Universal values as love, respect more important than religion?

[Erwin van der Bij]

"The world doesn't need Christianity, Islam, or Judaism! The world needs love, peace, respect and compassion. It people find inspiration to work on this universal values in their religion, we should fully support them!"

I like to know your thoughts and feelings about the above statement!

Peaceful greetings,

Erwin

[Alana Lea]

Hello Erwin,

While I agree with your belief that the world needs love, peace, respect and compassion, I find this statement neither respectful, nor compassionate. Can you see what I mean? What if someone were to say to you, that the foundational core beliefs you hold are worthless. Would it make you feel valuable, priceless, a necessary part of a whole?

What I am challenged always to learn, is how to see from another vantage point, the common value we have. I see that you share my value of wanting to spread love, peace, respect and compassion. I just don't agree with the wording that you've expressed that sentiment. Isn't that exactly the same thing you're pointing at?>

Shalama, Salaam, Shalom, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

[Alana Lea]

Hello Erwin,

I understand now what you mean. But since I have extended this invitation to Christians, Muslims and Jews who are my friends, I felt they might see that headline as inhospitable. While I agree that religions are not the only way to work on Universal values, a great, great number of people on our planet do not. And since much of the fighting we experience on earth is due to our judgements of one another, I like to think that by learning about one another in a welcoming, inclusive and respectful way to all, we will discover those Universal values we share naturally.

Also, it did make me uncomfortable that the headline, which is broadcast around the internet with a "widget" was making a statement I felt did not represent my intentions for this site, even though I now understand your intention in writing it. I am considering a great deal at the moment!

Thank you Erwin, for sharing your Universal Heart...

[Erwin van der Bij]

Hello Alana,

I feel sorry, that you think the statement it is not respectful. It is not meant in that way.

My religion is The Apostolic Society (www.apgen.nl) . I would not mind that people say: The Apostolic Society is not needed, but if you are inspired by The Apostolic Society to work on universal values as love and respect.
The essential to the statement I made:

Religion is A (not THE) mean to work on universal values. In fact, there are many ways to work on universal values. I respect highly the foundational core beliefs of a religion.
Or in other words: universal values are more important than religion.

Peaceful greetings and with love,

Erwin

If I say in the words as described

[Erwin van der Bij]

Dear friends,

I changed the title of the subject, so I hope it is less offending to some people.


With peaceful greetings,

Erwin (Apostolic, but I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Jew, and a Humanist.

Similar words were spoken by Mahatma Gandhi, but I feel also comfortable with.)

[Alana Lea]

Thank you for your consideration Erwin, I really appreciate your effort to make more more people feel comfortable here. Now I can also be Apostolic and Humanist with you...

Here are Gandhi's words saying what you just did, from his bhajan:

With Gratitude,
Alana

[Erwin van der Bij]

Hello Alana,

Thanks so much for putting Gandhi's bhajan on this forum. Gandhi is a great example for me, as a lot of other known and less known people.
It's still a wish of me to speak someone who did meet Mahatma Gandhi at his life.

Peaceful greetings,

Erwin

[Alana Lea]

Hi Erwin, I found this while looking for a translation of that Gandhi bhajan:

This is referring to what his last words were. While some believe they were "Ram, Ram" (Hindu names for God being) this is saying they were "Ram, Rahim" (Hindu and Muslim name for God as Compassion)

If we too wish to do justice to Gandhi's personality by supposing that his last words were "Ram Rahim," then our historical interpretation of his message to the world will assume a new dimension. The more limited interpretation has been to view him only as a Hindu, but the broader interpretation would drive home the message of his care for Hindu-Moslem unity and for humanist values...

...Gandhi had slowly evolved from being a traditional Hindu to including in his prayers passages from the scriptures of many religions, including Zorastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism as well as Islam and Hinduism. In this light he can hardly be termed a pure and complete Hindu. And as his personal acquaintance with Gora deepened in his last years, he began to consider himself a representative of atheism too, describing himself as a "super-atheist" in one of their talks...

Read more

[Alana Lea]

Hello again Erwin,

I JUST found the quote about Gandhi meeting with the atheist, Gora and found it quite beautiful... such a lesson in listening and non-judgement.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/india/gora13.htm

"Now, you tell me, why do you want atheism?" Bapuji asked me in a calm and affectionate voice.

I was struck by the tone as well as by the nature of the question. It was not the usual question: What is atheism? or what is the use of atheism? Such questions call forth only academic answers. 'Why do you want atheism?' had something remarkably human and practical about it. It was Bapu-like. To my recollection, in all my numerous discussions on atheism, no one had put the question to me in that form. But, instead of taking me by surprise on account of its singularity, the question touched my heart and I poured out my heart.

