Welcome to our article,
Dear readers, we are going to write about a group discussion,
because we believe that a group discussion is more helpful. So, we have invited
a few friends to discuss these religious issues.
Introduction.
Dear friends, I would like to discuss our religious beliefs, and I ask you not to hold back on anything that comes to your mind; because you and I are here to suggest a way to solve today religious problem,. Therefore, I am asking you to have your say. Anyhow, today I have asked my dear friend Mark to have something ready to say, so that these religious discussions can begin. So, Mark please let we hear what you have to say?
-------------------------------
Mark religious’ speech
Mark opening speech
Dear friends, I don’t really know how to
start with, but I need to say that I feel honoured to be the first to be
invited to speak.
So, today we are talking about religions; I must
say that with so many religions around, it is hard to choose which one to talk
about. Anyhow, I read a lot of religious books and I know a few religious
things, but I don’t know enough to positively say that what I am going to say
is right or not, so, you must accept it as it is, since it is the way how I see
religions today, perhaps tomorrow I may change some of my views?
Anyhow, I have chosen a few religions to talk
about; but first I must say that religions for us humans are necessary, as we
feel this in-borne need to belong to some religions, that has something
supernatural, that can help us, if we need help.
Having said that, now let us see how the main
religions have set
themselves up, to explain to their people their religious beliefs. So, I am
going to talk about the main beliefs and from where they came from. As we know,
the most important religions of the world today are: The religions that come
from the Bible and Hinduism, these religions have split and evolved into
several other religions, of course, there are other smaller religions, and
there were the old pagan religions that no longer exist.
Now, let us start with Hinduism.
I am starting with the Indus religions
because it is believed that they are the first to be written in a text, or they
were written in bits and pieces, and later they were put together and become a
written text.
One of these Indian religious books is The
Laws of Manu; in this book The Laws of Manu it is explained in a nutshell that
an ever-existing force or energies has always existed, in the great darkness
that existed before the world was born; this Self existing force or energy
called (Svayambhu or something like that.) These existing energies were so
complex that they were/are unknowable and unfathomable. Anyhow, this field or
force of energy in the beginning seeded an egg and this egg became Brahman the
progenitor of the whole world, Brahman split in two and created the world as we
know it. Of course, there is a lot more to this great Indus religion, specially
how the people and the different cast were born, and we will come back to
discuss it another day, but this is how the Hinduism religions started.
As I said, we will be talking about the main
parts of religions in a nutshell, because every religion has a never-ending
story to tell. Anyhow, another of these religions that came from these Indus
religions is Buddhism; at the beginning, it was part of this Indus religions,
but Buddha set it up in a more advanced way, Buddha is born in a royal family
in 624 BC so, he is a prince, he was named Siddhartha, he was born with his own
destiny, as he was going to be the one that knows everything, the enlightened
one and the founder of Buddhism. Today one of the best-known religious leaders
of Buddhism is the Tibetan Dalai Lama.
-----------------------------
The old western religions.
Paganism was the old western religions.
Now, let us talk about paganism, and their pagans’
gods. You see, before Christianity, while in Asia Hinduism was one of the most
important religions; in Europe paganism with their pagan’s gods was the
religion of those days.
At the beginning of paganism, it is believed
that one of the oldest and most powerful gods was Saturn. (But there is a lot
more to say about this religion and how it starts in the very beginning of the
world, there is an article written in Hub Pages explaining all this, this is
the link, hub.me/agotI ).
But now let us go back to talk about this god
Saturn, this god Saturn had three sons and they replaced Saturn: the first son
of Saturn was Jupiter who became king of the gods who lived on Mount
Olympus Greece, the second one was Neptune who was king of the seas, and the
third was Pluto king of the underworld or the dead.
There were lots of other gods, goddesses like
Apollo the sun god, Mars the war god Eros and Venus the gods of love and many
gods and demigods and others that filled the void of any supernatural beliefs.
But I believe that it is better for me to talk about them another time. Anyhow,
these Gods have been replaced with a new and very powerful God in the western
world, called by some believer Yahweh and from others Allah, these religions
form the main part of the western world religions today.
---------------------------------------
The western world religions.
Today western world religions
Most of the western world religions derive
from the Bible, they start with Abraham
and the Bible. The Bible is a history and religious book of the Jews. Most of
us have been thought to believe that the Bible is the written word of God, as
God has spoken through his prophets, this is what we have been told and most
people believe to be true.
Anyhow, Abraham had many children, even
though he had none until he was very old, his first son was Ishmael, born from
his handmaiden Hagar, and then he had Isaac from his very old wife Sarah.
But Abraham had more
children, and I quote from what I found on the Internet:
(Also, Abraham had six
other sons besides Ishmael and Isaac through his wife Keturah whom he married
after Sarah died. "Now Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.
And she bore to him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah."
(Gen.
25:1-2). Obviously, this was known by the writers of
Genesis as well as Hebrews and Galatians. (End of quote)
Anyhow, we need to go back to tell the story
in a chronological way. As most of us know the Bible starts with the book of
Genesis, and it starts with God creating the world, and from there it tells us
briefly, what happens from the creation of the world to the times of Abraham;
and from Abraham the history of the Jews begins. In a nutshell the Jews become
slaves of the powerful Egyptian king, they cry to their God to help them, and
God delivers them from the Egyptians with the help of their leader Moses, who
has met God on Mount Sinai in the form of a burning bush, this burning bush
talked to Moses and said that his name was Yahweh (which means, I am who I am).
