Kenneth Shouler - The everything worlds religions book: discover the beliefs, traditions, and cultures of ancient and modern religions

THE

EVERYTHING

WORLDS RELIGIONS
BOOK
2ND EDITION

Discover the beliefs, traditions, and cultures
of ancient and modern religions

Kenneth Shouler, PhD

Copyright 2010, 2002 by F+W Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
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ISBN 10: 1-4405-0036-3
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0036-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0037-4

Printed in the United States of America.
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THE
EVERYTHING

WORLDS RELIGIONS BOOK
2ND EDITION

Dear Reader,

Religion serves up a carnival of sights and sounds. It blares out its colors in the form of rituals and mythology. It invites us to wander down colorful corridors. Once inside the religious labyrinth, we hear, read, and experience centuries-old mysteries. Unwittingly, we add to our stock of ideas.

As a professor of philosophy, I have often found philosophys pursuit of the truth and analytical ways to be opposed to the stress on belief found in religions. Philosophy takes less on trust and faith than religion does. For me, however, there are points at which the two meet. When I read of Buddhas Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, I know I have located the essence of Buddhisms ethical philosophy. When I encounter the Jains Jainism grew out of Hinduism more than 2,500 years ago I am awed by their asceticism and philosophy of noninjury (ahimsa) toward all living things. In reading the arguments of countless medieval thinkers, such as Moses Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas, on the nature and existence of God, I know I have discovered yet another meeting point between theology and philosophy. The Ten Commandments are familiar to most, but how many are familiar with the 613 rules or mitzvot in the Pentateuch? And what of the mystics of most faiths, whose personal contact with divine realties changed them and provided the only proof they needed for the existence of God?

These are but a few of the moral and metaphysical notions that make an investigation of religions worthwhile.

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Contents

Dedication

To Father Paul John.

His delightful company and our many conversations have helped me to understand religions and their practices.

Top 10 Insights onUnderstanding Religions

The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the thing one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis, completely expressible in words.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We must respect the other fellows religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

H.L. Mencken

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Galileo Galilei

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

Thomas Jefferson

You dont have to be religious to have a soul; everybody has one. You dont have to be religious to perfect your soul; I have found saintliness in avowed atheists.

Rabbi Harold Kushner

The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.

St. Thomas Aquinas

As a man can drink water from any side of a full tank, so the skilled theologian can wrest from any scripture that which will serve his purpose.