I began: "I was in Calcutta last year. I saw the famine-stricken destitutes walking heavily on the pavements. Here and there some of them dropped dead in the streets. They died beside the marts and stalls which exhibited their sweets and fruits for sale. Suppose there was a hungry dog or a bull in the same situation. Would he die of hunger? No. Beat him, scold him, he would persist in his attempts to pounce upon the shop, somehow eat the sweets and fruits and satisfy his hunger. Why did not the destitute do the same? I do not think they were afraid of the policeman. The destitutes were there in hundreds and thousands. No concerted action was required of them. If a fraction of their number had fallen upon the shops, all the policemen in Calcutta put together could not have stopped them. Even confinement in a gaol with its poor diet would have been preferable to death due to starvation. Why, then, the destitutes did not feel desperate and loot the shops? Were all the destitutes abject cowards without exception? Or had all of them such a high sense of civic responsibility as to be unwilling to disturb law and order? No. They were all simple, normal folk with no knowledge of civic rights and duties. Had they known their civic rights and duties in the least, there would have been no Bengal famine at all.

"Looking at the other side, were all the shop-keepers so cruel as to allow their fellow-men to die of dire hunger before their own eyes? No. On the other hand they shed tears of pity and contributed liberally and ran the gruel kitchens for the destitutes. They recited hymns of ethics every day.

"If the destitute is not cowardly and if the shopman is not cruel, why did so many people die of hunger? I think the reason is their philosophy of life.

"Both the destitute and the shop-keeper are votaries of the same philosophy of life. Each one said to himself: 'It is my fate, that is his fate; God made me like this, God made him like that.' On account of the commonness of their philosophy, there was no change in their relationship, though some ate their fill and many starved to death. The destitute's faith in that philosophy made his behaviour different from the animals.

"What I have said with regard to the Bengal famine applies also to the relationship between the untouchables and the caste Hindus, between the dark-skinned and the white-skinned. The same philosophy rules all these relationships.

"What is the result of following that philosophy of life? Man has become worse than the animal. Instead of living well, he is dying ill. His strength to resist evil is very much weakened. The pleasures of the few are built upon the bones of the many. This is really the unhappy fact in spite of our moral professions and pious wishes for the happiness of all humanity. This philosophy of life based upon belief in God and fate -- this theistic philosophy -- I hold responsible for defeating our efforts at ethical life and idealism. It cannot securely preserve the balance of unequal social relations any longer, because the pains of the flesh have begun to rev

[Fazilee Buechel]

Hi Erwin,
I entirely understand what you mean by this statement, and I agree with you. It has always been my hope that each individual will find a way, be it through a religion, spiritual path or other means, to share and develop the universal values of love, peace, respect and compassion that are at the core of human values and the key to healing our planet. To begin this work, we must all look within. Inside each and every one of us is our own, true religion. With the greatest respect to all faiths, worldwide, I hope that every being finds his or her inner path to peace and compassion.

[Pat Sciacca]

Fazilee,

Thank you so much for your response.

You describe what I yearn for in the world.

I once read that at its' base all religions have Love.

And that is the key to healing the panet.

Peace,
Pat Sciacca

[April Gezunterman]

Yes i am all in the oneness of every thing I do not ever put a brand on my god or any one else"s god.... so very personal...... I believe all ways lead back to god the oneness of all there is... Hugs to all April

[dawnbutt]

I thought you may be interested in these writings, which are from the Baha'i faith

The purpose of religion as revealed from the heaven of God's holy Will is to establish unity and concord amongst the peoples of the world; make it not the cause of dissension and strife.

— Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 129

‘Abdu’l-Bahá (his son) says:—
In order to find truth we must give up our prejudices, our own small trivial notions; an open receptive mind is essential. If our chalice is full of self, there is no room in it for the water of life. The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is essential if we would reach Truth, for Truth is one. …

No one truth can contradict another truth. Light is good in whatsoever lamp it is burning! A rose is beautiful in whatsoever garden it may bloom! A star has the same radiance if it shines from the East or from the West! Be free from prejudice; so will you love the Sun of Truth from whatever point in the horizon it may arise. You will realize that if the Divine Light of Truth shone in Jesus Christ, it also shone in Moses and Buddha. This is what is meant by the search after truth.

It also means that we must be willing to clear away all that we have previously learned, all that would clog our steps on the way to Truth; we must not shrink, if necessary, from beginning our education all over again. We must not allow our love for any one religion or any one personality so to blind our eyes that we become fettered by superstition. When we are freed from all these bonds, seeking with liberal minds, then shall we be able to arrive at our goal.

Love and blessings

Dawn