had the right to succeed
him as the guide of the community. The first two caliphs (in Arabic khalifa means
“successors [of the Prophet]”), Abu Bakr and Omar, belonged to the group of the
Companions of the Prophet. The third caliph, Uthman, was a member of the
aristocratic Meccan family of the Omayyads. Uthman was assassinated and Ali
(Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law) came to power. One part of the Muslim
community, convinced that Ali himself had had his predecessor killed, immediately
nominated an anti-caliph. A series of armed struggles began between the two
groups. In the end the anti-caliph, Mu’awiya (a member of the Omayyad family),
managed to have himself elected the new caliph. This was the origin of the main
schism within Islam, the one between Sunnites and Shi’ites (from shi’a or “Ali’s
party”).
The Omayyad dynasty (661-750) marked the beginning of a new era. The
caliph lived in luxury and carried on the expansionist policies launched by the first
caliphs, until the Muslim armies reached Spain (Andalusia) in the West and China in
the East. This expansion made it necessary to move the capital to a city that was
less isolated from the rest of the empire: the choice fell on Damascus, a city in
which the Omayyads had many faithful followers. But the dynasty was soon
accused by the faithful of being too secular and worldly.
And so it was that, in 750, the second great dynasty in Muslim history, the
Abbasids, took power. They held it until 1258 (the year in which Baghdad was
occupied by the Mongols). Under the Abbasids, the capital was moved from
Damascus to Baghdad. But the territory was too large to be controlled, and power
was gradually handed to small dynasties of princes (the emirs) who, while they still
depended on the central power, gained more and more independence. After 1258
the Muslim history became the history of small (albeit sometimes important)
dynasties.
Today the Sunnites (the orthodox Muslims, those who follow the Sunna, or
the Muslim tradition) are the majority of Muslims. The Shi’ites (originally the
partisans of Ali) recognize the leadership not of a caliph – a sovereign who,
according to them, has no privileged relationship with the Divinity – but of an imam
(a guide) who, belonging to the family of Ali, is invested with temporal as well as
spiritual authority. Most Shi’ites today live in Iran.
One particular current within Islam is Sufism, or Muslim mysticism. The
ultimate goal of the Muslim mystic (sufi) is to attain Divinity and to annul himself in
It. Orthodox Muslims believe that the fusion of man with God is indispensable, and
for this reason they cannot accept any form of Sufism.
* Sacred texts
The sacred text of Islam is the Quran (Qu’ran, or “that which is recited”).
According to Islamic tradition, the Quran is the Word of God transmitted to the
world through the Prophet Mohammed, and is the ultimate and definitive divine
revelation.
The Quran is composed of 114 chapters called surahs arranged, apart from
the first chapter, in order of length from the longest to the shortest. The longer
surahs are the more modern ones, while the shorter ones are the older ones. Every
chapter (except the ninth) begins with the basmala, in other words with the
expression “in the name of Allah, the Clement and the Merciful”.
As far as the content is concerned, indications are given to show whether the
surahs were revealed in Mecca or in Medina. The surahs of the Meccan period
express the Main beliefs of the new religion: monotheism, or the existence of a
single God; the struggle against social injustice, since the new religion was against
the rich and usurers; the announcement of the Day of Judgement. With
Mohammed’s move to Medina the content changes. The surahs from this period
offer the rules that the Muslim community must obey: for example the prohibition
of fermented liquors, the prohibition regarding usury, etcetera.
As well as the Quran, the Islamic tradition (sunna) is made up of another two
texts: the hadith, or the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed, and the
sira, the biography of Mohammed. The hadith are narratives about the Prophet that
deal with all those aspects of social and religious life that the Quran does not
mention: for example, how prayer, funerals, weddings, etc., must be performed.
* Main beliefs
All Muslims believe in certain basic and ineluctable concepts, but at the same
time they all put them into practice on the basis of the tradition and the conditions
of the area in which they live.
The Islamic credo can be summed up by what are commonly referred to as
the five pillars of Islam (arkan al-islam):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
the profession of the faith (shahada), which consists in reciting with
conviction the following phrase: “There is no God but God, and Muhammad
is the prophet of God” (in Shi’ite circles they add: “And Ali is His Favourite”);
the ritual prayer (sala) is represented by the five daily prayers: at dawn, at
midday, in the afternoon, at sunset, and in the evening. In order to
complete the prayer the Muslim must be in a state of ritual purity – this is
why mosques always have a fountain for ablutions – and he must turn
towards the qibla, or the Kaaba in Mecca. The community prayer is held at
midday on Fridays;
The socially purifying act of giving alms (zaka) which is a sum that every
Muslim must disburse annually, whose amount is established on the basis of
his income and which is used to help the poor and needy;
the fast (sawm) of the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the lunar
calendar. During this month Muslims must abstain above all from eating and
drinking in the hours of daylight;
the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca which is obligatory for all Muslim adults at
least once in life. The pilgrimage also takes place in a specific month of the
lunar calendar.
* Attitude towards other religions
Islam claims to be the ultimate and definitive revealed religion, therefore the
“seal” of the monotheistic religions. But precisely for this reason both Jews and
Christians are defined by Islam as “people of the Book” and are respected and
tolerated because they possess a revealed Book. But Islam has often been less
open in its attitude to other religions: the notion of the jihad, originally seen as
part of the struggle against polytheism, has been interpreted by some extremist
movements as a struggle against anyone who does not belong to Islam.
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/islam.htm
1.1.3.10.
Traditional African Religions
Every African population has developed its own specific religion, which has
become an integral part of its cultural heritage. It can be said therefore that there
are as many African traditional religions as there are African peoples. Proselytism,
in other words attempting to convert others to one’s own religion, is not
widespread among African peoples, precisely because each religion is directly linked
to the identity of a determined population.
It is not possible therefore to find a common historic origin for the various
African traditional religions, nor is there a single geographical map that allows us
to follow its spread throughout the continent.
The term traditional is generally used to differentiate those religions of
African origin from the great imported religions, like Islam or Christianity, which
have attracted a very large portion of the population over the years.
Talking of religion in Africa means talking of social organization, and
therefore talking of the relationship between the young and their elders, the
relationship with nature, the relationship between the sexes, the perception of
disease, the acceptance of death, and so on. Everything that concerns social life in
Africa is regulated by religion. As there is no written text, like the Bible or the
Quran, the religious tradition is generally the province of the elders and is orally
transmitted, often through stories and proverbs. In this regard, we ought to
mention that the terminology used by Western scholars to classify the African
religious dimension is at times highly inaccurate and tends to impoverish its
extraordinary complexity and variety.
* Main beliefs
Despite the transformations that continually occur in the world of African
religion, it is however possible to recognize some elements shared by the various
African religious traditions.
In the first place, all the religions that we are discussing hinge on a belief in
a single God, which the History of Religions defines as the Supreme Being. This
Creator-God is similar in all African religions: after creating the world, he loses
interest in it and rarely interferes with human affairs. While he is the guarantor of
the established order of things, he takes no active part in it and remains detached
from humanity. The Supreme Being is rarely venerated or worshipped. For
example, the God of the Kikuyu people of Kenya, called Ngai, is said to have
withdrawn to the summit of Mount Kenya where he takes no part in the vicissitudes
of his creatures. However, the Kikuyu always pray with their faces turned towards
the mountain in token of respect.
The Creator God is at once good and bad: people are afraid of him because
his rare acts can be violent, but people are also grateful to him for his generosity.
The Supreme Being is the most important of a very numerous series of
spiritual beings who act as mediators between the Supreme Being and humans. In
African Religions the various spirits have become more important than the Supreme
Being, who is felt to be too far away. It is to these spirits that people turn to put
forward their requests. There are two kind of spirits: those of non-human origin
and those who, after having been human, have become ancestral spirits.
The spirits of non-human origin are at times connected with certain natural
locations, for example wood spirits or sea spirits. For the Luo people of Kenya, for
example, one of the most active and present spirits is the spirit of the Lake. This
can be explained by the presence of nearby Lake Victoria, on whose shores the Luo
have been living for a long time. Among the Dogon of Mali, the water spirit, called
Nommo, is considered the father of humanity, the one who taught men the art of
fire and the use of tools.
The spirits of nature do not have a well-defined personality. They are the
guardians of the territory occupied by a determined population and with which they
establish complex social relations. Other spirits are instead identified with natural
phenomena, like the spirit of the thunder, the spirit of the wind, of the storm, of
the rain, and so on. All these spiritual entities, which some experts define as
“secondary divinities”, can be good or bad, or can even have an ambivalent nature.
Sometimes they are friendly and well disposed towards men, but sometimes they
can be very hostile. Some intervene rarely, others are ever present in everyday life.
Some move around a lot, others are sedentary. Each of these spiritual entities has
its own established place in a hierarchical scale, and it is this position that codifies
relations between one spirit and another, and between spirits and men. Some of
these spirits come into contact with men through trance states or possession.
Sometimes whole families of spirits periodically possess a person, telling him or her
how to act for the good of the clan or the community as a whole. Examples of this
kind of spirit are the Bori of the Hausas of Niger, and the Bisimba of the Zela of
Zaire.
Ancestors belong to the second category of spirits. Death does not
automatically transform a relative into an ancestor. Precise rituals are required, and
in a certain sense these accompany the deceased person into the hereafter,
allowing him or her to take on the new spiritual essence. These rituals include the
double funeral in which it is expected that there will be a period of time in which
the spirit of the dead person will be ill-disposed towards the living, and only a
second funeral, which calls for a series of offerings and collective prayers, will
reconcile him with his relatives.
In all African societies the bond between the living and the dead is very
strong: the dead must always be held in consideration and appeased with offerings
of various kinds. They keep a firm grip on their positions within the family structure
and no fear is greater than the fear of arousing their wrath. Ancestors constitute
the most immediate link with the spiritual world, they can guarantee the prosperity,
health, and fecundity of their descendants. The social structure of the Kikuyu of
Kenya mirrors the world of the ancestors, called Ngoma, whose number includes
the “immediate ancestors”, or Ngoma cia aciari. In the main, they communicate
with the head of the family, who must make them regular offerings of food and
drink.
1.1.3.11. Shinto
Torii: the portal giving access to a Shintoist shrine, formed by two red upright pillars topped by the
same number of architraves, which are also red.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
Shinto is practised almost exclusively in Japan. It is very hard to estimate the
overall numbers of Shintoists because it is possible to practice Shinto and
Buddhism at the same time. According to some estimates about 100 million
Japanese practice a combination of the two religions.
* History
Shinto is the native religion of Japan and has no founder. Originally, Shinto
was a blend of rites, myths, beliefs, techniques of divination, and customs that
were deeply rooted in the everyday life of the Japanese people. At first this
complex of practices and beliefs had no name, and it was only with the advent of
Buddhism in Japan (in the 6th century CE) that it came to be called Shinto (which
means “the way of the gods”).
From the 6th to the 8th century Shinto and Buddhism coexisted peacefully in
Japan, but then the state of symbiosis gave to way to complete fusion. In the 12 th
century, Shinto also combined with Confucianism. Separated from the other two
faiths for political reasons, in 1868 Shinto practically became the State religion.
In contemporary Japan Shinto no longer enjoys this privileged position,
because the current Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom for all
Japanese.
* Sacred texts
Although Shinto does not have sacred texts as such, there are some books
that contain the myths and the religious traditions of the Japanese people: of
these, the principal works are the Kojiki (“Records of Ancient Matters”), and the
Nihon shoki (“Annals of Japan”), written in the 8th century, which contain the
history of Japan from its creation – brought about by the divine couple, Izanagi
(male) and Izanami (female) – to 697 CE
* Main beliefs
The Shintoist philosophy of life revolves around the idea that there is a
profound harmony between human beings, nature, and the numerous divinities
that populate the universe.
The divine beings are called kami. They are generally benign and protect all
those who turn to them. Kami are identified with numerous natural objects
(mountains, streams, animals, trees, etc.), some mythical or historical characters,
and ancestors.
According to the Shintoist mythology of the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki,
the imperial family (whose first emperor is believed to have been Jimmu Tenno)
descends directly from the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, who is considered to be its
founder.
*Attitude towards other religions
Shinto coexists easily with the other religions and, in fact, many Shintoists
are also devotees of Buddhism. Shinto does not encourage proselytism because
it is considered unsuited to non-Japanese peoples.
* Links
http://www.religioustolerance.org/shintoism.htm
http://www.trincoll.edu/~tj/tj4.4.96/articles/cover.html
http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/
1.1.3.11.
Sikhism
Khanda, a symbol that represents the universal creative force. In the centre of the khanda there is
a two-edged blade, which symbolizes the omnipotent power of the Creator; the circle stands for
infinity; the two external blades represent the spiritual and temporal equilibrium of the universe.
* Number of followers and their geographical distribution
There are about 18 million Sikhs in the world, most of whom live in the
Punjab in India. Apart from India, the biggest Sikh communities are in North
America and in Great Britain.
* History
The founder of the Sikh religion was Guru Nanak Dev (1469-1539) who,
after having been enlightened in Sultanpur, spent the rest of his life travelling
through India singing religious poems of his own composition, which were later
written down and added to the Sikh canon. A community of disciples (Sikh =
“disciple”) gathered around Nanak, and it was from their number that he chose his
successor, Guru Angad. In all, there were ten successors to the first guru: in the
fifth guru’s day, the structure of the Sikh community became more martial,
following their persecution at the hands of the Moguls, the Muslim emperors of
India. The tenth guru, Gobind Singh (1666-1708), founded the military order of
the Khalsa (“the pure”) and decreed that, after him, there would be no other guru
because religious authority had been transferred to the sacred text, the Adi Granth.
* Sacred texts
The sacred text of the Sikh faith is the Adi Granth (also known as Guru
Granth Sahib), a collection of almost six thousand hymns, composed by the first
five gurus, put together by Arjan Dev (the fifth guru) in 1606. The 1430 pages of
the Adi Granth also include some hymns by Bhakti saints and Sufi Muslims.
* Main beliefs
Sikhism is inspired by some principles of Hinduism and Islam, even though
it is an autonomous religion in its own right. From Hinduism it has taken the belief
in the transmigration of souls (samsara) and the effects of one’s actions on
following lives (karma). The final goal is to interrupt the cycle of rebirth (cf.
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism), although this liberation is not seen as the
annulment of self, but as a conjunction with God, who is One and indivisible. This
conjunction is attained through righteous behaviour and faith in God. Like
Muslims, the Sikhs believe that God created the world and that His will governs all
things.
According to Sikhism, all human beings are equal before God (and therefore
the caste system is rejected): this principle implies the abolition of the clergy (every
Sikh can read the Guru Granth Sahib, at home or in the temple), and parity
between men and women (women can lead the congregation in prayer and
become “lionesses of the faith”, just like men).
Contrary to all forms of asceticism, celibacy, ritual formalism and the worship
of images, the Sikh religion encourages its followers to come to a balance between
spiritual and temporal obligations. The sharing of goods is held to be an important
part of everyday life.
