The World’s Religions
Huston Smith
Hinduism .......................................................................................................................... 1
Buddhism ......................................................................................................................... 2
Confucianism .................................................................................................................... 2
Taoism ............................................................................................................................. 3
Islam ................................................................................................................................ 3
Judaism........................................................................................................................... 4
(All dates are B.C-A.D.)
Hinduism
Mahatma Ghandi’s life = the British withdrew from India in peace.
Hinduism as a while- You can have what you want (=Christian free will).
People want four things: (first two are the Path of Desire)
1. -Pleasure- born with built-in pleasure/pain reactors.
-nothing wrong with pleasure
-hedonism requires good sense. Not every impulse can be followed with impunity.
-Only the stupid will lie, cheat, steal for immediate profit, or succumb to addictions. As long as the
basic rules of morality are obeyed, you are free to seek all the pleasure you want.
-Pleasure alone is too trivial to satisfy one’s total nature.
2. Worldly Success
- wealth, fame, and power.= exclusive, hence competitive, hence precarious.
- Do not multiply when shared.
- This drive is insatiable.
- Centers on the self.
- Does not survive bodily death. “You can’t take it with you”.
(last two are the Path of Renunciation) sacrifice of a trivial now, for a more promising yet-to-be
believe in multiple life spans
True religion begins with the quest for meaning and value beyond self-centeredness. It renounces
the ego’s claim to finality.
3. The community
– transformed the will-t-get into the will-to-give, the will-to-win into the will-to-serve.
- requires maturity to be appreciated.
- Faithful performance of duty brings both respect and gratitude.
- Self-respect.
4. 1. We want being, we want to know, and we want joy.
The problem life poses for the human self is to cleanse the dross of its being to the point where
its infinite center can shine forth in full display.
Hinduism says the purpose of life is to pass beyond imperfection altogether.
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We a re limited in three things: joy, knowledge and being.
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To begin with the strictures on our joy, these fall into three sub-groups: physical pain,
frustration that arises from the thwarting of desire and boredom with life in general.
The interests of the self should be expanded to the point of approximating a God’s eye
view of humanity.
How could one feel disappointed at one’s own defeat if one experienced the victor’s joy
as also one’s own.
2d limitation is ignorance:
- Psychologists liken the mind to an iceberg, most of which is invisible.
3d limitation is restricted being
-boundary of the self= in terms of space and time
complete maturity is to see the lifespan in a larger setting, one that is, actually, unending. This is
the basic point in the Hindu estimate of the human condition.
All of us dwell on the brink of the infinite ocean of life’ creative power.
What if we could bring it to light and draw on that infinite power?
This question became India’s obsession.
Guide people to higher states of being.
{Sanskrit = language, in use since c1200b.c.as the religious and classical literary language of
India}
Four paths to this goal:
Where the west has sought strength and beauty, India has been interested in precision, and
control. (hatha yoga) designed to unite the human spirit with the God who lies canceled in its
deepest recesses.
There are multiple paths to this goal, every person is an individual with different strengths.
The first step of every yoga is to develop habits a non-injury, truthfulness, non-stealing, selfcontrol, cleanliness, contentment, self-discipline, and a compelling desire to reach the goal.
Buddhism
- Guatama Buddha -Born about 563. b.c. at Nepal
- Not ‘who’ are you but ‘what’ are you.
- Buddha (means ‘awakened’ or ‘enlightened’ one= “I am awake”. Was one of the greatest
rationalists of all time.
- The principle of the Middle Way between the extremes of asceticism and indulgence.
- Rigorous thought and mystical concentration.
- Legend: Buddha was lost in rapture for 49 days.
- He continued to take regular retreats.
- Died from dysentery from the dried boar’s flesh.
- “All compounded things decay. Work out your own salvation with diligence.”
- believed that talent and sustained attention will lift some people above the average in
matters of spirit; their advice will be sought and their counsels generally followed.
- Note-anthropologists say that people danced out their religion before they thought it out.
