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What unites all religions?
religion belief cult ecumenism
Over the course of human history, several world religions and many national and local beliefs have formed. Differences in religion and worship, dogmatic differences between confessions often became a field for active syncretic activity. Some religious and public figures, as well as various organizations, have repeatedly tried to bring all faiths under one denominator, that is, to come up with a system that can unite all religions into one main world religion.
Throughout the history of religions there have been many such attempts, and they continue to appear to this day. The main idea of all the creators of the “worldwide religion” is the postulate: “There is one God, and all religions are his prophets.” This means that all faiths teach love and goodness, and only the remnants of ignorant medieval intolerance prevent people from understanding this truth. In addition, in their opinion, all religions are united in their spiritual essence and differ only slightly in rituals.
Serious attempts to reconcile all existing religions and create a universal system of ethics were made by Helena Blavatsky, who created the Theosophical Society with the motto: “There is no religion higher than truth.” Blavatsky sought to unite all faiths, basing her philosophy on the teachings of Buddhism, Brahmanism and Hinduism. At the same time, Blavatsky’s theosophy has a pronounced anti-Christian character. H. P. Blavatsky defined the main goal of Theosophy - to save the archaic truths that underlie all religions from confessional perversions and to highlight a single basis in them. God in theosophical teaching lost his personality and became a kind of Universal Absolute. This, according to Blavatsky, was supposed to eliminate interfaith disputes about whose God is true.
One of the well-known movements preaching the idea of unifying all religions was the New Age movement, which arose in the 20th century, which means “new era”. His followers claim that many paths (religions) lead to the same truth and spiritual enlightenment. Thanks to this thesis, the New Age has become a real mixture of very different teachings and various spiritual practices. Meditation, yoga, mantras, astral flights, healing, psychedelic practices, magical rituals and spells are part of the New Age arsenal. This movement recognizes the founders of the world religions, Christ, Buddha, and Muhammad, as people who have reached the highest stages of enlightenment. In Russia, New Age philosophy received its development thanks to the efforts of Nicholas and Helena Roerich. They became the founders of the religious and philosophical teaching of Agni Yoga (Living Ethics), in which they tried to create and substantiate the synthesis of all world religions.
Bahaism has become another creed that preaches the unity of God, humanity and all religions. According to the Baha'i teachings, religious differences are prejudices, therefore it is necessary to build a “new world order” in the synthesis of all faiths.
Among modern preachers of the unification of religions, one can highlight Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Korean Unification Movement or Unification Church. He proclaimed himself the new Messiah, under whose leadership the synthesis of all religions into one world religion should take place. For this purpose, the Temple of All Religions was built in Korea where, according to Moon, interreligious service would be carried out in harmony and unity of all faiths.
Many of the modern totalitarian sects also put forward as their main postulate the doctrine of the unity and equivalence of the paths of all religions to God.
There were not only efforts to unite all faiths into one, but also to establish unity between faiths belonging to one particular religion. For example, efforts to unite the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christian Churches grew into the creation of the ecumenism movement. The main goal of ecumenism is to achieve the unity of all Christians through the abolition of interfaith differences and bringing the dogmas of the Churches to a compromise common to all. For this purpose, the World Council of Churches was created - an international organization that preaches the principles of ecumenism and includes 348 Christian Churches. Its headquarters are located in the Swiss city of Geneva. The most active members of the Council are Protestant Churches from different countries and a number of Orthodox Churches. However, the Catholic Church is present in the Council only as an observer.
It must be said that, despite its reserved attitude towards ecumenism, the Catholic Church itself has repeatedly made attempts to unite Catholic and Orthodox parishes in a single confession and cult. Thus, Uniateism was born, which set as its goal not just the unification of the Churches, but, above all, their subordination to one spiritual and organizational center located in the Vatican. This behavior looked more like Catholic expansion rather than equal dialogue, and was therefore rejected and condemned by the leaders of the Orthodox Churches.