The Khalsa are warriors, as well as believers and heads of families, and they
believe in the legitimacy of “holy war”, understood as a means of combating
injustice. Those who join the Khalsa must always carry with them the “five Ks”:
kesh (unshorn hair: anyone cutting his hair is a renegade); kacha (short trousers),
kirpan (dagger), kara (iron bracelet) e kanga (comb).
*Attitude towards other religions
Although the Sikh faith is very critical of other religions, the gurus have
always declared their belief in religious freedom because what counts most is the
moral conduct of individuals during their life on earth and their faith in God (or in a
principle of divinity). This means that, as far as the Sikh faith is concerned, people
of different religions can attain the salvation of the soul without abandoning their
own religion.
In practice, however, the history of the Sikhs has been marked by conflict
with Muslims and Hindus.
* Links
www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism.htm
official site: www.sikhs.org
www.mantraonline.com/channels/religion/sikhism.html
Other religions
http://www.religioustolerance.org
http://dir.altavista.com/Society/220727/220725.shtml
http://www.cesnur.org/
1.2. EXAMPLES
Religious practices
There are several practices that members of the various religious traditions are
expected to follow: some rituals are performed every day, others mark certain
specific periods of the year, others again accompany particular stages in the
lives of the members of the religious community. In the paragraphs that follow,
you will find some examples of religious ceremonies: if you want to help us make
our collection more complete, please send us more examples.
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Daily liturgy
Annual festivities
Ceremonies that mark the fundamental moments in life
Pilgrimages
Places of worship
1.2.1. Daily liturgy
The day of every practising believer is marked by certain specific moments devoted
to worship and the performance of certain ritual procedures prescribed by the
religious tradition.
Every day Muslims must make their profession of faith (through the formula
“There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God”) and they must
pray five times (at dawn, at midday, in the afternoon, at sunset and in the
evening), turning to face Mecca. The hour of prayer is announced by the muezzin
and, before praying, the faithful must carry out the ritual ablutions.
In Islam, prayer comprises a precise and unchangeable series of phases:
1. the believer states, while standing, the intention to pray
2. he pronounces, raising his hands, the formula: “Allah is most great ”
3. he recites the first surah of the Quran, known as the Opening Surah (alFatiha in Arabic)
4. he bends over forwards until the palms of his hands reach his knees
5. he returns to the upright position
6. he prostrates himself so that first his knees, then his hands, and finally his
forehead touch the ground
7. he kneels
8. he prostrates himself a second time.
Positions 3-8 constitute a unit of prayer (rak’a), whose number varies
according to the hour in which the prayer is performed. The final phases of prayer
are:
9. recitation while kneeling of the profession of faith and of the prayer blessing
Mohammed “May God bless him and give him eternal health”, and finally
10.
a last bow to the left and to the right while pronouncing the words “peace
be with you and mercy to God”.
Often, there is a special prayer that embodies some main beliefs of the
determined religion: thus, for the Jews the main daily prayer is the Shemà
Israel: recited three times a day (morning, afternoon and before going to sleep),
this prayer is also written on the mezuzah, the parchment fixed to the right-hand
side jamb of every door. When they pray, men cover their heads with the kippah
(skull cap) and they put on the talith (shawl), the tefillin (phylacteries), which are
two small black leather cases that must be tied one to the left arm and the other to
the forehead, and the talleth (a cloak with four corners). During week days three
common prayers are held at the synagogue: morning, afternoon and evenings.
Prayer sessions may be officiated by any male over thirteen years of age with a
knowledge of the ritual, in a group of at least ten people (minyan).
In their two thousand years of history the various Christian churches have
produced innumerable forms of prayer. The Christian prayer par excellence,
common to all Churches in all historical periods, is the Paternoster (Our Father)
which Jesus himself taught to his closest disciples and is found in the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke. Christianity recognizes personal and free prayer forms and
obligatory institutional prayer forms. The institutional and public prayer is the one
practised weekly by the entire community assembled on Sunday morning during
the celebration of the Lord’s Supper known, in the Catholic Church, as the Mass.
There are no other forms of obligatory prayer, although in all forms of
Christianity it is common to pray as soon as one gets up, before meals and before
sleeping. Equally widespread is a brief prayer for the dead. But each Church and
every tradition has different prayers for these occasions. The Bible contains 150
Psalms that Christians have always used for personal and institutional prayer,
especially on the part of priests and ministers.
Institutional prayer is recited standing, especially the Paternoster, which is
the prayer common to the entire community. Otherwise Christians usually pray
while kneeling with hands joined. In the Eastern Churches silent uninterrupted
prayer is widespread. Prayer is addressed to God the Father, to Jesus Christ and to
the Holy Spirit, the three members of the Holy Trinity. But prayers are also
addressed to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, and to the great saints of the
past whom Christians ask to intercede with God. The best known prayer addressed
by Catholics to the Virgin is the Ave Maria which, repeated fifty times (in five
groups of ten), gave rise to the so-called Rosary, a form of popular prayer that
became extremely widespread in the Catholic world after the 15th century.
Hindus pay homage to their own divinities with a large number of prayers
(mantra) in order to express their devotion (bhakti) to them or to ask them for
material or moral assistance. Vaishnavas, for example, make frequent use of
litanies (kirtana) in which the divine name is repeated over and over again: it is
thought, in fact, that the invocation of the divine name, if accompanied by a real
inner commitment, helps the devotee to get in direct touch with the god. Prayer is
often accompanied by ritual gestures, like joined hands or ecstatic dancing. The
most common mantra is the syllable om, added to the name of a divinity.
Jainas believe that the path to salvation involves living a virtuous life and is
strictly individual. There are many hymns and sacred formulas for praising and
honouring the twenty-four Jina. The most important prayer is the Navkar Mantra,
which can be recited at any moment of the day.
In the homes of practising Buddhists there is usually an altar upon which
stands an image of the Buddha, to whom every day symbolic offerings (fruit, water,
incense) are made. In the countries in which ancestor worship is strong (like China
and Japan), photographs and tablets of deceased relatives are placed alongside the
statue of Buddha.
As well as the recitation of ancient praises to Buddha in his various
manifestations, prayer consists in readings of parts of the discourses of the Buddha
(sutra), and in the proclamation of refuge in Buddha (for the Theravada school) or
of the vows of the Bodhisattva (for the Mahayana school): prayer is intoned
rhythmically and occasionally accompanied by small percussion instruments. In
order to meditate, Buddhists assume the “lotus position” (seated on the ground
with back straight and legs crossed).
1.2.1.1. Holy days (of the week)
Some days of the week play an important role in the different religions:
Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews, and Sunday for Christians. On these days
everyday work and other activities are suspended so that people may devote
themselves to rest and prayer.
At midday on Fridays (the “day of assembly”), Muslims go to the mosque to
pray, to read passages from the Quran, and to hear the preaching of the imam. It
ought to be remembered that, even though Muslim tradition has it that the
Creation was accomplished in six days, the Quran denies that God rested on the
seventh day. Therefore, although Western influence has led to the custom of
thinking of Friday as a day of rest, Muslim tradition only requires a break from work
for the duration of prayer.
Shabbat (Saturday) is the holy day of the Jews, in which people refrain from
working in order to devote themselves to rest, and to God, in memory of the
“divine repose” after the Creation and to commemorate their release from bondage
in Egypt. Shabbat begins at sunset on Friday, when the lady of the house lights the
two sabbatical candles and the head of the family recites the Qiddish, the prayer of
praise and blessing before dinner. The Mishna lists thirty-nine activities that are
prohibited during Shabbat. Currently, this day is respected in a different way by the
various groups that make up Judaism: Orthodox Jews may not use their cars, nor
may they switch on or off any light on Saturdays, while Reformed Jews may do
these things.
The holy day of Christians is Sunday, which is considered the Lord’s day
and commemorated the Resurrection of Jesus, which occurred on that day. On this
day Christians commemorate the Lord’s Supper. This ceremony, known to Catholics
as Mass, is divided into two parts: in the first part there are readings from the Old
and the New Testaments, in accordance with an annual or triennial cycle of
readings, depending on the tradition. The biblical readings are followed by a
sermon (explanation, comment, or religious reflection) made by a priest (in the
Catholic, Orthodox and Eastern Churches), or by a minister (in the Protestant
Churches). The second part, the celebration of the Eucharist, is a repetition of a
key moment in the last supper of Jesus and his disciples, during which he gave
them bread to eat and wine to drink, in representation of his body and his blood.
The bread and the wine are distributed among the faithful in one of the most
intense moments of this liturgy, which takes different forms in the various
Churches, and that in different periods has often been subjected to variations and
reforms, even though the two main parts have always remained substantially
unchanged.
1.2.2. Holidays and Festivals
Holidays (“holy days”), as the English word suggests, often have a religious
origin. They are celebrations that recur every year and involve entire communities.
During holidays, everyday activities such as work are suspended in favour of other
activities, like meeting other people, preparing special foods, dancing, playing,
exchanging gifts, but also praying and meditating. One of the principal functions of
holidays is to provide an occasion for underlining – through symbolic
representations, like dance, readings from sacred texts or collective rites – the main
beliefs of the tradition in question, or to commemorate the most important events
in the history of the religious community.
The Jewish year is dotted with a series of important holidays and religious
festivals. Of these, the principal ones are: Pesach (Passover: which commemorates
the release of the Jewish people from their bondage in Egypt), from which the
Christian Easter is derived; Pentecost, or Shavuòt, which is celebrated fifty days
after Pesach, and commemorates the Revelation on Sinai; and Sukkot, the Feast of
Tabernacles, which commemorates the forty years of wandering in the desert that
followed the departure of the Jews from Egypt. In ancient times, before the
destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, Jews were expected to make a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem during these three holidays.
A second group of holidays is devoted to repentance: the first (in
chronological order) is Rosh ha-shanah (the Jewish New Year), which is a symbolic
commemoration of the Creation of Man; the second is the Day of Atonement, or
Yom Kippur, which ends the period of Rosh ha-Shanah and is devoted to fasting,
repentance and prayer.
http://aish.com/holidays
See this site for an explanation of the various Jewish Holidays.
The fundamental Christian holidays are Easter, which commemorates the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, and is a Christianized version of the Jewish Pesach;
Pentecost, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit into the disciples of
Jesus shortly after his death, which is celebrated 50 days after Easter and is also a
re-elaborated version of an older Jewish festivity; and Christmas, which
commemorates the birth of Jesus, and which is celebrated (in the Catholic and
Protestant Churches) on 25 December: among Catholics and Protestants, Christmas
has become the most popular holiday, even more than Easter, which from a
religious standpoint was originally far more important (and from a theological point
of view still is more important). However, in the Orthodox and the Eastern
Churches, not Christmas but Epiphany is the most important holiday along with
Easter.
http://www.catholicliturgy.com/seasons/liturgicalcalendar.asp
In this site you will find the Catholic liturgical calendar.
The main Muslim holidays are the so-called “’Ids”: ‘id al-kabir, also known
as the feast of sacrifice, which in Islam commemorates the sacrifice of Ishmael,
and ‘id al-saghir, which is the festivity that marks the end of the Ramadan fast.
Another important holiday is the one marking the birth of Mohammed ( al-Mawlid)
which is held on the twelfth day of the third month of the Muslim year.
http://www.arab.it/calendario/calendario1421.htm
See this site for the Islamic calendar.
The calendar of Hindu festivals is a very rich one and varies from region to
region. Some holidays commemorate the birth of a divinity, like Ramanavami
(March-April), which celebrates the birth of Rama, Janmastami (in AugustSeptember), which marks the birth of Krishna, and is celebrated mainly by
Vaishnavas, and Ganeshacaturthi (also in August-September), which celebrates the
birth of the elephant god Ganesh. Other important festivals are Maha-shivaratri
(“the great night of Shiva”), celebrated in February-March, Holi (a kind of spring
festival, like a carnival), Nagapamcami (July-August), which commemorates
Krishna’s killing of the serpent Kaliya, Navaratri (September-October), in honour of
Rama’s defeat of the demon Ravana, and Divali (October-November), the festival
of light.
http://www.theindianculture.com/Indyaculture%20fairs%20&%20festivals/dola%2
0parva.htm
Hindu festivities are listed and explained in this site.
Every year, on the first night of the full moon in the month of May,
Buddhists all over the world celebrate the birth, the enlightenment, and the death
of Buddha: this festivity is called Vesak, from the name of the month in the Indian
calendar.
There are many Buddhist holidays that are celebrated in different ways and
on different dates in the various countries: for example, the Buddhist New Year is
celebrated in April in the countries of the Theravada tradition, and in JanuaryFebruary in those of the Mahayana tradition.
For a description of Buddhist holidays, see
http://www.buddhanet.net/history/festival1.htm
There are lots of Shintoist festivals. The main ones include: the Spring
Festival (a propitiatory harvest festival), the commemoration of the death of
Emperor Jimmu (30 June), the Autumn Festival (17 October), and the days of
purification (end of December).
Other religions:
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/calendar.html
Jaina festivities
http://www.sikhs.org/dates.htm
Sikh calendar
1.2.3.
Ceremonies that mark the fundamental moments in life
Every religion elaborates several ceremonial procedures to mark the main
stages in the life of each individual believer. The stages are birth, entering adult
society, marriage and death. These ceremonies (which anthropologists call “rites of
passage”) reinforce the feeling of belonging to the religious community and create
a sense of continuity with the past, as well as providing an occasion for socializing
with the members of the group.
1.2.3.1. Birth and entry into adult society
The birth of a child is often celebrated with a ceremony that greets the
arrival of a new member of the religious community: this is the sense of Christian
baptism and of circumcision in the Jewish community. A person’s adhesion to the
principles of the religious tradition is generally confirmed by an “initiation”
ceremony which marks his/her entry into adulthood (see the Jewish bar-mitzvah,
Catholic first communion, etc.). In some cases (for example, in Sikh society),
initiation is deferred until the individual has reached adult age and has acquired the
maturity necessary in order to decide if he/she is prepared to embrace the religion
in question.
Baptism marks a child’s entry into the Christian community: dressed in
white in sign of purity, the baby is brought to church by the family; after reading a
text from the Gospels, the priest pours some water from the font onto the child’s
head, saying: “I baptize you, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit”. The Orthodox Churches and some Protestant Churches practice baptism by
immersion.
In the Catholic Church, at around seven years of age, and following religious
instruction, the child confirms his/her adhesion to the Christian faith through the
ceremony of First Communion and, shortly afterwards, through Confirmation.
http://www.catholicliturgy.com/the_mass/nobaptism.shtml
Among the Sikhs, Amrit Sanskar is the ceremony marking initiation into the
confraternity of the Khalsa (the militant order of “the pure”). This ceremony is open
to men and women from any social background (and even from different religious
communities) who, knowingly, have decided to adhere to the principles of the Sikh
community. The initiates wash their hair, put on the “five Ks”, and then present
themselves before six previously baptized Sikhs, one of whom reads the Adi
Granth, while the other five conduct the ceremony. The principles of the Sikh faith
are explained to the initiate. Sugared water (amrit) is prepared in a metal bowl and
stirred with a kirpan (the Sikh dagger) by the five officiating Sikhs, who symbolize
the five disciples of the first guru. The initiates drink the amrit five times while
pronouncing a ceremonial formula. The amrit is then sprayed onto the hair and
eyes of the initiates and what remains is drunk by all present. Afterwards, there is
an explanation of the code of conduct of the Khalsa: the obligation of the “five Ks”,
the prohibition regarding the consumption of halal meat (butchered according
to the Muslim rite), the prohibition of tobacco and other intoxicants, and the
obligation of fidelity within the married couple. Finally, all the participants eat the
sacred Sikh pudding from a common bowl.