- Buddha preached a religion of intense self-effort, devoid of authority, “Be lamps unto
yourselves”; devoid of ritual and tradition; devoid of the supernatural
o It was scientific, pragmatic, therapeutic, psychological, egalitarian.
- Life’s goal is nirvana, reaching the highest level of existence= permanent, stable,
imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecome, power, bliss and
happiness, secure refuge, shelter, safety, real Truth an supreme Reality;
Confucianism
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-Kung Fu-tzu 551 b.c.
-did not author Chinese culture, but was the supreme editor of it.
- Brought his culture to a focus that has remained remarkably distinct for twenty-five centuries.
- His father died before he was 3.
- Perceived a divine mission at age of 50
- Wandered from state to state giving advice.
- Well-learned
- Until this century, every Chinese school child for 2000 years raised his clasped hands each
morning toward a table in the schoolroom that bore a plaque bearing Confucius’ name. Every
Chinese student has poured over his sayings for hours, so they have become a part of the
culture.
Taoism
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Islam
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604 b.c. , Lao Tzu
a mosaic of legends
inferences concerning his personality derive almost entirely from a single slim volume
that is attributed to him.
China’s first historian was named Ssu-ma Ch’ien, “ possessed depths of understanding
that defied ready comprehension.
Traditional portrait of Lao Tzu saddened by people’s disinclination to cultivate the natural
goodness. He rode a water buffalo to Tibet, the gatekeeper tried to persuade him to turn
back, failing that, he asked Tzu to write a record of his beliefs to leave to the civilization
he was abandoning= 5,000 character volume titled Tao Te Ching and remains the basic
text of Taoist thought.
The way of ultimate reality, of the universe, the driving power in nature.
A self-help program.
Seeks knowledge., knowledge is power. Not drain life of power by expending it in
useless, draining ways = friction and conflict.
Now resides in Taiwan.
Much of it looks like, from the outside, crude superstition.
In the Abrahamic family of religions,
Philosophically it builds on the Greeks.
Muhammad A. D. 570
S-l-m = peach = surrender = the peach that comes when one’s life is surrendered to God.
Within a century after their rise this people became the masters of an empire extending
from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the confines of China, greate3r than that of
Rome at its zenith.
The Koran begins with the Genesis story, “in the beginning…” and differs only in the use
of Allah instead of God. (Allah means THE God.)
Noah’s son Shem (where we get Shemite, the Arabs consider themselves a Semitic
people.)
According to the Koran, Ishmael (Hagar’s son, she was Sarah’s maid) went to the place
where Mecca was to rise. His descendants are Muslims.
Their religion, before Muhammad, was an animistic polytheism, with jinn or demons
populating the desert wastes.
Muhammad’s father died before he was born, his mother when he was six and his
grandfather when he was 8. Then he was adopted into his uncles home.
“Night of Power” when he received his divine commission. His wife was his first convert.
The Muslim feels for him admiration, respect and affection and see him as a shepherd,
merchant, hermit, exile, soldier, lawmaker, prophet-priest-king, and mystic, also an
orphan, Although they never confuse him with God.
Koran means ‘recitation’.
Muslims memorize it.
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Muhammad considers the Koran the only major miracle that God worked through him.
He was unschooled to the extent he could barely write his name.
Muslims read the Koran literally.
The words of the Koran came to Mohammed in segments over 23 years.
The Koran continues (don’t know exactly what that means) the Old and New Testaments
and presents itself as their culmination.
Koran 5:70,68 - “We made a covenant of old with the Children of Israel [and] you have
nothing of guidance until you observe the Torah and the Gospel”
Koran 10:47, 4:164 – “To every people we have sent a messenger…[Some} we have
mentioned to you and [some] we have not mentioned to you.”
Supposedly, the Koran can only be fully appreciated in it’s original language, one cannot
understand fully in another language.
Why would God not want everyone, regardless of language, to be able to understand His
message?
Overwhelming thrust of the Koran is to proclaim the unity, omnipotence, omniscience,
and mercy of God- and the total dependence of human life upon him.
Judaism
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