All the numerous attempts to unite existing world religions into one have not led to the expected results. On the contrary, they were sharply condemned by the Orthodox, Catholic Church and Muslim leaders. The Protestant Church was more loyal to them than all the others, some branches of which themselves became the initiators of the unification. The originality of the spiritual foundations of religions is so great that no syncretic surrogate can replace them. Would an Orthodox Christian agree to renounce love for the God-man Jesus Christ and admiration for His great sacrifice on the cross for the sake of veneration of some impersonal Absolute? Will a devout Muslim really renounce his Allah?
It is clear that all attempts at pan-religious synthesis are doomed to failure, since those who believe sincerely and fervently love their faith and believe that they have already found the truth. Moreover, Christians who are attentive to the Holy Scriptures and the traditions of the Holy Fathers remember that globalization and the creation of a single world religion will, as predicted, be the work of the Antichrist himself, who will lead this religion.
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All world religions, with the exception of Buddhism, originate from a relatively small corner of the planet, located between the deserted shores of the Mediterranean, Red and Caspian seas. From here come Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the now almost extinct Zoroastrianism.
Christianity. The most widespread of the world's religions is Christianity, with 1.6 billion followers. Christianity retains its strongest position in Europe, America and Australia.
Christianity appeared at the beginning of our era as a development of biblical wisdom that had been created over the previous 2000 years. The Bible teaches us to understand and realize the meaning of life. Biblical thinking attaches decisive importance to the issue of life and death, the end of the world.
Jesus Christ preached the ideas of brotherhood, hard work, non-covetousness and peace. The service of wealth was condemned and the superiority of spiritual values over material values was proclaimed.
The First Ecumenical Council, which met in Nicaea in 325, laid the dogmatic foundations of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church for many centuries to come.
Christianity adopted the view of the “inseparable and inseparable” union of two natures in Jesus Christ - divine and human. In the 5th century supporters of Archbishop Nestor were condemned, who recognized the basic human nature of Christ (later separated into Nestorians), and followers of Archimandrite Eutyches, who argued that in Jesus Christ there is only one divine nature. Supporters of the one nature of Jesus Christ began to be called Monophysites. Adherents of monophysics make up a certain proportion among modern Orthodox Christians.
In 1054, the main split of the Christian Church took place into the Eastern (Orthodox, centered in Constantinople (now Istanbul)) and the Western (Catholic) church, centered in the Vatican. This division runs through the entire history of the world.
Orthodoxy established itself mainly among the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The largest number of adherents of Orthodoxy are Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Macedonians, Moldavians, Georgians, Karelians, Komi, peoples of the Volga region (Mari, Mordovians, Udmurts, Chuvash). There are pockets of Orthodoxy in the USA, Canada, and a number of Western European countries.
A tragic split occurred in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, which led to the emergence of the Old Believers. The origins of the schism go back to the years of the adoption of Christianity by Russia. In those days, two closely related statutes dominated in Byzantium, according to which the rite of worship was carried out. In the east of Byzantium, the most widespread was the Jerusalem Charter, and in the west the Studian (Constantinople) Charter prevailed. The latter became the basis of the Russian charter, while in Byzantium the Jerusalem Charter (St. Sava) increasingly became predominant. From time to time, certain innovations were introduced into the Jerusalem Rule, so that it began to be called modern Greek.
Russian Church until the middle of the 17th century. conducted the ritual according to the archaic Studite Rule with two-fingered baptism, preserving Orthodoxy in the highest purity. Many Orthodox peoples looked at Moscow as a spiritual center. 
Outside the Russian state, including in Ukraine, church rites were carried out according to the modern Greek model. Since the union of Ukraine and Russia in 1654, Kyiv begins to exert a huge influence on the spiritual life of Moscow. Under its influence, Moscow begins to turn away from antiquity and adopts a new way of life, more pleasing to Kyiv. Patriarch Nikon introduces new ranks and rituals. The icons are updated according to Kyiv and Lviv models. Patriarch Nikon edits Church Slavonic liturgical books based on modern Greek editions of the Italian press.
In 1658, Nikon founded the New Jerusalem Monastery and the city of New Jerusalem near Moscow, according to his plan, the future capital of the Christian world.
As a result of Nikon's reforms, six major innovations were introduced into the canon. The two-fingered sign of the cross was replaced by a three-fingered sign, instead of “Jesus” it was ordered to write and pronounce “Jesus”, during the sacraments it was ordered to walk around the temple against the sun.