Traditionally, on the thirty-first day of life for males, and on the thirty-third
for females, new-born babies in the Shinto community used to be presented to the
kami (the divinity) at the local shrine in order to ask for divine protection. Today
this custom is dying out in Japan.
Eight days after birth, male Jewish babies are circumcised: the surgical
operation is performed by an export in this rite called the mohel. The sense of this
ceremony is to renew the pact between God and His people. On the day of his
circumcision, the child publicly receives his name.
At thirteen, boys are accepted into the adult community. This rite of passage
is sanctioned by the ceremony known as Bar mitzvah (“son of the
Commandment”). On this occasion, for the first time the boy wears the talleth
(cloak) for prayer and the tefillin (phylacteries). In the synagogue he must read all
that part of the Torah prescribed for that day.
In Orthodox Jewish communities, there is no special rite reserved for female
children. From the 19th century onwards, Reformed Jews introduced a religious
ceremony for girls of twelve, the Bat mitzvah (“daughter of the Commandment”).
In the Islamic world initiation exists only in the event of conversion. The
child of a Muslim father is automatically a Muslim from birth. In the event of
conversion, it is sufficient to make a profession of faith before witnesses. The
circumcision of male babies is widespread among Muslims, although it is not
strictly obligatory. In some African Muslim countries, infibulation (or clitorectomy),
a very painful and mutilating surgical operation, is still practised. The infibulation of
female children has pre-Muslim origins, and in fact is not mentioned in the Quran.
1.2.3.2. Weddings
In all religious traditions, weddings are seen as joyous occasions, because
they are presumed to be a prelude to the birth of new members of the community.
While all religions hope that the conjugal bond will prove a lasting one, only some
of them consider it to be unbreakable. In some cases, it is possible for one member
of the couple (usually the man) to be married with several people at the same
time. During the wedding ceremonies, the husband and wife are reminded are
reminded of their conjugal duties, which are often different between the two sexes.
Marriage and procreation are part of the duties of Jewish men and women.
The relationship between husband and wife is monogamous (you cannot be
married to more than one person at a time) but the bond is not unbreakable (it is
possible to divorce).
If a non-Jewish man or woman want to marry a Jew, they must convert to
the Jewish religion. Reformed Jews recognize mixed marriages, without the
conversion of one of the two, as long as a promise is made to bring up children
according to the Jewish faith.
The marriage ceremony is divided into two parts:
1) the kiddushin, in which the groom puts a gold ring on his bride’s finger, and
the marriage contract (ketubbah) is read. The contract specifies the man’s
obligations and the indemnity he must pay his wife in the event of divorce;
2) the nissuim, i.e. the nuptials, with the invocation of the seven blessings in
the presence of at least ten adult males. After the bride and groom have
drunk from a glass of wine, the groom must break the glass by smashing it
with his foot, in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple of
Jerusalem.
In all forms of Christianity, marriage is not an obligation, since religious
celibacy and monastic life have often been considered (with the exception of
Protestantism) as the most perfect forms of religious conduct. In the Orthodox and
the Eastern Churches, as well as in the Catholic Church, marriage is considered to
be a sacrament, i.e. a religious act in which God intervenes directly to communicate
His divine force (grace). Many Churches, such as the Catholic Church, consider the
bond of marriage to be unbreakable, while the Protestant Churches admit the
possibility of divorce. Christianity insists on the obligations of total faithfulness,
cohabitation, mutual assistance and devotion within the couple, especially in times
of trouble.
Procreation is strongly encouraged. Birth control is disapproved of, with the
exception of the Protestant Churches, which permit it. Parents must make a
commitment to the Christian religious education of their children. This is why
marriages with non-Christians are opposed and permitted only if the non-Christian
partner agrees to the Christian education of any offspring.
Marriage is celebrated with a religious ceremony officiated by a priest or a
minister. The Christian marriage ceremony is very simple, insofar as all that is
required of the couple is a reciprocal commitment to remain faithful to each other
on a permanent basis. From a strictly religious standpoint, the presence of a priest
or a minister is not even necessary, since the “ministers” of the marriage are the
spouses themselves. Obviously, as marriage has enormous social significance, all
Churches have developed solemn marriage ceremonies involving not the religious
community, but the social group to which the spouses belong. Such ceremonies,
which have varied a great deal in different periods and cultures, do not however
constitute the religious nucleus of Christian marriage.
According to classical Quranic doctrine, Muslim marriage is regulated by a
contract in which the bride has no say. She is represented by a proxy, while the
groom agrees to make a bridal gift. The Quran states that a Muslim may marry up
to four wives. Marriage with a non-Muslim, Jewish or Christian woman is possible
because in any event all children are automatically Muslims. A Muslim woman may
not marry a non-Muslim. A marriage can be dissolved if the husband repudiates his
wife, or if a wife pays her husband to repudiate her.
Today, in many Muslim countries (with the exception of Saudi Arabia and
Iran, where Quranic law is the sole authority) there is a tendency to respect the
woman’s will to a greater extent. Polygamy is often limited by law (in Tunisia it is
expressly forbidden), because it would not be possible to treat all the wives equally,
as is required by the Quran. Repudiation of a wife on the part of the husband has
also been limited and subjected to precise rules (in the Yemen, unilateral
repudiation is forbidden). Still on the subject of the family, we ought to point out
that adoption is prohibited in the Muslim world, with the exception of Tunisia.
The marriage ceremony is preceded by an engagement ceremony when, in
the presence of a marriage proxy (who does not necessarily have a religious role),
the future husband, his male relatives and the male relatives of the future wife
draw up the contract, which states the names of the spouses and the witnesses,
the dowry that the husband’s family will have to pay the bride’s father, and the
divorce conditions. The future bride is not present when the contract is drawn up,
but before it is signed the witnesses go to her to ask her if she has been obliged to
accept the marriage. When the contract is signed, the festivities begin.
Hindu marriage is a complex ritual that varies greatly according to local
traditions and the caste to which the couple belongs. The marriage ceremony,
which is often preceded by various preparatory ceremonies, takes place around a
fire, representing the institution of a new family nucleus, on which offerings of
toasted corn are placed. During the ceremony, the groom leads the bride around
the fire and both walk seven paces to sanction the indissolubility of marriage.
The custom of the ritual suicide (sati) of widows, which was once very
widespread, and has been expressly forbidden by Indian law, still lingers on in
some parts of India.
Buddhist marriages are civil ceremonies, even though the couple often ask
monks to bless them. The ceremony is very simple and takes place before an altar
with an image of Buddha. The couple, together with the other participants, recite
the Vandana (homage), the Tisarana (triple refuge) and the Panchasila (five
precepts), light candles and incense sticks and offer flowers to the image of
Buddha.
Japanese people usually get married according to Shintoist ritual. After
having purified the bride and the groom, the priest asks the kami to protect them.
The bride and groom then drink sake (rice wine), tell the kami of their union in
marriage and, before the kami, they promise each other to form a happy family, to
generate children and to live together even in times of trouble. The ceremony ends
with the mutual presentation of the members of the spouses’ families.
1.2.3.3. Funerals
Funeral rites serve both to maintain a union between the living and the dead
and to bear witness to the inevitable separation. The dead person is no more, but
at the same time he/she continues to occupy a place in the existence of the living.
According to the concept of what happens after death, the decease of an
individual takes on a different meaning depending on the religion: for a Christian, a
Muslim or a Jew, death implies a definitive departure from earthly life as the soul is
rejoined with God, while for a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jaina or a Sikh, this event
marks the beginning of a new episode in the eternal cycle of rebirth.
In general, however, the ceremonies that commemorate the dead person,
during which the dead body is disposed of, fulfil certain very important spiritual
functions, including the psychological support required by relatives and friends in
the mourning process, the accompaniment of the deceased on his/her journey into
the next world, helping the soul of the dead person to attain a good reincarnation
(in those religions that believe in the transmigration of souls), conferring the status
of ancestor on the deceased person (in those religions that practice ancestor
worship), reinforcing the feeling of a common destiny for all the members of the
community, providing an occasion to emphasize solemnly the fundamental
principles of the religious tradition in question.
For Hindus, funeral rites mark the passage from one form of life to another.
The dead are purified, dressed in new or clean clothes, adorned with flowers, and
then transported to the crematorium, accompanied by songs and prayer. After
this, they are once more purified and laid on the pyre. The task of lighting the fire
is reserved for the eldest male child, or a close relative. Finally the ashes are
collected and, often, scattered over the waters of a sacred river.
In some Buddhist traditions, funeral rites are extremely important, because
they are considered to be the last attempt and the last chance to help the dead
person to attain a favourable reincarnation. It is believed that the detachment of
the soul from the body is a gradual process and that, as long as the corpse is still
whole, in other words before cremation, it is possible to affect the karma of the
dead person’s soul with the help of the living. For this reason it is often customary
to recite sacred texts and religious teachings in the presence of the deceased.
The ceremonies vary from country to country: in Thailand, for example, it is
the monks who celebrate the funeral rites, chanting the sutras that will assist the
dead person. Relatives and friends pour water over the hand of the deceased, and
place the corpse inside a coffin surrounded by candles, incense, and coloured
lights. After a few days (the mourning period also varies according to the family’s
financial circumstances) during which relatives, friends, neighbours and
acquaintances come to pay their respects to the deceased, to pray and to play
cards or dominoes in the house in which the dead person is lying, the funeral
ceremony proper takes place. The funeral is accompanied by an orchestra, whose
task is to cheer the mourners up. The stairs of the house, down which the coffin is
to be carried, are covered with banana leaves in order to make the deceased’s last
journey an unusual one. The procession towards the place of cremation is led by
a man carrying a white cloth, followed by some elders carrying flowers in silver
bowls, and then by a group of monks who precede the coffin. After the funeral
chants, the coffin is laid on a pyre of bricks and those taking part in the ceremony
ignite the wood beneath with candles and incense sticks. The ashes are kept in an
urn.
Sikhs consider death as a natural process attributable to divine will.
Consequently, this religion disapproves of all excessive manifestations of grief
during the funeral, while the worship of the dead through gravestones and images
(given that the body is held to be merely the envelope of the soul) is discouraged.
The corpse is washed and dressed in preparation, usually, for cremation. During
cremation, hymns are sung that arouse a sense of detachment from the mournful
event, and prayers are said. The ashes are scattered in the nearest river. During
the following ten days, the Adi Granth is read.
The colour of mourning in China is not black, as in Western countries, but
white, in other words the absence of colour. When a person dies, squares of white
paper are hung on the door of the house in which he/she lived. The doors of the
neighbouring houses, on the other hand, are hung with sheets of red paper, in
token of the continuation of life. Dressed in white, the relatives of the deceased
accompany the corpse to the place of burial, to the sound of gongs and a kind of
two-stringed violin. Before burial, a young woman, wearing a white dress with red
fringes and embroidery, dances before the coffin, to give the deceased one last
pleasant memory of earthly life.
Among the Jews, the body of the deceased is ritually washed and wrapped
in a white sheet, or dressed in modest clothing, before being placed in a coffin and
buried (in Oriental areas, bodies may be buried without a coffin). The cremation
of bodies (a practice that was rather widespread in ancient times) is forbidden by
Orthodox Jews, while it is accepted by Reformed Jews.
The deceased is accompanied to the ceremony and placed in the tomb.
Family members who, from the moment of the decease until burial, will have
abstained from eating and drinking wine, must tear their clothes. One of the
children must finally recite Kaddish, which will be repeated for the entire mourning
period and on every anniversary.
Mourning is divided into three phases: during the first seven days of great
grief, the closest relatives must carry out specific rites, abstain from working, and
receive those visitors who bring comfort. For the following thirty days of
intermediate mourning, male relatives neither shave nor cut their hair. After ten or
eleven months, there is the annual commemoration and the inauguration of the
funeral monument, usually a stone bearing the date of death and some
commemorative words.
In the Christian community, the burial of the dead is always accompanied
by a religious ceremony. However, funeral ceremonies vary a great deal according
to the Church, the culture and the historical period. As far as the disposal of dead
bodies is concerned, the Christian Churches have almost always preferred burial
and the construction of cemeteries in specific areas (which are often situated
inside, outside, or alongside churches).
A priest or a minister officiates at funerals. A particular liturgy (which varies
according to the Church and the period) and special prayers accompany the burial,
the purpose being that of consigning the deceased into the hands of God. The
fundamental thing for Christians is the ultramundane destiny of the deceased, and
not burial as such. The important thing is that the deceased may attain eternal bliss
and avoid punishment or divine condemnation. The various treatments reserved for
the body and burial, as well as the diverse forms of social participation in the
ceremony, are therefore due more to cultural than to strictly religious factors.
The Muslim funeral rite must respect certain precise rules:
1. The body must be washed to ensure its purity when prayers are
recited in its favour;
2. The body must be wrapped in winding sheets, always in odd
numbers;
3. The so-called burial prayer is recited over the body, which is borne on
the shoulders of mourners;
4. The body is buried in a hole, resting on the right side, with the face
turned towards the Kaaba. After the body has been laid in the tomb,
the profession of faith is recited. Before being filled with earth, the
grave is closed with a large stone.
1.2.4.
Pilgrimages
For many religions, the custom of making a pilgrimage to holy places is a
widespread and esteemed practice, and one that the faithful are encouraged to
perform in order to show their devotion.
The reasons why a Hindu undertakes a pilgrimage can be various: to fulfill a
vow, to ask the divinity for some hoped-for good, to sanction his/her own
conversion, to celebrate an important event, to improve his/her caste status, but
also – more indirectly – as an occasion for cultural exchange with new people.
During the journey, pilgrims are obliged to practice chastity and to fast; once they
arrive in the holy place, they perform the ritual ablutions and make offerings to
beggars. Of all the holy places of the Hindu tradition (and, in particular, of the
Shaivite tradition), the most important is the city of Benares (Varanasi), where
many pilgrims go to die and to have their ashes scattered on the river Ganges.
The pilgrimage to Mecca is the fifth pillar of Islam: every adult male who
possesses the means and the health to do so, is expected to go to Mecca at least
once in his life. During the pilgrimage, Muslims may not shave nor cut their hair or
nails.
Various rites and ceremonies are connected with the pilgrimage.
1) Twenty kilometres from Mecca the believer must ritually purify himself and
put on two pieces of seamless white cloth, thus entering the state of
consecration (ihram), while reciting the following formula: “Behold I am
before Thee, o God. Thou hast no partner, Thine is the praise and the
grace, Thine the dominion, Behold I am before Thee”.
