Category The World Around us

WHERE DID HINDUISM ORIGINATE?

Hinduism is one of the world’s oldest religions. It began in India some 5000 years ago and developed gradually from various early beliefs in the region. Those who follow the Hindu religion worship many different gods, and there are lots of different Hindu sects. Most Hindus believe in reincarnation — that a person’s soul moves to another body after death. Those who lead good lives are reborn in a higher state; those who do not may return as an animal or insect.

It has complex roots, and involves a vast array of practices and a host of deities. Its plethora of forms and beliefs reflects the tremendous diversity of India, where most of its one billion followers reside. Hinduism is more than a religion. It is a culture, a way of life, and a code of behavior. This is reflected in a term Indians use to describe the Hindu religion: Santana Dharma, which means eternal faith, or the eternal way things are (truth).

The word Hinduism derives from a Persian term denoting the inhabitants of the land beyond the Indus, a river in present-day Pakistan. By the early nineteenth century the term had entered popular English usage to describe the predominant religious traditions of South Asia, and it is now used by Hindus themselves. Hindu beliefs and practices are enormously diverse, varying over time and among individuals, communities, and regional areas.

Unlike Buddhism, Jainism, or Sikhism, Hinduism has no historical founder. Its authority rests instead upon a large body of sacred texts that provide Hindus with rules governing rituals, worship, pilgrimage, and daily activities, among many other things. Although the oldest of these texts may date back four thousand years, the earliest surviving Hindu images and temples were created some two thousand years later.

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WHO WAS MOHAMMED?

Mohammed was a 7th-century prophet who founded the religion of Islam. Islam’s followers — Moslems (or Muslims) — believe that many prophets, including Jesus Christ and Moses, have carried the word of one God, named Allah. For Moslems, Mohammed was the greatest prophet of them all. His word is revealed in the Koran — the sacred book of Islam.

Muhammad, known as the Messenger of God, founded Islam and revealed the Qur’an. Few men have had a greater impact on faith and world events than Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Today, 1.6 billion Muslims around the world view him not only as the seal of the prophets, but as the perfect example of an honest, just, merciful, and compassionate human being. Viewed by followers of Islam as the “Living Qur’an,” his life is considered an example to be emulated by all.

But Muhammad was not just a religious leader; he was a politician and statesman who united the warring tribes of Arabia and organized a community around belief in the “oneness” of God. His impact on the region of Arabia was so profound that the time prior to his calling as “God’s messenger” is referred to as the Time of Ignorance.

Muhammad was born in 570 C.E. in the city of Mecca in Arabia. His early childhood was filled with tragedy. His father, Abdullah, was a trader who died before he was born. In accordance with local tradition, Muhammad’s mother gave over the infant Muhammad to the care of Halimah, a Bedouin wet-nurse, to be raised in the desert of Arabia until he was five years old. However, Halimah returned him to his mother when he was only two because her husband was afraid that Muhammad was possessed by an evil spirit.

More tragedy followed. When Muhammad was six, his mother, Aminah, died and left him in the care of his paternal grandfather, Abdul Muttalib. Two years later, his grandfather died and Muhammad was given into the care of his uncle, Abu Talib, who raised him and played a prominent role in his life.

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WHICH WAS THE FIRST RELIGION TO HAVE ONE GOD?

Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, was the first to have only one god. Jews believe that Judaism began in the Middle East 4000 years ago when God’s word was revealed to Abraham, the father of the Jewish people. God told Abraham that the Jews would be his chosen people in return for obeying his laws and spreading his message. Throughout their history, Jewish people have suffered persecution in many parts of the world.

Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world, although some scholars have argued that the earliest Israelites (pre-7th century BCE) were monolatristic rather than monotheistic. God in later Judaism was strictly monotheistic, an absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. The Babylonian Talmud references other, “foreign gods” as non-existent entities to whom humans mistakenly ascribe reality and power. One of the best-known statements of Rabbinical Judaism on monotheism is the Second of Maimonides’:

God, the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of a pair, nor one like a species (which encompasses many individuals), nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, nor as a single simple object that is infinitely divisible. Rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity.

Some in Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism. Judaism uses the term shituf to refer to the worship of God in a manner which Judaism deems to be neither purely monotheistic (though still permissible for non-Jews) nor polytheistic (which would be prohibited).

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WHAT IS RELIGION?

A religion is a set of beliefs that attempts to make sense of the things in life that are difficult to understand, such as why we are here. Human beings have always sought explanations about the world, and various religions have developed in order to provide some answers. Most religions are based around the teachings of one God or several gods — a supreme being who created the world and determines what happens in it. Religions have been an extremely powerful force in human history, inspiring art and culture and shaping countries and empires.

There are many definitions of religion.  It is not that easy to pin down exactly what religion is and then to insure that the definition distinguishes religion from magic and from cults and sects.  Many people offer definitions without much knowledge of the wide range of religious phenomena and the many different cultural manifestations of religion.  It is a rather common misconception to think that religion has to do with god, or gods and supernatural beings or a supernatural or spiritual dimension or greater reality.  None of that is absolutely necessary because there are religions that are without those elements. 

 In this millennium there are over 6.2 billion people on the planet earth.  Most of them would declare that they are religious in some way.  Rough estimates are made that place people in the various traditions.

