MANY OF US value our own religion, but know little and care even less about other religions. To facilitate much needed religious literacy and mutual-understanding, this book succinctly examines the main features of all living religions-how they were formed and what they have become, how they are similar and how they differ, and what we can do to better appreciate and respect religions other than our own. EACH CHAPTER IS short, informative, and easy-to-read. Together, these chapters provide a good understanding of the basic beliefs of all religions and their main sects. They also provide a valuable perspective on religious unity, diversity, and interaction, setting the stage for open-minded interfaith dialogue and respectful mutual acceptance of all religions.

APPRECIATING ALL RELIGIONS

Religious Literacy In Small BitesBy Paramjit Singh Sachdeva

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Paramjit Singh Sachdeva
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-2112-1

Contents

Acknowledgements.................................................................ixPreface..........................................................................xi1. In The Beginning..............................................................12. Zoroastrianism................................................................233. Judaism.......................................................................354. Hinduism......................................................................475. Jainism.......................................................................656. Buddhism......................................................................757. Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism...........................................898. Christianity..................................................................999. Islam.........................................................................11110. Sikhism......................................................................12511. The Mormon Church and The Baha'i Faith.......................................13512. Appreciating Religious Diversity.............................................14713. Celebrating Religious Unity..................................................16314. Embracing Interfaith Interaction.............................................173Annex 1: The Founders and Scriptures of Our Living Religions.....................187Select Bibliography..............................................................195Index............................................................................207

Chapter One

In the Beginning

God, the Creator, made the universe more than thirteen billion years ago. Humans came much later. Still, we have been in existence for perhaps a few million years, the last fifty thousand or so as modern humans. Regrettably, our archeological record goes back only about fifteen thousand years to the earliest human settlements, and our written history covers only the most recent five thousand years.

For the past five millennia and possibly longer, humans have been religious. We have had many gods and a variety of beliefs, many of which no longer exist. Now, most humans believe in one God—the all-powerful and loving Creator—and in one of a dozen or so living faiths.

The story of each religion is different, in terms of how it was created and how it evolved. The gods of the Greeks and Romans, of the Vedic Aryans, and of the Mayans and Aztecs left their mark on the gods that followed. So did the religions of antiquity in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Far East, Meso-America and elsewhere. In many instances, somewhat similar features emerged independently at different places and at different times, driven by God's grace and inspiration, and human needs and expectations.

Of the current religions with a global presence, only Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Hinduism can be traced back to the 2nd millennium BCE or earlier. Five religions—Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism—emerged from new founders or existing traditions during the next one thousand years. Two more major religions—Christianity and Islam, the two largest in the world today—were created during the 1st millennium CE by two new prophets who revealed new messages from God. And three more religions—Sikhism, the Mormon Church, and the Baha'i Faith—were revealed to their founders in the 2nd millennium of the Common Era (CE), with the latter two emerging as recently as less than two hundred years ago.

Our earliest living religions were inspired by various notions of the supernatural, and built on indigenous religious and cultural traditions that preceded them. As new religions emerged, they introduced new notions of the divine and how to reach Him, as revealed or inspired by God. Religious inspiration came also from fresh opportunities for interchange of peoples and ideas, as all religions interacted with those that existed by their side. Some ideas were incorporated with little change, others after considerable debate and re-interpretation over long periods of time. The various religions influenced each others' myths, beliefs, practices, and rituals—leading to many common features as well as differences.

Throughout these years, all religions continued to grow and evolve, to a greater or lesser extent, and became what they are today. Every living religion is thus the result of both continuity and change spanning hundreds of years and incorporating the revealed message of its founding prophet(s) and the inspired spiritual wisdom of many mystics, sages, saints, and seers. All religions have also been sustained by the unheralded contributions of numerous ordinary folk who enabled these religions to remain alive and oftentimes thrive, simply by being faithful followers through times good and bad.

How these thirteen religions were formed and subsequently evolved is the subject of Part One of this book. Only major milestones are mentioned and details are deliberately omitted, to enable the big picture and underlying patterns to present themselves. What these religions have in common and how they differ, and how we could take account of this unity and diversity are covered in Part Two.

Some similarities and differences can be pre-viewed in Part One too—for the unity and diversity of religions are the natural outcome of the many different paths these religions havetaken duringtheir complex and occasionally hard-to-discern processes of creation and evolution. The separation of some of these interlinked ideas into the various chapters of the book does, however, serve a purpose. The fascinating stories of our living religions can be outlined and the overall pattern comprehended more easily, and we can more-conveniently address an inherently-complicated subject by reducing its big pieces to bite size.

Indigenous Traditions

We do not know much about indigenous traditions of the ancient past, but from the religions of indigenous peoples who have survived into the modern era, we can infer that traditional beliefs were closely intertwined with the local society and culture and with man's understanding of himself, nature, the super-natural, and how these interacted. In pre-literate societies, religion found expression through art and architecture—through painting, music, dance, costumes, and sculpture. Some of these we can still see.

In Africa, the cradle of mankind, indigenous traditions naturally varied from place to place. They often included belief in a supreme reality, other gods, ancestor worship, and the practice of magic. The pygmies believed in a benevolent god of the forest, the east-Africans in a god of the open skies, and the west-Africans had a variety of cults of nature spirits and ancestors. Some pan-African beliefs were associated with "mother" earth and life-giving water and other natural phenomena. All these attested to the connection between man, nature, and the gods and spirits that took care of the living and the dead. There were many kinds of rituals, initiation ceremonies, magical objects and superstitions, and medicine men with material and spiritual powers. Intricate masks, carvings, and sculpture represented the powers of ancestors and spirits over the living members of the tribe or community.

On the...