2) Two days after the pilgrim reaches Mecca, in the Great Mosque, and enters
the courtyard in the centre of which stands the Kaaba – a stone
construction covered with a brocaded carpet. The believer walks around the
building – in an anti-clockwise direction – seven times and he kisses the
black stone set into its south-eastern corner.
3) The pilgrim then goes to the nearby hills and – seven times – covers the
distance separating the hill of Marwa from that of al-Safa.
4) He then goes to the village of Mina.
5) And then to the valley of ‘Arafat, where he recites the midday prayer.
6) On the third day he must go to Mina where he throws stones at three piles of
rocks, a gesture that symbolizes the lapidation of Satan.
7) Still in Mina the pilgrim’s head is shaved, thereby restoring him to the
profane state.
In ancient times, when the temple was still in existence and functioning,
Jews were supposed to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year, during
Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. Women used to take part too.
During the period of the Second Temple very many pilgrims went to
Jerusalem: they came from the area around Israel and from the Diaspora. After
the destruction of the Temple, and until our own day, the custom of making
pilgrimages to Jerusalem continued without interruption: the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem has, in this way, contributed to the consolidation of the city and its
ancient destroyed temple as one of the principal symbols of the memory and the
identity of the Jewish people.
In the Middle Ages Christians believed it was important to make at least
one pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where Jesus had been crucified, even though only a
few could afford to make this trip. A great number of people make pilgrimages to
the great shrines, like Santiago de Compostella. In these shrines were kept the
relics of the patron saint of the place. Brief pilgrimages to famous shrines (or to
Rome to see and hear the Pope) are still made by many Catholics to this day.
One of the most common pilgrimages for Japanese Shintoists is that to the
city of Ise, where there is a shrine to the sun goddess Amaterasu, and to the
nearby beach of Futamigaura, where twin rocks stand in the sea. On 5 January
every year these rocks are united by an enormous straw rope to symbolize the
union between man and woman.
1.2.5.
Places of worship
1.3. EXERCISES
1.3.1. Holidays
Ask the children to say which holidays and rituals they like to take part in: what
happens during these festivities? Do people eat something special? Do they go to
some special place? What do the men do and what do the women do? How do you
feel on these occasions?, and so on.
Tell about the origins of these holidays and the stories that are associated with
them.
Where possible, compare the various traditions, pointing out similarities and
differences – e.g. Easter and Pesach.
1.3.2. What do you know about the other religions?
Invite the children to explain what they know (and what they think) of religions
different to their own: in all probability certain prejudices due to ignorance will
emerge. Use correct information to dismantle these negative prejudices. Distinguish
between the religion in itself and bad applications of it, political exploitation, etc.
1.3.3. What are the religions of your country?
Identify the religions present in your own country or geographical area and spend
some time talking about the history of these traditions. If there are children from
different religions in the class, highlight the fundamental principles, the similarities
and the differences. Postpone any discussion of conflicts between different religions
until you get to point 3.
1.3.4. Places of worship
Visit a church, a mosque, a synagogue, a temple, etc. (according to the religions
present in your country). Note the architectural characteristics of each place of
worship: the salient architectonic features, the setting in which places of worship
are to be found (in the city centre or in the countryside, in a marked off area or an
open one, etc.), the presence or absence of decoration, dimensions, internal
subdivision of space (e.g. the pulpit, altar, naves, etc.) and the function assigned to
each space, etc. If possible, observe the way the people at prayer behave. Ask
yourself in what way the style of the construction and the posture of the faithful
can be connected to the principles of the religious faith in question (e.g. the
austerity of Protestant churches, a separate area for men and women in
synagogues, the prostration of Muslims, etc.).
1.4. QUOTATIONS
UGO VOLLI: Polytheism and Monotheism
Polytheism is a belief in a number of supernatural superior beings, called
gods. Together with Animism, which holds that the world is imbued with an
impersonal supernatural power, Polytheism is the most widespread form of religion
in human society. The gods can be thought of in some very different forms, the
stories about them can be extremely complicated and it might even be forbidden to
mention their names. What matters is that they are beyond common nature, made
of a different substance and equipped with powers that are not like the things that
surround us, while they are still persons, that is to say personages in some way
similar to humans; and that there are many of them and therefore at least partly in
conflict among themselves. Polytheists believe that reality is formed and evolves as
a result of the supernatural actions of the gods and that these are not part of a
single plan, but derive from conflict and competition between the gods. Some gods
can be benign, others malign, one may control a certain aspect of reality or of
existence (like the sea, hunting, or beauty), others limit his/her power by
controlling other aspects.
A rather rare variant in religious thinking, although it has become a dominant
force in the world, is Monotheism, a system in which the divinity is conceived of as
single and personal. The principal tenet of Monotheism is this: there is one god
and one only. Perhaps he may admit of inferior spiritual entities (angels, saints,
devils), but they are derived from him, and not autonomous. The one god, who is
the embodiment of all divine nature and is a personality (he is not a force, but
someone, with a will of his own, knowledge, feelings, etc.), is usually conceived of
as being equipped with certain fundamental attributes: he is the creator of the
world, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, just, good etc.
The dominant version of monotheism in our world, which exists in several
variants (Christian, Muslim, Jewish), was defined by the Jewish people about three
thousand years ago, but other forms of monotheism are to be found in the history
of religion and philosophy; for example in Egypt, in India, and in classical Greece,
in the works of Plato and Aristotle. In point of fact, by conceiving of a single divine
principle, monotheism lends itself to a rational analysis of reality in terms of one
principle, one rationale, and one ethical system and thus directs religious sentiment
away from the picturesque embellishments of myth and closer to thought. Its weak
point, however, consists in the problems it faces in accounting for the irrational and
negative aspects of reality. If there is only one god, in fact, he is responsible for all
that happens, including evil and the absurd things in life, which polytheists think
can derive from the actions of wicked gods or even just from conflicts between the
gods.
But the thinking of European culture has been profoundly influenced by
monotheistic religion: European (and, in general, western) justice, science, and art
all reveal that this culture has preferred unity over plurality. Only the existence of
one well defined cause strikes us as a complete explanation, only one closed form
satisfies our aesthetic sensibility, and so on. Polytheism and monotheism are not
therefore just religious theories, they are also fundamental characteristics of the
way in which a society thinks.
Prayers
1.4.1. ISLAM: The Opening Surah
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgement,
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose
[portion] is not wrath, and who go not astray
1.4.2. JUDAISM: Shema’ Israel (“Hear, O Israel”)
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when
you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as
symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the
doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
1.4.2.3. CHRISTIANITY: Our Father
Our Father, that art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in Heaven.
Give us this day
Our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom
And the power and the glory
For ever and ever.
1.4.4.
JAINISM: Navkar Mantra
I bow down to
I bow down to
I bow down to
I bow down to
I bow down to
Arihanta,
Siddha,
Acharya,
Upadhyaya,
Sadhu and Sadhvi.
These five bowings down,
Destroy all sins,
Of all that is auspicious,
This Navkar Mantra is the foremost.
Arihanta means a destroyer of enemies (inner desires, passions).
Siddhas are the liberated souls.
Acharyas are the Jaina spiritual leaders.
Upadhyayas are Sadhus who have acquired a special knowledge of the Jaina
philosophical systems: they teach Jaina scriptures to sadhus and sadhvis.
Sadhus and savhis are monks and nuns.
2. BASIC IDEA: Some say that human beings are by definition religious
animals
When human beings wonder about how the world was created, what
happens after death, why suffering exists, and how to distinguish good
from evil, many find answers in religious terms. By comparing the various
religious traditions we realize that the great questions are common to all, while the
answers vary according to the religion.
2.1. MORE ABOUT…
2.1.1. How was the world created?
For millennia people have been wondering about how the Universe was
created, why we are in the world, and how we should behave. Were we created for
a purpose, or is our presence in the world the result of chance?
These questions arise from the common observation that all the things we
know (from inanimate objects to living beings) came into existence at a given
moment as the effect of some cause. But what is the Cause of all causes?
Different cultures have come up with various answers to these common
queries. Most religious traditions have elaborated “accounts of the beginning”, or
cosmogonies, which tell the story of the origins of the world. In this section we
shall be mentioning some of these accounts, the original texts of which are to be
found in the Quotations.
What does science say?
Science also wonders about many of the questions tackled by religious
cosmogonies. But whereas creation myths are based on a Revelation handed down
orally by ancestors or by Sacred texts, the scientists of every historical period
started from observations of nature through the instruments at their disposal.
Then, after making various experiments, they put forward hypotheses about the
origins of the universe. Consequently, there is no single scientific cosmogony,
formulated once and for all, but a complex of theories that pursue and overtake
one another in the attempt to get progressively closer to a possible reconstruction
of the “first three minutes of the universe”.
For some popular scientific explanations see the Quotations section.
One of the most commonly accepted explanations (but debated by many) is
the one known as “Big Bang Theory”, according to which the extremely hot and
dense primordial universe sprang from a titanic explosion (the Big Bang) which
supposedly happened simultaneously and in every point of space, more or less 15
billion years ago. This explosion determined the beginning of an expansion that is
still in progress, which gave rise to hundreds of billions of galaxies (each made of
hundreds of billions of stars).
About four billion six hundred million years ago, a gaseous cloud caught fire
and became a star: this was the birth of our Sun, around which the nine planets of
the solar system were formed. On one of these planets, Earth, as a result of a
highly complex series of chemical reactions (still largely unknown), the fundamental
molecules of life were formed. From lower life forms higher forms gradually
evolved, until we come to the animals we know today. And of course to man.
Many religions accept scientific explanations,
contrast with their Sacred texts. What they say is
that was understandable to the people of ancient
defined as “fundamentalist”, and maintain that
the Sacred texts are true.
Religious texts
maintaining that they are not in
that such texts talked in a way
times. Others assume positions
only the explanations given by
According to the three great monotheistic religions (Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam), God (who is infinite) created the universe (which is
finite).
The biblical story of Genesis (the first book of the Bible) tells of how God
made the world in six days, creating the heavens and the earth and separating the
light from the darkness (first day), separating the sky from the sea (second day),
separating the earth – on which he had the vegetable species grow – from the
waters (third day), creating the sun, the moon, and the stars (fourth day),
breathing life into the birds and the fish (fifth day) and, on the sixth day, making
the land animals and human beings. These last he created in his own image and
likeness so that they might rule over all the other creatures he had made.
According to Hinduism, the universe is eternal and the cosmos was not
created, nor will it disappear, but goes through cyclical phases in which it makes
and unmakes itself. After a period of progressive expansion, which lasts millions of
years, the universe (or Being) contracts for other millions of years, until it becomes
once more a Non-Being that is not properly Nothingness, but Chaos (or absence of
organization). Afterwards, from this Non-Being, which is a residue of virtual or
potential Being, it moves into another phase of expansion, and therefore into
another cyclical phase of the universe.
It is in the light of this concept of the infinite universe that we should see the
Vedic accounts regarding the origins of the world. In the Rigveda (X, 129), the
question of the origins gives rise to a perplexed philosophical discussion on the
mystery of the connection between being and non-being.
In another Vedic hymn (Rigveda, X, 90) the tale is told of how Purusa, a
giant with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet, was sacrificed
as an offering, and of how from his parts all things sprang.
The motif of creation as dismemberment of an enormous being is also found
in a traditional Chinese story, according to which all things have their origin in
the giant Pangu, the first living being, who at birth stood like a pillar between the
sky and the earth in order to prevent them from joining together. Upon his death,
the various parts of his body gave rise to the natural phenomena and all forms of
life: the wind and the clouds were born from his breath, thunder and lightning from
his voice, the sun from his left eye, the moon from his right eye, the cardinal points
and the mountains from his limbs and his torso, the rivers from his blood, the roads
from his veins, the earth from his flesh, the stars from his hair, metals and stones
from his bones and his teeth, the dew from his sweat, and human beings from the
parasites on his body.
The act of creation can take different forms: sometimes it is conceived as the
act of modelling a primordial substance. Thus, the Yakima Indians tell how the
Great Sky Chief created the mountains with handfuls of mud, and with the same
material he modelled the first human beings.
According to the Shinto faith the origin of the world (which coincides with
the origin of Japan) occurred when the god Izanagi, with his sister Izanami, stirred
the shapeless mass of the earth with his spear until it coagulated: from the drops
that formed on the tip of the spear the main Japanese islands sprang. Then
Izanagi and Izanami created the smaller islands and the nature divinities. Finally,
Izanagi ascended to the heavens – leaving the sky to be ruled by the sun goddess
Amaterasu, the night to be ruled by the moon god Tsukiyomi and the sea to be
ruled by the storm god Susanoo - while Izanami descended to the netherworld.
In other traditions, the act of creation coincides with giving a name to things,
calling them into existence.
This notion is found among the traditional Australian religions, according
to which in the beginning all forms of life (the “Ancestors”) once lay asleep beneath
the surface of the earth, hidden in muddy holes. One day the sun came out of its
hole and, by warming the earth, awakened the Ancestors, who emerged from their
holes and began to walk, singing. With their songs the Ancestors called all things to
life, leaving in their wake trails of music that enveloped the world in a web of song.
According to some ancient philosophers, like Plato, the universe was not
created directly by the divinity but by one of his servants, the Demiurge. This idea
later gave origin, during the first centuries of Christianity, to explanations
(considered heretical by the Church) like those of the Neoplatonics and the
Gnostics: God is something inaccessible and unknowable, but is “emanated”, in
other words has transformed Himself gradually into the lower states of the
universe, from some spiritual beings like the angels and other lesser divinities, all
the way down to matter. One of these intermediate emanations is the Demiurge,
who created the world, but made a bad job of it. This would explain the presence
of evil in the world. The task of the just man is therefore that of liberating himself
from the tyranny of matter (which in itself is evil) and of returning to the absolute
purity of God.
But not all religions have a cosmogony. Sometimes the question of the
origins is deliberately left open: according to Buddhism, the origin of the universe
(whether it be finite or infinite) is a question destined to remain unanswered. A
man wounded by an arrow has no need at first to know who shot it, nor does he
need to know the form of the weapon that wounded him. What he does need is to
be medicated and freed from pain. In the same way, human beings need a path
that delivers them from suffering, and not answers to unsolvable questions.
See: Parable of the Arrow
2.1.2. What happens after death?
Religious feeling arises from the awareness that people have of their finite
nature, and from the hope that there is something after death. According to many
historians of religion, the origins of religions can be traced back to the period in
which the first men began to bury their dead, thereby differentiating themselves
from other animals (who are unaware they must die and do not look after their
dead) and showing that they attached decisive importance to the passage from the
world of the living to the world of the dead. The ceremonies that accompany
burial, cremation, immersion, or other methods of disposing of dead bodies, put
the community of the living in spiritual contact with the ultramundane dimension,
and contain a (sometimes implicit) vision of what happens after death.




The hereafter: heaven and hell
The cycle of rebirth
Ancestors
Nothingness
2.1.2.1. The hereafter: heaven and hell
According to the three monotheistic religions, at the moment of death a
person’s soul definitively abandons the body and, with it, earthly life, to rejoin God.
