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Psychologist Carl Jung once said that great deal of institutional religion seems designed to prevent the faithful from having a spiritual experience. Instead of teaching people how to live in peace, religious leaders often concentrate on marginal issues: Can women or gay people be ordained as priests or rabbis? Is contraception permissible? Is evolution compatible with the first chapter of Genesis? Instead of bringing people together, these distracting preoccupations actually encourage policies of exclusion, since they tend to draw attention to the differences between “us” and “them.”
These policies of exclusion can have dramatic consequences. Most notably they have given rise to the militant piety that we call fundamentalism, which erupted in every major world religion during the 20th century. Every fundamentalist movement, whether in Judaism, Christianity or Islam, is convinced that the modern secular establishment wants to destroy it. Fundamentalism is not inherently violent; most fundamentalists simply want to live what they regard as a good religious life in a world that seems increasingly hostile to faith-the Amish are, obviously, fundamentalists. When a conflict has become entrenched in a region, though, as in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Chechnya-and now, with Sunni hostilities directed against Shia, Iraq-religious fundamentalists have gotten sucked into the escalating violence and become part of the problem. Even in the United States, members of the Christian Right believe that their faith is in jeopardy and that they have a sacred duty to protect it by attacking liberal opponents. When people feel that heir backs are to the wall, they often lash out aggressively. Hence the hatred that continues to cause so much turmoil around the world.
Such religiously inspired hatred represents a major defeat for religion. That’s because, at their core, all the great world faiths-including Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-agree on the supreme importance of compassion. The early sages and prophets all taught their glowers to cultivate a habit of empathy for all living beings.
Why then, do supposedly “religious” leaders declare war in God’s name? Why do some people use :”God” to give a sacred seal of approval to their own opinions?
I believe that these people have forgotten what it means to practice compassion. The word compassion does not, of course, mean to feel sorry for someone, but to feel with others-to enter their point of view and realize that they have the same fears and sorrows as you.
The essential dynamic of compassion is summed up in the golden rule, first enunciated by Confucius in about 500 B.C. :
Confucius taught his disciples to get into the habit of shu: “likening to oneself.” They had to discover what caused them pain, and make an effort to refrain from not inflicting that pain on others.
The Buddha also taught a version of the golden rule, and the Rabbi Hillel, the contemporary of Jesus, was once asked (by a Gentile) to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and replied:
Jesus simply taught the golden rule by telling his followers to love their enemies, and to never judge. In his parable of the last day, those who enter the Kingdom do not do so because they have adopted orthodox theology or correct sexual mores, but because they have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, and visited the sick and criminals in prison.
Islam is also committed to compassion. The bedrock message of the Koran is not to kill the infidels, but an insistence that it is wrong to build up a private fortune, and good to share your wealth fairly. On the Last Day the one question God asks of Muslims is whether they have looked after orphans, widows and the oppressed, and if they have not, they cannot enter Paradise.
All are also pretty clear that the practice of compassion must be consistent; it does not work if we are selective. Jesus explained that if we simply love those who are well disposed towards us, o effort is involved; we are simply banking up our own egoism and remain trapped in selfishness. I think that is why Jesus recommended his followers love their enemies; they were required to feel with people who would never feel affection towards them, and extend their sympathy without feeling any benefit themselves.
Does that mean that we’re supposed to “love” Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden? The practice of compassion has nothing to do with feelings. According to Thomas Aquinas, what we call love simply requires that we seek the good of another. If we allow our hatred and rage to fester, this does not hurt our enemies-it gratifies them-but we are diminishing ourselves/ Anger is what Buddha called an “unskillful” emotion. Feelings of rage are natural, but if they are overindulged they are unhelpful, since they often proceed from an inflated sense of our own importance.
Additionally, I have to say that I believe that one need not be “religious,” or believe in God/gods a “god”, to practice compassion. I know many atheists/agnostics who are truly conscious, concerned and compassionate people towards the rest of us.
It is, however, a central tenet of most religious traditions, especially the major ones, in spite of what their more extreme adherents practice.
There are some religious people, I suspect, who would feel cheated if, when they arrived in heaven, they found everybody else there as well. Where is the fun of religion if you can’t exclude people?
The history of each faith tradition represents a ceaseless struggle between our inherent tendency to aggression and the virtue of compassion. Religiously inspired hatred has caused unimaginable suffering around the world, and throughout history. Auschwitz, the Gulags of Russia, the regime of Saddam Hussein, the terrorist actions of al Qaeda, the slavery of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans in the U.S. show the fearful cruelty to which humanity is prone towards when all sense of the sacred has been lost or distorted.