Now, the God of Abraham wanted to deliver his people from the Egyptian Pharaoh.
So, God then told Moses to go back to Egypt and help rescue his people.
After a long argument with the Egyptian Pharaoh
with the help of Yahweh Moses succeeds in freeing the Jews from the Egyptian Pharaoh
and they leave Egypt to go to the Promised
Land. On the way to the Promised Land, the Jews don’t follow Yahweh’s
orders; so, Yahweh punishes them by making them stay for forty years in the
desert, that is until all those who did not believe in Yahweh their God were
dead, also Moses dies before they reach the Promised Land, so, the Jews reach
the Promised Land under their new leader Joshua and other leaders that
followed.
In the end the Jews have reached the Promised
Land and stay there for a very long time under various leaders the most known
and mentioned today are Salomon and David. In the Bible through his prophets Yahweh
promises the Jews
that from the line of David will be born a man with great powers and he will be
the messiah to the Jews.
So, the messiah is born, as our Lord Jesus
Christ at the time when the Promised Land is occupied from the Romans; the Jews
hope and believe that the messiah is going to be their king and can deliver
them from the Romans that were occupying their Promised Land. But when they saw
that Jesus Christ was not what they wanted him to be, they found a way how to
eliminate him by crucifying him with the help of the Romans. But the follower
of Jesus Christ continued to believe in Jesus Christ and thus a new religion
was born, Christianity. At the same time the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah
and continued in believing in God Yahweh in the same old ways of their
religious order.
-------------------------------------
There are many Christian religions.
Christianity is a
general name that includes many religions; they all come from The New Testament
of the Bible, and they all believe in our lord Jesus Christ.
So, Christianity is
a modified continuation of the religious laws and beliefs of Abraham and Moses,
that after the death of Jesus Christ and other happenings it split away from
the Jewish and formed a few religious groups that today are known as Christianity.
Of course,
Christianity took a long time to become the main religion of the western world,
because at the beginning it was not accepted, so, many people died martyrs
because they believed in this new religious order of Christianity, history is
full of prosecutions that the new Christian had to endure before they became
accepted as a religious order. There are reasons to believe that Christianity
became accepted under the Roman emperor Constantine the great early in the
fourth century AD. Emperor Constantine was the first Roman emperor that
converted to Christianity.
Christianity today
has got several orders like the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans
and many others, as you can see these religions have come from the Bible; but I
better stop talking about them now, as there is another main religion that I want
to talk about, which is the Islamic religion.
-----------------------------------------------
Islam, the Koran book is their Bible.
Islam religion
There are reasons to believe that the Koran
comes from the Bible, and even though today we are far away from our supposed
brothers Muslims; the fact remains that they are descended of Ishmael first son
of Abraham and Hagar the Egyptian maidservant, then Abraham had his second son
Isaac with his wife Sarah: These two are the most important children of Abraham;
therefore, we can say that through Abraham we are brothers with the Muslims.
Anyhow, we should read the Koran to
understand the Muslims; I have read part of the Koran, and in the Koran God
talks and says that he is the same God of Abraham, the only difference I found
is that they call their God Allah instead of Yahweh; they have also different
laws compared to our Christian religious laws, modified for Christianity.
I believe that the Muslims also modified the
Bible, but it was modified in a different way, as they reject most of the new
ways of Jesus Christ but retain most of the old ways of The Old Testament. So,
we can say that even if we are brothers with the Moslems through Abraham, at
the same time we are not, since we have different beliefs and we go in different
direction; anyhow, we need to learn more before we pass judgment on this
religion?
----------------------
Speech conclusions.
Mark speech conclusions
I need to say that there are a lot more
religions in the world today, which have come from different civilizations, and
we could make a list of them, and it will be a long list. Anyhow, our task is
to find which one is the most suitable to use. Otherwise, we must make up
another religion capable of satisfying the human need for religions. As we have
said before, Man needs
God. And God is hope for those who need hope most.
That is all I want to say now, as my speech
has been too long and some of you wonder when I am going to stop. Thanks for
listening anyhow.
----------------------------
Frank (me the writer) short comment.
Before I say anything, I want to paste this
link about the Koran to complete Mark speech.
The Koran
-- Simple Search, Let us
hope it works.
--------------------------------
Anyhow, at the end of Mark speech we all were
congratulating Mark, saying that he knew more than most of us about
religions, and that we surely would reflect on what he had said: I said I
am sure that our friends here are going to discuss a lot more about religions
because of what you said, so, let us see what they are going to argue about
soon. Look over there, I see our friend Gino looking at John as if he wants to
speak to him, perhaps he is going to have a good interesting chat with him
presently. We might even have a laugh Ha, ha, ha.
My dear readers, let us postpone what Gino
and John are going to argue about for next article, because I believe that we
have said enough in this article. But, let me say briefly what sort of
conclusion we can find in Mark speech. The only conclusion that I can see, is
that religions are complex, and humanity needs to look for a solution, because we still need God.
Dear readers, this is not the end of the meeting and if you want to see what happened next at the end of Mark speech you must wait when we post our next article, Religious discussions three.
To see more click on this link, Religious discussions two.
May God bless us all.
----------------------------------------------