Conceptions of the next world vary from one religion to the other, and there are
also variations within the same religious tradition.
The Pentateuch (the set of the first five books of the Bible) does not specify
what happens to people after death, but it does mention a collective resurrection
after the Judgement. The notion of hell is only developed in later texts. And so,
according to ancient Judaism, the soul of the deceased joins all the other souls in
the realm of the shadows (or sheol). The idea that the ultramundane destiny of
individuals may be differentiated on the basis of the way they behaved in life arose
later, when – in the 1st century AD – some schools of thought began to maintain
that, after a common sojourn in the sheol, the souls of the righteous are led to the
garden of Eden, while those of the wicked are sent to hell. Some schools
maintained that the torments of the damned were temporary and redeeming and
that, once the punishment has been suffered, the soul is admitted into paradise.
There are, however, certain sins whose seriousness condemns the soul of the guilty
person to eternal damnation – at least until the Day of Judgement.
According to Christianity, the good go to heaven, where they enjoy a state
of eternal bliss, while the wicked go to hell, where they are subjected to
unspeakable torments. In the Middle Ages, Catholics added an intermediate place,
purgatory, where sinners who repented in life are punished in order that they might
expiate for their sins before being admitted to paradise. The Protestant and
Orthodox faiths do not recognize the concept of purgatory.
Islam states that those who do not believe in a single God are destined to
burn in hell. When a person dies, his soul is questioned by two angels, who ask it
to recite the profession of faith (shahada): if it is not able to do so, it is damned.
On the Day of Judgement (the last day), human beings will be judged by God: the
deserving will enjoy the grace of contemplating the face of God.
2.1.2.2. The cycle of rebirth
Many religions maintain that the soul must go through a long series of
reincarnations before attaining liberation, in other words the end of the cycle of
rebirth. Belief in the transmigration of souls is a characteristic feature of the
religions of the Hindu group.
Hindus and Jainas believe that at death every creature is reincarnated in
another body, animal, vegetable or human. The succession of existences is seen as
a dramatic problem from which one desires to be delivered. Deliverance - or
moksha – consists in the discovery of the illusory nature of one’s own individual
identity (atman), in order to merge again with Brahman, the indivisible One.
According to Buddhists, for 49 days after death the individual wanders
between the land of the dead and that of the living; after this period the
mechanism of karma decides in which body it will be reincarnated. As is the case
for Hindus, the ultimate goal of Buddhists is to put an end to the uninterrupted
cycle of rebirths and to attain the extinction of suffering, or nirvana.
Sikhs also believe in reincarnation, although in their view deliverance does
not consist in the extinction of the self, but in the rejoining of the soul with God.
2.1.2.3. Ancestors
In some religious systems, death is seen as the individual’s passing on to the
condition of ancestor. Ancestors play a role in the lives of their own descendants by
communicating directly with them, protecting them (or, in certain cases, opposing
them), approving or disapproving of their actions, and intervening when the family
invokes them with propitiatory rites.
For traditional Chinese religions there is not a clear-cut distinction between
the world of the living and that of the dead: the dead do not abandon the world of
the living, but become ancestors, and, as such, they continue to take part in the
everyday lives of their family of origin, protecting and guiding their descendants. In
traditional Chinese society, every house has a shrine in which the family keep the
tablets inscribed with the names and the most important deeds of the ancestors.
Important decisions (for example, the choice of a bride) are put before the
ancestors, and the principal duty of the living is to have children and thus ensure
the continuity of the family line in order to keep the memory of the forebears alive.
Five generations of ancestors are kept at home: when the head of a family dies,
the tablet of the oldest ancestor is burned to be replaced with that of the new
ancestor. But the energy of the old progenitor is not dispersed as the next baby
born in the home will be given his name.
According to the traditional African religions, the dead do not withdraw
to an ultramundane sphere, but continue to play a part in the lives of their
descendants in the form of “guardian spirits”. But not all the deceased become
ancestors: those excluded are children, the “insane”, the “abnormal”, and those
whose actions have damaged the community. In many African societies, moreover,
those who die a violent death – a circumstance that smacks of witchcraft – often
do not become ancestors. They remain as wandering spirits, who are often a
hazard to the community.
Ancestors have distinct personalities: they can be benevolent or acrimonious,
mild or irascible, and so on. The elders are in direct contact with the spirits of their
forebears who, through them, communicate their advice and prohibitions to the
community. If the will of the ancestors is not obeyed, or if people forget to respect
it, they get angry and show their wrath by causing disasters (disease, drought,
etc.). The birth of a child can be an opportunity to honour an ancestor. Parents can
in fact decide of their own free will to give the baby the name of an ancestor who
is particularly dear to them. Other times it is the ancestor himself who may let the
parents know that he wishes the child to be named after him. The giving of names
is very important in Africa because it determines an individual’s identity. It is
thought that the child will acquire not just the name but also the personality traits
of the ancestor whose name he bears.
Ancestors are the guardians of the traditions of the community and continue
to occupy their place in the bosom of the group they belong to, exercising their
authority over their descendants. The community honours them through numerous
rituals intended to keep relations with the spirit world alive.
2.1.2.4. Nothingness
People who do not believe in the existence of a transcendent God deny that
there is a soul that survives the death of the body and thus think that there is
nothing after death. This does not prevent the living from cultivating the
remembrance of the deceased so that at least a memory of them remains after
death. In ancient Greece, Epicurus said that: “As long as I am, death is not, and
when death is, I am not”. Therefore we should not be afraid of death.
2.1.3. Why do we suffer?
Human beings learn very soon that living is also suffering. In all religions, the
fundamental problem is not how to avoid suffering, but how to make it bearable.
One of the ways in which we can deal with death, illness, physical pain, the loss of
things or people dear to us, or the absence of the things we strongly desire, is to
find an explanation that might justify suffering.
According to the Jewish religion, for example, the ills of the world are
produced by man and derive from his lack of faith in God, or in other words from a
breach in his relations with Him: salvation depends on man’s capacity to reestablish the Covenant with God, and to obey divine Law. This explanation,
however, does not entirely clear up the problem of why so many innocent people
must face great suffering, while there are men and women who – despite their
being selfish or dishonest – live relatively tranquil lives. In order to provide an
answer to the problem of the suffering of the righteous, the Talmudic tradition has
worked out a variety of possible answers. Perhaps the righteous are not wholly
righteous: but how can we justify the suffering of children? Perhaps righteous
people are paying for the sins of their forebears; their sufferings here on earth will
be rewarded in the next world. No interpretation appears to be entirely adequate,
with the result that the Jewish faith – on the basis of the Book of Job – accepts
that it is not possible to understand the meaning of the suffering of the innocent,
and puts down such problems to the wisdom and the will of God.
Hindus, on the other hand, say that the suffering experienced in our present
lives is due to the acts we performed in our previous existence (this is the meaning
of the principle of karma). Such an explanation makes it easier to tolerate the idea
that bad things may happen to innocent creatures.
Buddhism puts suffering (dukkha) down to the human condition (we wish
for what we do not have and we miss what we used to have): the origin of this
suffering lies in us and in our inability to abandon that which is transient in favour
of that which is permanent.
Daoist philosophy, based on the complementary nature of opposites (yin
and yang) sees suffering as the opposite but necessary aspect of well-being: thus,
just as there is no light without darkness, good would have no sense if there were
not also evil.
Secular religiosity
As we have said (in the “pre-basic idea”), there are people who either do not
believe in any religion, or think that it is impossible to decide if the various religions
are right (atheists and agnostics). But even these people wonder about the nature
of good and evil, and how to face death (after which, they believe, there is no
further life). Many of them think that, if there is no God to teach us what is good
and bad, and to console us in another life for the suffering we have undergone in
this one, then all the more reason to discover ways in which people can live
together without hurting one another, and to justify feelings like love and respect
for others. Such people have worked out what is called a secular morality, of which
you will find some examples in the Quotations and in the Golden Rule.
2.1.4. What is good? What is evil?
Every religious tradition has worked out a series of rules of human conduct
that define what is good and what is evil, and it does not necessarily follow that
behaviour viewed positively (or negatively) by one religion will be judged similarly
by another.
Apart from some essential principles that underpin the ethical systems of
each religion (for example, the Ten Commandments for Jews and Christians),
rules of conduct are not entirely unchangeable and, sometimes, they are
reinterpreted when changes occur within the culture and the sensibilities of the
community. Thus, in some ancient religions it was customary to make human
sacrifices to placate the gods, but at a certain point this rule must have seemed
excessively ruthless, and so it was decided to substitute human victims with
animals; as people became more sensitive about the suffering of animals, these
ritual killings were in their turn gradually abandoned by many religious traditions.
It should also be observed that, within each religious community, there are
cases of both unselfish and wicked behaviour, and that there are also people who,
even though they do not believe in any religion, dedicate their existences to
improving the lives of others.
 Ethical systems
 The Golden Rule
2.1.4.1.
Ethical systems
All religions ask themselves how human beings might put an end to suffering
(their own and that of others), and the answers vary according to the different
concepts of salvation, redemption, and deliverance. In general, the ways shown to
attain the salvation of the soul are three:
- the way of deeds: each religion prescribes a determined code of conduct for the
faithful and subjects them to a series of prohibitions;
- the way of faith: some religions insist on the fact that, in order to attain true
salvation, it is necessary to establish a relation of trust, submission, love and
devotion with God;
- the way of knowledge: according to some religious traditions, knowledge (study,
meditation, etc.) allows the individual to see beyond the deceptive appearance
of things and thus to get closer to the divine sphere.
With reference to ethical systems, here we are referring above all to the first point
(the way of deeds): what is the right way to behave?
The Ten Commandments which, according to the Bible (Exodus), Moses
received from God on Mount Sinai, constitute the ethical nucleus of Judaism.
A part from the Ten Commandments, practising Jews are expected to
observe the 613 mitzvoth (365 prohibitions and 248 obligations) recorded by
Talmudic tradition, which include norms regarding every aspect of social life, from
matrimony to ceremonial procedures, as well as sundry dietary rules and
prohibitions.
Orthodox Jews are stricter than Liberal Jews in the application of the
mitzvoth. There are moreover many Jews who, although non-religious, choose to
follow some of the mitzvoth as a sign of respect toward their tradition.
Christian ethics are based on the Ten Commandments and on the ideals
transmitted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: to forgive wrongs, to tell the
truth, to be just, and to devote oneself to one’s neighbour.
On more specific ethical questions, the various Churches have often adopted
– and still adopt – different standpoints. For example, there is disagreement
between the Catholic, Anglican and Protestant Churches over problems such as
women priests, contraception and homosexuality.
A good Muslim is expected to respect the “Five Pillars” of Islam:
1) The profession of faith: he must believe and bear witness to the fact that
there is only one God and that Mohammed is his prophet;
2) Prayer: he must pray five times a day;
3) Ritual almsgiving: a part of his income must be given to charity;
4) Fasting: the Ramadan fast must be observed;
5) The pilgrimage to Mecca: if he can afford it, he must go to the holy city of
Mecca at least once in his life.
As well as these things, there is a variety of dietary prescriptions and
prohibitions, plus numerous rules of behaviour that, as often happens, are
interpreted and applied in different – and more or less strict – ways from one
country to another.
In Hindu sacred texts (especially in the Bhagavad-Gita and the Upanishads)
there are some fundamental ethical teachings: one of the recurring concepts is that
of bhakti, which refers to the relationship of love and participation that unites the
faithful with divinity. A very important passage of the Bhagavad-Gita (Twelfth
chapter, titled “Bhakti”) outlines the ideal picture of the devotee dear to VishnuKrishna: the virtues that the god holds in the greatest consideration are
equanimity, benevolence, patience, compassion, contentment, self-control and
purity.
In everyday life, a person’s caste determines various obligations and
prohibitions with regard to conduct: for example, a Hindu may marry and sit at
table only with members of his own caste.
Buddhist ethics are expressed by the Fourth Noble Truth, in which Buddha
identifies the way of deliverance with the “middle way” (between the search for
pleasure and the mortification of the flesh), constituted by the Noble Eightfold
Path: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood,
right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (where “right” means in
accordance with the Buddhist teachings and the precepts expressed by the various
schools).
See the Discourse on the Setting in motion the wheel of dhamma in
the Quotations section.
The moral conduct of Buddhists is moreover governed by five precepts or
panchasila (it is forbidden to kill living beings, steal, commit impure acts, lie,
consume inebriating liquors) as well as another five precepts that hold particularly
for monks (eating food outside the prescribed hours, singing, using high and
sumptuous chairs, using big comfortable beds, and trading in gold and silver
objects are forbidden).
Jainas are expected to observe five vows:
- Ahimsa (non-violence): respect all forms of life
- Satya: speak truth
- Asteya: do not steal
- Brahmacharya: do not commit adultery: for monks, this is a chastity vow;
for other people, it is a vow of monogamy
- Aparigraha: limit your possessions to what is strictly necessary to survive
day by day (this vow only applies to monks).
For Confucians, a person’s duties consist especially in the practice of five
virtues: humanity (ren), righteousness (yi), conscientiousness (zhong), altruism
(shu), right conduct (li) and filial piety (xiao).
Humanity (ren), which is the capacity to love one’s neighbour, can be actuated
in two ways (zhong e shu): a positive way (treating others the way we should like
to be treated ourselves) and a negative way (not treating others the way we should
not like to be treated ourselves).
Righteousness (yi) consists in observing the duties deriving from one’s own
social position (li). The concept of li (the general order of the world in all its
aspects) underpins Confucian ethics, which is organized into five main areas:
- Filial piety (xiao): the son owes the father respect, obedience, deference, and
support in his old age and even after death;
- Loyalty toward the sovereign and the State (the sovereign, for his part, must set
his subjects a good example);
- Goodwill between older and younger brothers;
- Goodwill between older and younger friends;
- Love between husband and wife (and the wife must obey her husband).
See Mencius (II, 2, 6) in the Quotations section.
2.1.4.1.1. Dietary precepts
All religions have their beliefs, a set of rituals shared by all the faithful, and
some rules, or precepts, which sometimes apply even to the sphere of nutrition.
Some precepts are authentic prohibitions regarding the consumption of certain
products, others are strict prescriptions or indications that the faithful must follow
in order to avoid going against what is written in the Sacred texts. The function of
dietary precepts is to make people understand that there is a superior divine will
that sets boundaries beyond which the individual must not step, by way of proof of
obedience and a stimulus to practice self control.
The Quran 5/3 (the “Table Spread” sura) says:
Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and
that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah; that which hath
been killed by strangling, or by a violent blow, or by a headlong fall, or by being
gored to death; that which hath been (partly) eaten by a wild animal; unless ye are
able to slaughter it (in due form); that which is sacrificed on stone (altars);
(forbidden) also is the division (of meat) by raffling with arrows: that is impiety.
This day have those who reject faith given up all hope of your religion: Yet fear
them not but fear Me. This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed
My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islám as your religion. But if any is
forced by hunger, with no inclination to transgression, Allah is indeed Oft-forgiving,
Most Merciful.
