What Is Religion Essay -- essays research papers

What Is Religion     What is religion? According to an Oxford dictionary, religion is the printing in the existence of a supernatural ruling power, the creator and mastery of the universe, who has given to man a spirtual nature whichcontinues to exist after the conclusion of the body. Religion appears to be a simpleidea on the surface, exactly in reality it is a very complex system of ideas that galore(postnominal) base their lives upon.     There atomic number 18 m any(prenominal) religions in the population. Christianity seems to be the cardinalreligion entrustd widely in the modern world. However, this is non the case ina gathering of five people in a worldly concern Religion class. These five people shargoncommon knowledge on several aspects of religion, yet they have some majorconflicts. The focus of this makeup is to explore the ideas and beliefs of thegroup, analyze the importance of religions dialogue, and to discuss thealte rcate of religious pluralism in the contemporary world.     The first group member states her firm Christian views. genus Melissarecognizes all the religions of the world, scarcely she holds Christanity to be theonly true religion. To her, Christianity is the only government agency one person dejection attainsalvation. All other religions ar false and those who do not followChristanity are misguided and go away not attain salvation. It is only throughJesus Christs death on the cross that one can repent, be forgiven, and attainsalvation.     Melissa feels that others who are non-Christians believe that theirreligion is true. Afterall everyone is brought up to believe in the faith orreligion they are taught. If this was not the case, no one would have anybeliefs. Although their religions are not true religions Melissa respects theirviews of being true.      quite an similar to Melissas opinion, Jason feels that there is only onetrue religion in the world, which is Christianity. However, he recognizes thatthere are many other religions in the world in which their followers believe aretrue. He does not believe that one should criticize others for their beliefs,and that they should respect each persons beliefs even if they are antitheticfrom his.     For Jason, Christianity is the true religion. It is the only religionthat he believes Has the right answers for... ...eciallyif their views do not necessarily agree with someone elses views. We thinktrying to deduce incompatible religions takes compassion and understanding.Often, people fear the "unknown."      So, another way to meet the contend of religious pluralism is througheducation. People can learn about divergent religions and respect the diversitythat exists. Further, to help understand a variant religion, our group thinksthat going to check out different religion services depart give peopl e personalexperience of that different faith. People do not have to feel they have toaccept the other religion, but going to visit another service will broaden theirhorizons. We believe that if society can respect the religious diversity in theworld, the challenge of relgious pluralism can be met. W.C. Smith says it best,"Unless men can learn to understand and to be loyal to each other acrossreligious frontiers, unless we can build a world in which people profoundly ofdifferent faiths can live together and work together, then the prospects for ourplanets future are not bright" ("The Christian in a Religiously plural World"11).