This has implications. For one, it means that the term “organized religion” is redundant. We often hear people say they are critical of organized religion (as if disorganized religion would be any better). But if a religion is not ordered (organized) then it’s not really a religion at all, as it does not expect its practitioners to live according to any rule. Indeed, they can hardly be considered “practitioners” if there is nothing for them to practice. They are merely “believers” at that point; those whom we might call spiritual, but not religious.

I’ve often heard that phrase criticized as being code for, “I like to think of myself as a spiritual person, but don’t actually do anything about it.” Which may be true, as far as it goes. But that doesn’t mean it’s not an accurate description. Someone who is spiritual is aware of certain spiritual realities. They believe that there is more to this world than the material. But being spiritual alone doesn’t make any demands on us. It is when our spiritual beliefs motivate us to live in a certain way that spirituality becomes religious.

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WHAT DO CHRISTIANS BELIEVE?

Christianity is a religion that has one God. Its followers — Christians — believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that he lived to show people the way to eternal life with God through the forgive-ness of sins (wrongdoing). A key Christian belief is that Jesus was killed by his enemies and then rose from the dead to join God in heaven. Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with more followers than any other.

Christianity traces its beginning to the miraculous birth, adult ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, known as Jesus Christ. Over 2000 years ago in Palestine (today’s Israel), Jesus was born into a humble Jewish family. His mother was a young peasant woman named Mary.

Christians believe that his father was the Holy Spirit of God, making Jesus both fully human and fully divine. His earliest followers came to believe that he was the Messiah, or messenger, sent by God to free God’s people from slavery, sin, and death. God sent his son Jesus in human form so that people would better understand God as a caring and loving parent.

Jesus lived and experienced the suffering of humans. Jesus healed the sick and told stories, or parables, and preached sermons that taught what God wanted people to do – to love God with all their hearts and love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus taught by example. By being loving and forgiving himself, Jesus taught others to be loving and forgiving – especially toward those who were considered outcasts in society. This is the central message and style of Jesus’ teaching.

During his adult ministry, Jesus built up a loyal following, led by his twelve disciples. But Jesus also made enemies among the religious and political leaders of his time. In the end, these powerful leaders were so threatened by Jesus’ growing following that the Roman governor sentenced Jesus to death and had him crucified. The third day after Jesus’ death, his followers found his tomb empty and discovered that he had been raised from the dead. Christians believe that the painful sacrifice of Jesus’ life on the cross shows how much God loves God’s people. Jesus paid with his life on Earth for the sins of the world.

Christians believe that in raising Jesus’ from the dead, God showed that Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness was more powerful than death, and that believing in Jesus and following the example of his life and his teaching would lead to eternal life after death. The resurrection (rising from the dead) is the sign of God’s salvation offered to all people. 

After his resurrection, Jesus Christ’s followers spread his message throughout the world, creating the Christian Church. Today there are about two billion Christians living all over the world.

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HOW ARE CIVILIZATIONS WIPED OUT?

Groups of people can be wiped out when their way of life is threatened by a sudden change of circumstances. One of the best known examples of this happened in the early 16th century, when Spanish conquistadors conquered the Incas and Aztecs of South America. More than 70 million indigenous people were wiped out by diseases such as smallpox and measles, which were brought from Europe by the Spanish. With no history of these diseases, the Incas and Aztecs had few natural defenses against these illnesses.

Europeans people of the Americas between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Some Europeans ventured out on unknown oceans in order to find trading routes to areas where spices and silver were to be obtained. The first to do this were the Spanish and the Portuguese. They persuaded the Pope to give them the exclusive right to rule over any new regions they might locate. Christopher Columbus, an Italian, sponsored by the rulers of Spain, sailed west in 1492, and thought that the lands he had reached were ‘the Indies’ (India and countries east of India about which he had read in the Travels of Marco Polo). Later exploration indicated that the ‘Indians’ of the ‘New World’ actually belonged to different cultural groups and were not part of Asia. Two types of culture were to be found in the Americas. There were small subsistence economies in the Caribbean region and in Brazil. There were also powerful monarchical systems based on well-developed agriculture and mining. These, like the Aztecs and Mayas of Central America and the Incas of Peru, also had monumental architecture. The exploration and later the settlement of South America were to have disastrous consequences for the native people and their cultures. It also marked the beginning of the slave trade, with Europeans selling slaves from Africa to work in plantations and mines in the Americas.

European conquest of the people of America was accompanied by the ruthless destruction of their manuscripts and monuments. It was only in the late nineteenth century that anthropologists began to study these cultures. Still later, archaeologists found the ruins of these civilisations. The Inca city of Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911. Recently, photographs taken from the air have shown traces of many cities now covered by forest. By contrast, we know the European side of the encounters in great detail. The Europeans who went to the Americas kept log-books and diaries of their journeys. There are records left by officials and Jesuit missionaries (see Theme 7). Europeans wrote about their ‘discovery’ of the Americas, and when histories of the countries of America were written, these were in terms of European settlements, with little reference to the local people.

People have been living in North and South America and nearby islands for thousands of years, and many migrations from Asia and from the South Sea Islands have a taken place over time. South America was (and still is, in parts) densely forested and mountainous, and the Amazon, the world’s largest river, flows through miles of dense forest. In Mexico, in Central America, there were densely settled areas of habitation along the coast and in the plains, while elsewhere villages were scattered over forested areas.

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