In brief, the Islamic dietary precepts are:
It is forbidden to eat the flesh of impure animals (haram): pork and products
derived from it, animals that have died a natural death (al-màitah), aquatic
animals that also live out of the water (e.g., crabs and amphibians)
 It is obligatory to eat pure meat (halal) obtained from animals butchered in
accordance with Islamic ritual
 It is forbidden to drink alcohol
 It is obligatory to respect the ritual fast, from dawn to sunset, during the holy
month of Ramadan.

The Jewish term Kosher, when applied to dietary precepts, means valid,
adequate, good. Kasheruth describes the set of dietary norms and includes the
distinction between permitted and forbidden animals, as well as some prohibitions:
 It is forbidden to eat the flesh of quadrupeds that do not have cloven hoofs
(e.g., rabbit, pig)
 It is forbidden to eat animals that have not been killed according to the dictates
of ritual butchery (shechità)
 It is forbidden to mix meat with milk or milk derivates during the same meal:
the Torah forbids the “boiling of a young goat in its mother’s milk”
 It is forbidden to eat aquatic animals that have no fins or scales (e.g. prawns
and eels)
 It is forbidden to nourish oneself on blood or the sciatic nerve
 It is forbidden to cook on Saturday (Shabbat), the Jewish holy day
 It is forbidden to eat meat during the religious holiday known as Shavuot.
Hindus worship cows and bulls as divinities, and consider all that these animals
produce to be sacred. For example, during the celebration of Krishna, the devotees
model statues out of a paste made with bovine manure and milk, while the statues
in temples are washed daily with fresh cow’s milk. Mahatma Gandhi used to say
that “the central element in Hinduism is the protection accorded to cows, the gift of
Hinduism to the whole world. Hinduism shall live as long as there are Hindus who
protect cows”. For this reason, Hindu populations follow a vegetarian diet.
The State has also included some Hindu principles in its law: article 48 of the
Indian Constitution forbids the butchering of cows, calves, and other milkproducing or draught animals.
2.1.4.2. The Golden Rule
Is there an ethical nucleus common to all religions? The Golden Rule (do not
treat others the way you would not like to be treated yourself) is found in the
scriptures of many religions. The Jewish Bible (Leviticus 19.18) says “Love your
neighbour as you love yourself”; in the Gospels it is written that “Therefore all
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them”
(Matthew 7.12); Islam says, “No one of you is a believer if he does not want for
his brother that which he desires for himself” (The Forty Hadith of al-Nawawi 13;
Hinduism has this to offer “This, say the wise men, is the supreme dharma: as is
the life you desire for yourself, so let the lives of [other] creatures be for you”
(Mahabharata, 13.116.2); Jainism says, “A man ought to proceed treating all
creatures in the way he himself would like to be treated” (Sutrakritanga, 1.11.33);
the concept of ren, central to Confucian ethics, consists in the capacity to love
one’s neighbour, to whom nothing should ever be done that one would not like
done to oneself; a Yoruba (Nigeria) proverb says that “He who is about to pinch a
little bird with a sharp stick ought first to try it on himself to feel just how much it
hurts”.
2.3. EXERCISES
2.3.1. Sounding the limits of tolerance
Imagine that there is a religion that says the world was born from a sneeze (or that
the Earth is flat) and that obliges its devotees to sleep standing on their heads or to
cut off their tongues. Can we tolerate this religion?
Now imagine that there is a religion that prescribes human sacrifices, that counsels
its adherents to eat enemies killed in battle, and demands that those born with
deformities be killed. Can we tolerate this religion?
Apart from these two imaginary cases, discuss the limits of tolerance.
The discussion should consider two cases:
1. The followers of these religions live in their own place and have no pretensions
to obliging us to accept their customs. Should we allow them to continue
following these customs that we consider bad or are we duty bound to persuade
them to give them up? And how? With force (conquest and “enforced
civilization”) or with persuasion (the work of missionaries)?
2. The followers of these religions come to live in our country. Must we respect
their customs, even though they clash with our religious convictions (and
sometimes with our laws) or prevent them from practising their customs?
The discussion ought to try to distinguish between the customs of other religions
that do not seriously offend our principles (for example, immigrants who dress
differently from us) and customs that are against our laws (for example, religions
that forbid sick people to receive blood transfusions). Consider some local
situations and the various opinions expressed on these matters.
2.3.2. Discussion
An exercise to help us get ready for the third part of this chapter: identify (in
the history of your country or of the neighbouring countries) any cases of violence
perpetrated in the name of a religion and that seem to contravene the Golden rule.
Start up a discussion with the children aimed at finding out whether, according to
them, there are situations in which it is legitimate to suspend this ethical principle
in the name of a religious ideal.
2.4. QUOTATIONS
2.4.1. Religious feeling
David Hume, Natural History of Religion, chap. III (1755)
We hang in perpetual suspense between life and death, health and sickness,
plenty and want; which are distributed among the human species by secret and
unknown causes, whose operation is oft unexpected, and always unaccountable.
These unknown causes, then, become the constant object of our hope and fear;
and while the passions are kept in perpetual alarm by an anxious expectation of the
events, the imagination is equally employed in forming ideas of those powers, on
which we have so entire a dependence.
2.4.2. Cosmogonies (stories of the beginning)
2.4.2.1. Steven Weinberg, The first three minutes: a modern view of the origin
of the universe, New York : Basic Books (1977)
In the beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar
on earth, starting from a definite center and spreading out to engulf more and
more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously
everywhere, filling all space from the beginning, with every particle of matter
rushing apart from every other particle. “All space” in this context may mean either
all of an infinite universe, or all of a finite universe which curves back on itself like
the surface of a sphere. […]
The universe will certainly go on expanding for a while. As to its fate after
that, the standard model gives an equivocal prophecy: It all depends on whether
the cosmic density is less or greater than a certain critical value. […]
If the cosmic density is less than the critical density, then the universe is of
infinite extent and will go on expanding forever. Our descendants, if we have any
then, will see thermonuclear reactions slowly come to an end in all the stars,
leaving behind various sorts of cinder: black dwarf stars, neutron stars, perhaps
black holes. […]
On the other hand, if cosmic density is greater than the critical value, then
the universe is finite and its expansion will eventually cease giving way to an
accelerating contraction. […] The contraction is just the expansion run backward:
after 50,000 million years the universe would have regained its present size, and
after another 10,000 million years it would approach a singular state of infinite
density. […]
However all these problems may be resolved, and whichever cosmological
model proves correct, there is not much of comfort in any of this. It is almost
irresistible for human beings to believe that we have some special relation to the
universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of
accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built
in from the beginning. As I write this I happen to be in an airplane at 30,000 feet,
flying over Wyoming en route home from San Francisco to Boston. Below, the earth
looks very soft and comfortable – fluffy clouds here and there, snow turning pink as
the sun sets, roads stretching straight across the country from one town to
another. It is very hard to realize that this is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly
hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved
from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of
endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the
more it also seems pointless.
2.4.2.2. Isaac Asimov, In The Beginning , New York: Crown/Stonesong
Press, 1981
The first act of God recorded in the Bible is that of the creation of the
Universe. But since God is eternal, there must have been an infinitely long period of
time before he set our Universe into motion. What was he doing during that
infinitely long period of time?
When St. Augustine was asked that question, he is supposed to have roared,
“Creating Hell for those who ask questions like that!”
Ignoring St. Augustine (if we dare), we might speculate. God might, for
instance, have spent that time creating an endless hierarchy of angels. For that
matter, he might have created an endless number of universes, one after the
other, each for its own purpose, with our own being merely the current member of
the series, to be followed by an equally endless number of successors. Or God
might, until the moment of Creation, have done nothing but commune with his
infinite self.
All possible answers to the questions are merely suppositions, however, since
there is no evidence for any of them. There is not only no scientific evidence for
them; there is not even any Biblical evidence. The answers belong entirely to the
world of legend.
But then if we switch to the world of science and think of an eternal
Universe, we must ask what the Universe was like before it took on its present form
about fifteen billion years ago. There are some speculations. The Universe may
have existed through eternity as an infinitely thin scattering of matter and energy
that very slowly coalesced into a tiny dense object, the “cosmic egg”, which
exploded to form the Universe we now have, a Universe that will expand forever
until it is an infinitely thin scattering of matter and energy again.
Or else there is an alternation of expansion and contraction, an endless
series of cosmic eggs, each of which explodes to form a Universe. Our own present
Universe is only the current member of an endless series.
Science, however, has not found a way as yet of penetrating into a time
earlier than that of the cosmic egg that exploded to form our Universe. The Bible
and science agree in being unable to say anything certainly about what happened
before the beginning.
There is this difference. The Bible will never be able to tell us. It has reached
its final form, and it simply doesn’t say. Science, on the other hand, is still
developing, and the time may come when it can answer questions that, at present,
it cannot.
2.4.2.3. Genesis
Chapter 1
[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness.
[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the
evening and the morning were the first day.
[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
divide the waters from the waters.
[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were
the second day.
[9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one
place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters
called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the
fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it
was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and
the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it
was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
[14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide
the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the
lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the
darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that
hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which
the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after
his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in
the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
[24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle,
and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
[25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind,
and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it
was good.
[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them.
[28] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
[29] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is
upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree
yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every
thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green
herb for meat: and it was so.
[31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
2.4.2.4. Rigveda – X, 129
1. Then even nothingness was not, nor existence.
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
2. Then there were neither death nor immortality,
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed mindlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.
3. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.
4. In the beginning desire descended on it that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is, is kin to that which is not.
5. And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.
6. But, after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?
7. Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows or maybe even he does not know.
2.4.2.5. Rigveda, X, 90
11. When they divided Purusa how many portions did they make?
What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?
12. The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made.
His thighs became the Vaishya, from his feet the Shudra was produced.
13. The Moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth;
Indra and Agni from his mouth were born, and Vayu from his breath.
14. Forth from his navel came mid-air the sky was fashioned from his head
Earth from his feet, and from his car the regions. Thus they formed the worlds.
2.4.2.6. The giant Pangu (Chinese folktale)
In the beginning the universe was dominated wholly by darkness and chaos.
This darkness took the form of an egg, and from this egg was born Pangu, the first
living being. Pangu slept, nourished and protected by the egg. When, after many
years, he awoke, Pangu had grown immensely: he had become a giant. He
stretched, breaking the egg. The lightest and purest parts of the egg ascended on
high and formed the sky; the heavier and more impure parts sank downwards to
form the earth. This was the origin of the forces called yin and yang.
Pangu was afraid that the sky and the earth would reunite and, to prevent
this, he stood between them like a gigantic pillar; he placed his feet on the ground
and bore the sky upon his shoulders. For the next eighteen thousand years, Pangu
grew three metres a day, until the sky and the earth were so far apart they could
never have come together again. In the end, the sky and the earth were forever
fifty thousand kilometres apart. Pangu, exhausted by his enormous efforts, crashed
to the ground and died. At his death, the natural phenomena were formed from the
different parts of his body. His breath was transformed into the wind and the
clouds, his voice was transformed into thunder and lightning, his left eye became
the sun, and his right eye became the moon. The four cardinal points and the
mountains arose from his limbs and his torso, his blood formed the rivers of the
earth, his veins formed the roads and the paths, his flesh became trees and the
ground, the hairs on his head became the stars in the sky, while his skin and the
hairs of his body were transformed into grass and flowers. Metals and stones
sprang from his teeth and his bones, his sweat was transformed into the dew, and
the parasites of his body became the various different types of human beings. In
this way the giant Pangu created the universe.
2.4.2.7. The Yakima Cosmogony
(from: Miti e leggende degli indiani d’America, a cura di R. Erdoes e A. Ortiz,
Milano, ed. Paoline)
In the beginning there was only water. Whee-me-me-ow-ah, the Great Sky
Chief, lived up in the sky all alone. When he decided to make the world, he came
down in places where the water was not very deep, and began pulling up great
handfuls of mud that became the land.
He made a pile of mud that was so high that the frost made it hard and it
was transformed into mountains. When the rain fell, it was transformed into ice
and snow on the peaks of the high mountains. Some of that mud hardened and
became rock. Since that time, the rocks have not changed, they have only become
harder.
The Great Sky Chief made the trees grow on the earth, and roots and
berries. Using a ball of mud, he made a man and told him to take the fish from the
waters, the deer and other game from the forests. When the man became
melancholy, the Great Sky Chief made a woman to keep him company, and he
taught her how to prepare pelts, how to find bark and roots, and how to make
baskets with those things. He taught her which berries to eat as food and how to
gather and dry them. He showed her how to cook the salmon and the game that
the man brought.
2.4.2.8. Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines (1987) , New York: Viking Penguin
(pp.72-73)
IN THE BEGINNING the Earth was an infinite and murky plain, separated from
the sky and from the grey salt sea and smothered in a shadowy twilight. There was
neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars. Yet, far away, lived the Sky-Dwellers: youthfully
indifferent beings, human in form but with the feet of emus, their golden hair
glittering like spiders’ webs in the sunset, ageless and unageing, having existed for
ever in their green, well-watered Paradise beyond the Western Clouds.
On the surface of the Earth, the only features were certain hollows which
would, one day, be waterholes. There were no animals and no plants, yet clustered
round the waterholes there were pulpy masses of matter: lumps of primordial soup
– soundless, sightless, unbreathing, unawake and unsleeping – each containing the
essence of life, or the possibility of becoming human.
Beneath the Earth’s crust, however, the constellations glimmered, the Sun
shone, the Moon waxed and waned, and all the forms of life lay sleeping: the
scarlet of a desert-pea, the iridescence on a butterfly’s wing, the twitching white
whiskers of Old Man Kangaroo – dormant as seeds in the desert that must wait for
a wandering shower.
On the morning of the First Day, the Sun felt the urge to be born. (That
evening the Stars and Moon would follow.) The Sun burst through the surface,
flooding the land with golden light, warming the hollows under which each
Ancestor lay sleeping.
Unlike the Sky-dwellers, these Ancients had never been young. They were
lame, exhausted greybeards with knotted limbs, and they had slept in isolation
through the ages.
So it was, on this First Morning, that each drowsing Ancestor felt the Sun’s
warmth pressing on his eyelids, and felt his body giving birth to children. The
Snake Man felt snakes slithering out of his navel. The Cockatoo Man felt feathers.
The Witchetty Grub Man felt a wriggling, the Honey-ant a ticking, the Honeysuckle
felt his leaves and flowers unfurling. The Bandicoot Man felt baby bandicoots
seething from his armpits. Every one of the ‘living things’, each at its own separate
birthplace, reached up for the light of day.
In the bottom of their hollows (now filling up with water), the Ancients
shifted one leg, then another leg. They shook their shoulders and flexed their arms.
They heaved their bodies upward through the mud. Their eyelids cracked open.
They saw their children at play in the sunshine.