The introduction of non-Orthodox veneration of the king placed him above religious spiritual dominion. This reduced the role of the church in the state, reducing it to the position of the Church Prikaz (prikaz, this is a kind of ministry in Russia at that time). Many believers perceived Nikon's reforms as a deep tragedy, secretly professed the old faith, went to torment for it, burned themselves, went into forests and swamps. The fateful year of 1666 led to a catastrophic split of the Russian people into those who accepted the new rite and those who rejected it. The latter retained the name “Old Believers”.
Catholicism is the other main branch of Christianity. It is distributed in North and South America. Catholics include Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, part of the French, most of the Belgians, part of the Austrians and Germans (southern lands of Germany), Poles, Lithuanians, Croats, Slovenes, most of the Hungarians, Irish, some Ukrainians (in the form of Uniatism or Greek Catholicism). A major center of Catholicism in Asia is the Philippines (the influence of Spanish colonization). There are many Catholics in the countries of Africa, Australia, and Oceania.
The Western Catholic Church boldly discarded the old ones and came up with new rituals that were closer in spirit to the Europeans and their ideas about the world as a space calling for conquest. Expansionism and enrichment of the church were dogmatically justified. The speeches of non-Catholics and heretics were brutally suppressed. The result was continuous wars, massive repressions of the Inquisition and a decline in the authority of the Catholic Church.
In the XIV-XV centuries. ideas of humanism and renaissance arose in Europe. During the Reformation of the 16th century. Protestantism separated from Catholicism. Protestantism, which arose in Germany, was formed in the form of several independent movements, the most important of which were Anglicanism (closest to Catholicism), Lutheranism and Calvinism. From the Protestant churches, new movements were formed that were sectarian in nature, their number currently exceeds 250. Thus, Methodism spun off from Anglicanism, and the Salvation Army, organized on a military scale, is closely associated with Methodism. Baptism is genetically related to Calvinism. Pentecostal sects emerged from Baptistism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses sect also separated. Mormons of non-Christian confession occupy a special place in the Protestant environment.
The stronghold of Protestantism is Northern and Central Europe. In the United States, about 64% of the population is Protestant. The largest group of American Protestants are Baptists, followed by Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. In Canada and South Africa, Protestants make up about half the population. There are many adherents of Protestantism in Nigeria. Protestantism predominates in Australia and most countries in Oceania. Certain forms of this branch of Christianity (especially Baptism and Adventism) are common in Russia and Ukraine.
The founder of Protestantism, the Catholic monk M. Luther, came out with demands to limit the excessive power of the church and calls for hard work and frugality. At the same time, he argued that the salvation of the human soul and deliverance from sins is accomplished by God himself, and not by human forces. The Calvinist Reformation went even further. According to Calvin, God pre-eternally chose some people for salvation and others for destruction, regardless of their will. Over time, these ideas turned into a revision of Christian dogmas. Calvinism turned out to be imbued with an anti-Christian denial of asceticism and the desire to replace it with the cult of the natural man. Protestantism has become the ideological justification of capitalism, the deification of Progress, and the fetishization of money and goods. Protestantism, like no other religion, reinforces the dogma of the conquest of nature, which was later adopted by Marxism. 
Islam the youngest world religion. Islam dates back to 622 AD. e., when the Prophet Muhammad and his followers moved from Mecca to Medina and the Bedouin Arab tribes began to join him.
Traces of Christianity and Judaism can be seen in the teachings of Muhammad. Islam recognizes Moses and Jesus Christ as the penultimate prophet as prophets, but places them below Muhammad. 
In private life, Muhammad prohibited pork, alcoholic beverages and gambling. Wars are not rejected by Islam and are even encouraged if they are fought for faith (holy war of jihad).
All the foundations and rules of the Muslim religion are united in the Koran. Explanations and interpretations of obscure passages of the Koran made by Muhammad were recorded by his close people and Muslim theologians and compiled a collection of traditions known as the sunnah. Later, Muslims who recognized the Koran and the Sunnah began to be called Sunnis, and Muslims who recognized only one Koran, and of the Sunnah only sections based on the authority of the prophet’s relatives, were called Shiites. This division still exists today.