None of these atrocities could have taken place if people were properly educated in the simplest of principles, , the golden rule. We live in one world, and we need to learn to reach out in sympathy to those who have different opinions, at home and abroad. We need the compassionate ethic more than ever before.
These policies of exclusion can have dramatic consequences. Most notably they have given rise to the militant piety that we call fundamentalism, which erupted in every major world religion during the 20th century. Every fundamentalist movement, whether in Judaism, Christianity or Islam, is convinced that the modern secular establishment wants to destroy it. Fundamentalism is not inherently violent; most fundamentalists simply want to live what they regard as a good religious life in a world that seems increasingly hostile to faith-the Amish are, obviously, fundamentalists. When a conflict has become entrenched in a region, though, as in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Chechnya-and now, with Sunni hostilities directed against Shia, Iraq-religious fundamentalists have gotten sucked into the escalating violence and become part of the problem. Even in the United States, members of the Christian Right believe that their faith is in jeopardy and that they have a sacred duty to protect it by attacking liberal opponents. When people feel that heir backs are to the wall, they often lash out aggressively. Hence the hatred that continues to cause so much turmoil around the world.
Such religiously inspired hatred represents a major defeat for religion. That’s because, at their core, all the great world faiths-including Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-agree on the supreme importance of compassion. The early sages and prophets all taught their glowers to cultivate a habit of empathy for all living beings.
Why then, do supposedly “religious” leaders declare war in God’s name? Why do some people use :”God” to give a sacred seal of approval to their own opinions?
I believe that these people have forgotten what it means to practice compassion. The word compassion does not, of course, mean to feel sorry for someone, but to feel with others-to enter their point of view and realize that they have the same fears and sorrows as you.
The essential dynamic of compassion is summed up in the golden rule, first enunciated by Confucius in about 500 B.C. :
Confucius taught his disciples to get into the habit of shu: “likening to oneself.” They had to discover what caused them pain, and make an effort to refrain from not inflicting that pain on others.
The Buddha also taught a version of the golden rule, and the Rabbi Hillel, the contemporary of Jesus, was once asked (by a Gentile) to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and replied:
Hillel did not mention any of the doctrines that were essential to Judaism, such as belief in one God, the Exodus, or adherence to the Laws of Moses.
Jesus simply taught the golden rule by telling his followers to love their enemies, and to never judge. In his parable of the last day, those who enter the Kingdom do not do so because they have adopted orthodox theology or correct sexual mores, but because they have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, and visited the sick and criminals in prison.
Islam is also committed to compassion. The bedrock message of the Koran is not to kill the infidels, but an insistence that it is wrong to build up a private fortune, and good to share your wealth fairly. On the Last Day the one question God asks of Muslims is whether they have looked after orphans, widows and the oppressed, and if they have not, they cannot enter Paradise.
All are also pretty clear that the practice of compassion must be consistent; it does not work if we are selective. Jesus explained that if we simply love those who are well disposed towards us, o effort is involved; we are simply banking up our own egoism and remain trapped in selfishness. I think that is why Jesus recommended his followers love their enemies; they were required to feel with people who would never feel affection towards them, and extend their sympathy without feeling any benefit themselves.
Does that mean that we’re supposed to “love” Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden? The practice of compassion has nothing to do with feelings. According to Thomas Aquinas, what we call love simply requires that we seek the good of another. If we allow our hatred and rage to fester, this does not hurt our enemies-it gratifies them-but we are diminishing ourselves/ Anger is what Buddha called an “unskillful” emotion. Feelings of rage are natural, but if they are overindulged they are unhelpful, since they often proceed from an inflated sense of our own importance.
Additionally, I have to say that I believe that one need not be “religious,” or believe in God/gods a “god”, to practice compassion. I know many atheists/agnostics who are truly conscious, concerned and compassionate people towards the rest of us.
It is, however, a central tenet of most religious traditions, especially the major ones, in spite of what their more extreme adherents practice.
There are some religious people, I suspect, who would feel cheated if, when they arrived in heaven, they found everybody else there as well. Where is the fun of religion if you can’t exclude people?
The history of each faith tradition represents a ceaseless struggle between our inherent tendency to aggression and the virtue of compassion. Religiously inspired hatred has caused unimaginable suffering around the world, and throughout history. Auschwitz, the Gulags of Russia, the regime of Saddam Hussein, the terrorist actions of al Qaeda, the slavery of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans in the U.S. show the fearful cruelty to which humanity is prone towards when all sense of the sacred has been lost or distorted.
None of these atrocities could have taken place if people were properly educated in the simplest of principles, , the golden rule. We live in one world, and we need to learn to reach out in sympathy to those who have different opinions, at home and abroad. We need the compassionate ethic more than ever before.