The mud fell from their thighs, like placenta from a baby. Then, like the
baby’s first cry, each Ancestor opened his mouth and called out ‘I AM!’ ‘I am –
Snake… Cockatoo… Honeyant…Honeysuckle… And this first ‘I am!’, this primordial
act of naming, was held, then and forever after, as the most secret and sacred
couplet of the Ancestor’s song.
Each of the Ancients (now basking in the sunlight) put his left foot forward
and called out a second name. He put his right foots forward and called out a third
name. He named the waterhole, the reedbeds, the gum trees – calling to right and
left, calling all things into being and weaving their names into verses.
The Ancients sang their way all over the world. They sang the rivers and
ranges, salt-pans and sand dunes. They hunted, ate, made love, danced, killed:
wherever their tracks led they left a trail of music.
They wrapped the whole world in a trail of song; and at last, when the Earth
was sung, they felt tired. Again in their limbs they felt the frozen immobility of
Ages. Some sank into the ground where they stood. Some crawled into caves.
Some crept away to their ‘Eternal Homes’, to the ancestral waterholes that bore
them.
All of them went ‘back in’.
2.4.2.9. The Parable of the arrow
(from: H. Oldenberg, Budda, TEA: 1992: 296-297)
Malunkyaputta went to visit the Master and expressed his amazement about
the fact that the Master’s preaching left a series of fundamental questions
unanswered. Is the world eternal or limited in time? Is the world infinite or does it
have an end? […]
[Buddha replied thus]
“A man was wounded by a poisoned arrow: his friends and relatives
immediately called a skilful doctor. What would happen if the patient were to say: -
I don’t want you to treat the wound until I know who it was that struck me,
whether he was a noble, or a Brahman, a Vaishya or a Shudra –, or if he said – I
don’t want you to treat the wound until I know the name of the man who wounded
me, and to what family he belongs, if he is tall or short, or of average stature, and
what the weapon that struck me looks like? – What would happen? The man would
die of his wound.
Why did Buddha not teach his disciples whether the world is finite or infinite,
and whether a person lives on after death or not? Because knowledge of these
things does not lead to any progress along the path of sanctity, because this does
not serve peace and enlightenment. This is what Buddha taught his disciples: truth
about suffering, truth regarding the origin of suffering, the elimination of suffering,
the path that leads to the elimination of suffering. For this reason, Malunkyaputta,
what has not been revealed by me, let it remain unrevealed, and what has been
revealed, let it be revealed.
2.4.3. Ethics
2.4.3.1. The Ten Commandments
(Exodus, 20:1-17)
And God spake all these words, saying,
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I
the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will
not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and
do all thy work. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou
shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor
thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested
the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass,
nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
2.4.3.2. The Sermon on the Mount
(Luke, 6, 20-35)
Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.
Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.
Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from
their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son
of man’s sake.
Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in
heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto their prophets.
But woe unto you that are rich! For ye have received your consolation.
Woe unto you that are full! For ye shall hunger.
Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep.
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the
false prophets.
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate
you,
Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other;
And him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask
them not again.
And as you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
For if you love them which love you, what thank have ye?for sinner also love those
that love them.
And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners
also do even the same.
And if ye lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have ye? For
sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your
reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind to
the unthankful and to the evil.
2.4.3.3. Bhagavad-gita
(12, 13-20)
He who bears no hatred towards any living being
Who is friendly and compassionate,
Who holds nothing as his own and is free from false ego,
Who is equal in distress and happiness and is patient,
Who, content and ever-engaged in Yoga,
Self-controlled, with firm determination,
Directs his mind and intelligence upon me,
He, being devoted to me, unto me is dear.
He over whom the world has no fret,
And who frets not over the world,
Who is free from joy, anger, fear and anxiety,
Unto me is dear.
Desireless, pure, capable,
Indifferent, free from worry
He hath renounced all endeavours:
He, being devoted to me, unto me is dear.
One who rejoices not, dislikes not,
Grieves not and hankers not,
A renouncer of what is auspicious as well as inauspicious,
He - the devotee - unto me is dear.
That person who behaves equally towards an enemy or a friend,
And towards honour or dishonour,
Who behaves equally in cold, heat,
Happiness and distress,
And is exempt from attachment,
Unto whom praise or blame are the same, quietly contemplative
Who is satisfied with anything,
Who has no abode, whose mind is steadfast,
He - the devotee - unto me is dear.
But those that this immortal doctrine
Follow as described,
Having faith and having me as their supreme goal,
These devotees unto me are especially dear.
2.4.3.4. Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta (Discourse on the Setting in motion
the wheel of dhamma), 17-22
Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone
forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence
of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy,
and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful,
unworthy and unprofitable.
Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (The Perfect One) has
realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to
insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized by
the Tathagata….? It is the Noble Eightfold path, and nothing else, namely: right
understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right
effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. This is the Middle Path realized by
the Tathagata which gives vision, which gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to
insight, to enlightenment, and to Nibbana.
The Noble Truth of Suffering (dukkha), monks, is this: Birth is suffering,
ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, association with the
unpleasant is suffering, dissociation from the pleasant is suffering, not to receive
what one desires is suffering - in brief the five aggregates subject to grasping are
suffering.
The Noble Truth of the Origin (cause) of Suffering is this: It is this craving
(thirst) which produces re-becoming (rebirth) accompanied by passionate greed,
and finding fresh delight now here, and now there, namely craving for sense
pleasure, craving for existence and craving for non-existence (self-annihilation).
The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering is this: It is the complete
cessation of that very craving, giving it up, relinquishing it, liberating oneself from
it, and detaching oneself from it.
The Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering is this:
It is the Noble Eightfold Path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right
thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness
and right concentration.
2.4.3.5. Mencius (II, 2, 6)
1.
All men have a mind which cannot bear to see the sufferings of others.
2.
The ancient kings had this commiserating mind, and they, as a matter of
course, had likewise a commiserating government. When with a commiserating
mind was practised a commiserating government, to rule the kingdom was as easy
a matter as to make anything go round in the palm.
3.
When I say that all men have a mind which cannot bear to see the
sufferings of others, my meaning may be illustrated thus: even nowadays, if men
suddenly see a child about to fall into a well, they will without exception experience
a feeling of alarm and distress. They will feel so, not as a ground on which they
may gain the favour of the child’s parents, nor as a ground on which they may
seek the praise of their neighbours and friends, nor from a dislike to the reputation
of having been unmoved by such a thing.
4.
From this case we may perceive that the feeling of commiseration is
essential to man, that the feeling of shame and dislike is essential to man, that the
feeling of modesty and complaisance is essential to man, and that the feeling of
approving and disapproving is essential to man.
5. The feeling of commiseration is the principle of benevolence. The feeling of
shame and dislike is the principle of righteousness. The feeling of modesty and
complaisance is the principle of propriety. The feeling of approving and
disapproving is the principle of knowledge.
6. Men have these four principles just as they have their four limbs. When men,
having these four principles, yet say of themselves that they cannot develop them,
they play the thief with themselves, and he who says of his prince that he cannot
develop them plays the thief with his prince.
7. Since all men have these four principles in themselves, let them know to give
them all their development and completion, and the issue will be like that of fire
which has begun to burn, or that of a spring which has begun to find vent. Let
them have their complete development, and they will suffice to love and protect all
within the four seas. Let them be denied that development, and they will not
suffice for a man to serve his parents with.
2.4.3.6. Umberto Eco, “When the Other comes onto the Scene”
in Five Moral Pieces, New York, Hartcourt-Brace, 2001 (translated by Alastair
McEwen)
As we are taught by the most secular of the human sciences, it is the Other,
it is his look, which defines and forms us. Just as we cannot live without eating or
sleeping, we cannot understand who we are without the look and the response of
the other. Even those who kill, rape, rob, or oppress do this in exceptional
moments, but they spend the rest of their lives soliciting from their fellows
approval, love, respect, and praise. And even from those they humiliate they ask
the recognition of fear and submission. In the absence of this recognition, the
newborn baby abandoned in the forest does not become humanized (or like Tarzan
seeks at all costs the other in the face of an ape), and the result of living in a
community in which everyone had decided systematically never to look at us or to
treat us as if we did not exist would be madness or death.
Why is it then that there are or have been cultures that approve of massacre,
cannibalism, or the humiliation of the bodies of others? Simply because such
cultures restrict the concept of «others» to the tribal community (or the ethnic
group) and consider «barbarians» to be non-humans; but not even the crusaders
felt that unbelievers were fellow men worthy of an excessive degree of love. The
fact is that the recognition of the roles of others, the necessity to respect in them
those requirements we consider essential for ourselves, is the product of thousands
of years of development.
[…]
Is this feeling [of Others] really strong enough to justify an ethic as
determined and inflexible, as solidly established as the ethic of those who believe in
revealed morality, in the survival of the soul, in reward and punishment? I have
tried to base the principles of a lay ethics on a natural reality […] like our
corporeality and the idea that we instinctively know that we have a soul (or
something that serves as such) only by virtue of the presence of others. Where it
appears that what I have defined as a «lay ethics» is at bottom a natural ethics,
which not even believers deny. Is not the natural instinct, brought to the right
level of maturity and self-awareness, a foundation offering sufficient guarantees?
Of course we may think this an insufficient spur to virtue, «in any case», nonbelievers can say, «no one will know of the evil I am secretly doing». But mark this,
those who do not believe think that no one is watching them from on high and
therefore they also know that – precisely for this reason – there is not even a
Someone who may forgive. If such people know they have done ill, their solitude
shall be without end, and their death desperate. They will opt, more than believers,
for the purification of public confession, they will ask the forgiveness of others. This
they know, in the deepest part of their being, and therefore they know that they
should forgive others first. Otherwise how could we explain that remorse is a
feeling known to non-believers too?
[…]
This is why I believe that, on the fundamental points, a natural ethic –
respected for the profound religiosity that inspires it – can find common ground
with the principles of an ethic founded on faith in transcendence, which cannot fail
to recognize that natural principles have been carved into our hearts on the basis
of a plan for salvation. If this leaves, as it certainly does, margins that may not
overlap, this is no different from what happens when different religions encounter
one another.
3. BASIC IDEA: It is possible to adopt various attitudes towards those
who belong to a different religion
It is normal for those who belong to a certain religious tradition to maintain
that their own religion is preferable to others. Various attitudes are possible,
however, towards those who belong to another religion.
3.1. MORE ABOUT
Imagine a hypothetical society – we shall call it XXX – composed entirely of
people who have never had any contact with other groups of people. In the course
of several centuries, the XXX have elaborated a series of beliefs to explain the
origin of the world, why we suffer, and what happens after death; furthermore,
they have developed an ethical system, indicating what is good and what is evil,
and prescribing various rules of behaviour that all the members of the group are
expected to observe. The beliefs of the XXX are handed down from generation to
generation in the form of stories, rituals, laws, customs, and so on. Naturally, the
XXX are certain of the absolute truth of their own beliefs, and they maintain that
these were handed down directly by the divinity/ies that they worship.
But one day, in the land of the XXX, there appears another group of people,
which we will call YYY, who have worked out on their own account a vision of life, a
way of representing divinity, and a set of practices different from those in which
the XXX believe. The YYY also wonder how the world was made, why we suffer,
what happens after death, what is good and what is evil, but the answers they
have come to are not the same as those of the XXX. The YYY also respect
prohibitions and codes of behaviour, but their customs are different from those of
the XXX: for example the YYY can eat all fruit except the red variety (considered
impure), whereas the religion of the XXX states that the only fruit that is absolutely
forbidden to eat is the yellow variety.
As they come into reciprocal contact, the XXX and the YYY realize that many
of the beliefs that each group takes for granted are not universally held to be true.
Through the comparison with the other system of beliefs, each tradition defines its
specific characteristics and becomes aware of its own existence as a religion.
What happens when the XXX and the YYY meet and, for the first time, they
experience the diversity of others? To some extent, what happens depends on the
(friendly or hostile) attitude with which each of the two groups greets the other:
encounters between religions are, first of all, encounters between people. Thus, if
the XXX greet the YYY with presents and tokens of friendship, and vice-versa, it is
more probable that feelings of benevolence and mutual confidence will set in
between the two religions. But if, on the contrary, one of the two groups wants to
conquer or subjugate the other, it is likely that a relation of diffidence, if not
outright hostility, will grow up between them.
It is totally natural that both the XXX and the YYY hold that their religion is
better (truer, juster) than the other: for each of the two groups, it is a question of
the religions of their mothers and fathers and, therefore, denying their absolute
truth would amount to betraying the spiritual inheritance of their forebears.
However, the legitimate pride that each group takes in its own religion may
develop into different attitudes towards those who follow the other religion.
Among the XXX, as well as the YYY, there are both people who are willing to
make peaceful contact with the other group, and people who feel threatened by
them. In order to discuss the best way to deal with the YYY, the dignitaries of the
XXX community hold an assembly, and various opinions emerge from the debate.
“THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD, AND THAT’S MY GOD”
Most of the XXX firmly believe in the absolute truth of their own religion, and
do not accept that, in its turn, the religion of the YYY might be, in its own way,
true.
In fact – they say – how can two religions that do not resemble each other in
the slightest, which prescribe different codes of conduct for the faithful, and cannot
even agree on what it is legitimate to eat, ever be equally true? How can God – or
the gods – manifest himself in such different ways to the two peoples? Obviously
the YYY are wrong, and we must do something to make them see the error of their
ways.
“THE OTHERS ARE WRONG AND I WILL ELIMINATE THEM”
Among those who believe that there is only one true faith (their own), while
all the others are false and idolatrous, someone declares that the only solution is to
eliminate the religion of the YYY, even if this involves the use of violence. It is
necessary to suppress everything concerning the opposing faith: to destroy its holy
places, erase any representations of the false divinities (which offend the true one),
and prevent the devotees of the other religion from practising their faith. And if the
infidels oppose such measures, refusing to recant and to convert to the only true
religion, then it will be necessary to force them to do so, or even kill them: it is the
will of God (or the gods).
- But are we sure – replies another XXX – that this is really the divine will?
Our God (or our gods) teaches us that to kill another human being is evil, and that
we should not treat others as we would not like to be treated ourselves. Can this
rule be suspended, and in the name of religious faith at that?
- There is another problem. Let’s imagine that the YYY are as convinced as
we are of the truth of their religion: they could respond to our violence with more
violence. We are strong, and perhaps for a certain period we might have the upper
hand. But in time the YYY, or their sons, might repay us for the wrongs we have
done them. Is this what we really want?
“THE OTHERS ARE WRONG AND I WILL CONVINCE THEM OF THIS”
- Rather than exterminate all those who do not adhere to the true faith, it is
necessary to explain to them why they are wrong, and persuade them of the
superiority of our religion. Let’s make them see that only by abandoning their false
religion in favour of the true one can they be saved and thus attain the delights of
a better world. God (or the gods), who is on our side, will guide us and lead us to
understand how we can talk to the hearts of the YYY.
Many XXX find this to be the best possible solution, since it makes it possible
to attain their goal without resorting to violence.
But someone raises an objection:
- If God (or the gods) had wanted the YYY to observe the religion of the XXX,
why did he not make this happen? He must have had his reasons, and who are we
to act in his/her/their stead? Perhaps there is a reason why the Truth has been
communicated to us only.
- Apart from anything else, how can we be sure that the YYY will cheerfully
convert? What if they say: “who told you that your religion is better than ours? We
think it’s the other way round”.
“THE OTHERS ARE WRONG AND I WILL IGNORE THEM”
- Evidently God (or the gods) wanted only us to receive his Truth. Perhaps of
all his creatures he bears a special love for us, and so it’s not up to us to worry
about what other people believe in. I propose that we continue to observe our
tradition, ignoring the religion of the YYY.
Someone observes that, living side by side with the YYY, it would be difficult
to avoid all contact with them. Either they decide to divide the territory in two,
thereby allowing each group to follow its own customs and to profess its faith
independently, or a way has to be found to regulate relations between the two
groups without involving the religious dimension.
“WE ARE ALL THE SAME GOD ”
During the meeting a person, who until then has been listening in silence to
the discourses of the others, stands up and says:
- There is an idea common to all your proposals, and it is an idea I should
like to challenge: according to you, the YYY are wrong because they do not believe
in the same things we believe in. This is why you dwell on the differences that
separate the religion of the XXX from that of the YYY, without taking account of all
the things that they share.
- Does it not occur to you that, perhaps, God (or the gods) has wished to
manifest himself to the various peoples in a slightly different way, according to the
customs and traditions of each one? A mother deals differently with each of her
children, even though she loves them all equally, because she sees that each of
them has a different character and disposition. Thus, although religious
manifestations may differ a great deal, they could be ascribed to a single
transcendent principle, with the result that there would be no substantial difference
between the God (or the gods) of the XXX and the God (or the gods) of the YYY.
All religions are so many paths leading to the same goal: the eternal Being is one,
but human beings have different names for him.
Many XXX are struck by these words. But it is still not clear what conclusions
are to be drawn from the discourse. If we are all the same God, how are we to
conduct ourselves with the YYY?
Someone observes that, if this is the way things stand, every person ought
to be able to attain salvation freely following the path that his own tradition
suggests. Which would mean that the religion of the XXX is not any truer than that
of the YYY, a supposition that few of the XXX would be prepared to accept.
Someone else points out that, for the same reason (precisely because every
religion talks of the same God), if an XXX felt more attracted to the customs of the
YYY than to those of his own tradition, he/she should be free to convert to the
other religion, with the full approval of his original religion. Or he might choose to
create a personal synthesis of the two religions, selecting from each the elements
that suit him best.
At which a few XXX rebel: - Too easy: those who belong to a certain
religion contract obligations of loyalty with it. You cannot be an XXX and a YYY at
the same time.
- Why not? – replies the first speaker. – I am the son of my mother and my
father, and I honour them both, each in a different way.
- But what happens if your mother and your father do not see eye to eye
about some aspect of your upbringing? If they do not come to an agreement, the
will of one of the two ends up by prevaricating over the will of the other. Who can
assure you that, sooner or later, you would not find yourself having to violate the
precepts of the XXX in order to respect those of the YYY?
- I understand your objection, although I think that, were I find myself in a
situation of the kind, I would try to listen to my conscience.
- Another possibility has occurred to me – says another member of the
assembly. – We could seek the common bases of the two religions in order to
reconcile and unite all believers in a single faith. If we are all one God, then there is
no reason why we cannot have a single universal religion. This single religion would
have to be equally accessible to all human beings.
- A natural religion like this, the bearer of tolerance and social equilibrium,
could be reduced to a few very simple ideas: God exists (or the gods exist), he has
created the world and rewards good conduct in a future life.
- But who is to say what good conduct consists in? The code described by
the XXX or that of the YYY? The risk is that, by dwelling exclusively on the points
shared by the two religions, we lose sight of the differences, which goodwill alone
cannot eradicate altogether. Many of the XXX feel that the natural religion already
exists, and it is their religion. I suppose that the same holds for the YYY: when we
get together to compare our respective beliefs, we shall probably be unable to
reach agreement on all points, and each party will try to push the other into
accepting their own truths, passing them off as natural.
Until now we have talked as if there existed a single Truth, even though we
have admitted that perhaps the various religions, each with its own partial truth,
see It in different ways. But what if there were many Truths?
“EVERYONE HAS HIS OWN GOD AND THIS MUST BE RESPECTED”
- The XXX have their God (or their gods), and they honour him in the way
they think right. But the YYY also worship their own God (or gods) according to
their laws and, and as far as we know, in perfect good faith. It does not necessarily
follow that our God (or gods) corresponds to theirs. And even if the God (or the
gods) of the XXX and that/those of the YYY are the same, we still cannot know
which of the two groups honour him better. So isn’t it worth accepting that
everyone has his/her own God (or gods) and as such ought to be respected, even
though we do not share his beliefs?
3.2. EXAMPLES
Cases of peaceful co-existence
In 1219 - in the days of the Crusades – Francis of Assisi went to the Sultan of
Egypt, al-Malik al Kamil, who welcomed him in peace and with all honours, even
though he had no intention of converting to the Gospel that Frances preached.
 The Village of Nevè Shalom - Waahat as Salaam, an Israeli village where the
inhabitants, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, decided over 20 years ago to live
together regardless of their reciprocal differences.
 In October 1986, Pope John Paul II invited religious leaders of various religions
to come to Assisi to pray for peace, each according to his own faith.

Find other examples of peaceful co-existence between members of different
religions.
3.3. EXERCISES
3.3.1. Monographic research
Collect material on local inter-religious conflict.
Teachers might discuss cases known to the children and turn them into examples in
this way:
- The conquest of another country in order to defeat the “infidels”, in other words
those who believe in another religion
- The persecution of “heretics”, in other words those who try to introduce
different ideas to a religion
- Religious discrimination (when it is thought that the followers of a certain
religion are too different from us and are great sinners, with the result that in
some cases it is decided to exterminate them)
- Bloody struggles between the followers of two religions in the same country
- One state forbids people to follow a certain religion or even decides that they
must follow no religion at all.
See http://www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htm for information on current
religious conflicts.
3.3.2. Discussion
Explain the various standpoints defined in the previous exercise to the
children and open a debate, at the end of which the children themselves ought to
suggest ways in which co-existence might be attainable.
3.4. QUOTATIONS
3.4.1.
Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia (1781)
The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are
answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to
such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my
neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg.
3.4.2.
Umberto Eco: “Fundamentalism, Integralism, Racism and Intolerance”
(translated by Alastair McEwen)
In historic terms «fundamentalism» is a hermeneutic principle, linked to the
interpretation of a holy book. Modern Western fundamentalism was born in
Protestant circles in the nineteenth-century United States and its characteristic
feature is the decision to interpret the Scriptures literally, especially with regard to
those notions of cosmology whose truth the science of the day seemed to doubt.
Hence the frequently intolerant rejection of all allegorical interpretations and
especially of all forms of education that attempted to undermine faith in the biblical
text, as occurred with the triumph of Darwinism.
This form of fundamentalist literalism is ancient, and even in the days of the
Fathers of the Church there were debates between partisans of the letter and
supporters of a suppler hermeneutics, like that of St Augustine. But in the modern
world strict fundamentalism could only be Protestant, given that in order to be a
fundamentalist you have to assume that the truth is given by the interpretation of
the Bible. In the Catholic world instead it is the authority of the Church that
guarantees the interpretation, and so the equivalent of Protestant fundamentalism
takes if anything the form of traditionalism. I shall omit any consideration of the
nature of Muslim and Jewish fundamentalism, which I leave to the experts.
Is fundamentalism necessarily intolerant? On a hermeneutical level it is, but
not necessarily on a political one. It is possible to imagine a fundamentalist sect
that assumes its own elect to be the privileged possessors of the correct
interpretation of the Scriptures, without however indulging in any form of
proselytism and consequently without wishing to oblige others to share those
beliefs, or to fight for a society based on them.
«Integralism» on the other hand refers to a religious and political position whereby
religious principles must become at once the model of political life and the source
of the laws of the state. While fundamentalism and integralism are in principle
conservative, there are forms of integralism that claim to be progressive and
revolutionary. There are Catholic integralist movements that are not
fundamentalist, which fight for a society totally inspired by religious principles but
without imposing a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and maybe prepared to
accept a theology like that of Teilhard de Chardin.
The nuances can be even subtler. Think of the phenomenon of political
correctness in America. This sprang from the desire to encourage tolerance and the
recognition of all differences, religious, racial, and sexual, and yet it is becoming a
new form of fundamentalism that is affecting everyday language in a practically
ritual fashion, and that works on the letter at the expense of the spirit – and so you
can discriminate against blind persons provided that you have the delicacy to call
them the «sightless», and above all you can discriminate against those who do not
follow the rules of political correctness.
And racism? Nazi racism was certainly totalitarian, it had pretensions to being
scientific, but there was nothing fundamentalist about the doctrine of race. An
unscientific racism like that of Italy’s Northern League does not have the same
cultural roots of pseudo-scientific racism (in reality it has no cultural roots), yet it is
racism.
And intolerance? Can it be reduced to these differences and the kinship
between fundamentalism, integralism, and racism? There have been non-racist
forms of intolerance (like the persecution of the heretics or the intolerance of
dissidents in dictatorships). Intolerance is something far deeper that lies at the
roots of all the phenomena I have considered here.
Fundamentalism, integralism, and pseudo-scientific racism are theoretical
positions that presuppose a doctrine. Intolerance comes before any doctrine.
3.4.3.
G. E. Lessing, “The Parable of the Three Rings”, in Nathan the Wise
(1779)
(Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, and Other Plays and Writings , New York,
The Continuum Publishing Company, 1991, translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan)
In Jerusalem, during the Crusades, Saladin (who is a Muslim) asks Nathan (a
Jew) which is the true faith: Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. Nathan replies by
telling him the story of the three rings:
NATHAN
In days of yore, there dwelt in eastern lands
A man who had a ring of priceless worth
Received from hands beloved. The stone it held,
An opal, shed a hundred colors fair,
And had the magic power that he who wore it,
Trusting its strength, was loved of God and men.
No wonder therefore that this eastern man
Would never cease to wear it; and took pains
To keep it in his household for all time.
He left the ring to that one of his sons
He loved the best; providing that in turn
That son bequeath to his most favourite son
The ring; and thus, regardless of his birth,
The dearest son, by virtue of the ring,
Should be the head, the prince of all his house. –
You follow, Sultan?
SALADIN
Perfectly. Continue!
NATHAN
At last this ring, passed on from son to son,
Descended to a father of three sons;
All three of whom were duly dutiful,
All three of whom in consequence he needs
Must love alike. But yet from time to time,
Now this, now that one, now the third – as each
Might be with him alone, the other two
Not sharing then his overflowing heart –
Seemed worthiest of the ring; and so to each
He promised it, in pious frailty.
This lasted while it might. – Then came the time
For dying, and the loving father finds
Himself embarrassed. It’s a grief to him
To wound two of his sons, who have relied
Upon his word. – What’s to be done? – He sends
In secret to a jeweller, of whom
He orders two more rings, in pattern like
His own, and bids him spare nor cost nor toil
To make them in all points identical.
The jeweller succeeds. And when he brings
The rings to him, the sire himself cannot
Distinguish them from the original.
In glee and joy he calls his sons to him,
Each by himself, confers on him his blessing –
His ring as well – and dies. – You hear me, Sultan?
SALADIN (who, taken aback, has turned away)
I hear,
I hear you! – Finish your fable
Without delay. – I’m waiting!
NATHAN
I am done.
For what ensues is wholly obvious. –
Scarce is the father dead when all three sons
Appear, each with his ring, and each would be
The reigning prince. They seek the facts, they quarrel,
Accuse. In vain; the genuine ring was not
Demonstrable; – (He pauses for a reply)
Almost as little as
Today the genuine faith.
SALADIN
You mean this as
The answer to my question?
NATHAN
What I mean
Is merely an excuse, if I decline
Precisely to distinguish those three rings
Which with intent the father ordered made
That sharpest eye might not distinguish them.
SALADIN
The rings! – Don’t trifle with me! – I should think
That those religions which I named you
Might be distinguished readily enough.
Down to their clothing; down to food and drink!
NATHAN
In all respects except their basic grounds. –
Are they not grounded all in history,
Or writ or handed down? – But history
Must be accepted wholly upon faith –
Not so? – Well then, whose faith are we least like
To doubt? Our people’s, surely? Those whose blood
We share? The ones who from our childhood gave
Us proofs of love? Who never duped us, but
When it was for our good to be deceived? –
How can I trust my fathers less than you
Trust yours? Or turn about. – Can I demand
That to your forebears you should give the lie
That mine be not gainsaid? Or turn about.
The same holds true of Christians. Am I right?
SALADIN
(aside) By Allah, yes! The man is right. I must
Be still.
NATHAN
Let’s come back to our rings once more.
As we have said: the sons preferred complaint;
And each swore to the judge, he had received
The ring directly from his father’s hand. –
As was the truth! – And long before had had
His father’s promise, one day to enjoy
The privilege of the ring. – No less than truth! –
His father, each asserted, could not have
Been false to him; of such a loving father:
He must accuse his brothers – howsoever
Inclined in other things to think the best
Of them – of some false play; and he the traitors
Would promptly ferret out; would take revenge.
SALADIN
And then, the judge? – I am all ears to hear
What you will have the judge decide. Speak on!
NATHAN
Thus said the judge: unless you swiftly bring
Your father here to me, I’ll bid you leave
My judgment seat. Think you that I am here
For solving riddles? Would you wait, perhaps,
Until the genuine ring should rise and speak? –
But stop! I hear the genuine ring enjoys
The magic power to make its wearer loved,
Beloved of God and men. That must decide!
For spurious rings can surely not do that! –
Whom then do you love most? Quick, speak!
You’re mute? The rings’ effect is only backward,
Not outward? Each one loves himself the most?
O then you are, all three, deceived deceivers!
Your rings are false, all three. The genuine ring
No doubt got lost. To hide the grievous loss,
To make it good, the father caused three rings
To serve for one.
SALADIN
O splendid, splendid!
NATHAN
So,
The judge went on, if you’ll not have my counsel,
Instead of verdict, go! My counsel is:
Accept the matter wholly as it stands.
If each one from his father has his ring,
Then let each one believe his ring to be
The true one. – Possibly the father wished
To tolerate no longer in his house
The tyranny of just one ring! – And know:
That you, all three, he loved; and loved alike;
Since two of you he’d not humiliate
To favor one. – Well then! Let each aspire
To emulate his father’s unbeguiled,
Unprejudiced affection! Let each strive
To match the rest in bringing to the fore
The magic opal of his ring!
Assist that power with all humility,
With benefaction, hearty peacefulness,
And with profound submission to God’s will!
And when the magic powers of the stones
Reveal themselves in children’s children’s children:
I bid you, in a thousand thousand years,
To stand again before this seat. For then
A wiser man than I will sit as judge
Upon this bench, and speak. Depart! – So said
The modest judge.