Religious dogma formed the basis of Islamic law, Sharia - a set of legal and religious norms based on the Koran.
Sunnis make up about 90% of Muslims. Shiism predominates in Iran and southern Iraq. In Bahrain, Yemen, Azerbaijan and mountainous Tajikistan, half the population is Shiite.
Sunnism and Shiism gave rise to a number of sects. From Sunnism came Wahhabism, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia and is spreading among the Chechens and some peoples of Dagestan. The main Shiite sects were Zaydism and Ismailism, influenced by atheism and Buddhism.
In Oman, the third branch of Islam, Ibadism, has become widespread, whose followers are called Ibadis.
Buddhism. The oldest of the world's religions is Buddhism, which arose in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. in India. After more than 15 centuries of dominance in India, Buddhism gave way to Hinduism. However, Buddhism spread widely throughout the countries of Southeast Asia, penetrating into Sri Lanka, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia. The number of Buddhist adherents is estimated at approximately 500 million people.
In Buddhism, all the social and moral dogmas of Hinduism are preserved, but the requirements of caste and asceticism are weakened. Buddhism pays more attention to current life.
At the beginning of the first millennium, Buddhism split into two major branches. The first of them - Theravada, or Hinayana - requires believers to undergo mandatory monasticism. Its adherents - Theravadins - live in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand (about 90% of the population of these countries), as well as in Sri Lanka (about 60%).
Another branch of Buddhism - Mahayana - admits that lay people can also be saved. Mahayana followers are concentrated in China (including Tibet), Japan, Korea, and Nepal. There are some Buddhists in Pakistan, India, and among Chinese and Japanese immigrants to the Americas.
Judaism. Judaism can be classified among the world religions with a certain degree of convention. This is the national religion of the Jews, which arose in Palestine in the 1st century. BC e. Most adherents are concentrated in Israel (the official religion of the state), the USA, European countries and Russia.
Judaism retained the ideas of brotherhood and mutual assistance from the Egyptian religion with the ideas of righteousness and sinfulness, heaven and hell. New dogmas responded to the unity of the Jewish tribes and the increase in their belligerence. The sources of the doctrine of this religion are the Old Testament (recognized by later Christianity) and the Talmud (“commentaries” to the Old Testament books).
National religions. The most common national religions are those of India. What is noteworthy is the introversion of Indian religions, their focus on such an internal and spiritual connection that opens up wide opportunities for self-improvement, creates a feeling of freedom, bliss, humility, dedication, tranquility, and is capable of compressing and collapsing the phenomenal world until a complete coincidence of the world essence and the human soul.
Religion of China consisted of several parts. The earliest beliefs are those associated with agriculture, developed in the 7th millennium BC. They believed that there was nothing higher than in which a country man finds peace and beauty. About 3.5 thousand years ago, previous beliefs were supplemented by the cult of veneration of great ancestors - sages and heroes. These cults were embodied in Confucianism, formulated by the philosopher Confucius, or Kung Fu Tzu (551-479 BC).
The ideal of Confucianism was the perfect man - modest, selfless, with self-esteem and love for people. The social order in Confucianism is one in which everyone acts in the interests of the people, represented by the extended family. The goal of every Confucian is moral self-improvement, respectful respect for elders, honoring parents and family traditions.
At one time, Brahmanism and Buddhism penetrated into China. On the basis of Brahmanism, almost simultaneously with Confucianism, the doctrine of Taoism arose. Chan Buddhism, which spread in Japan under the name Zen Buddhism, is internally connected with Taoism. Together with Taoism and Confucianism, Chinese religions have developed into a worldview, the main features of which are the worship of the family (ancestors, descendants, home) and a poetic perception of nature, the desire to enjoy life and its beauty (S. Myagkov, 2002, N. Kormin, 1994 G.).
Religion of Japan. From about the 5th century. AD The Japanese became acquainted with the wisdom of India and China, adopted a Buddhist-Taoist attitude towards the world, which did not contradict their primordial faith, Shintoism, the belief that everything is full of spirits, gods (ka-mi), and therefore deserves a reverent attitude. The main feature of Japanese Shintoism, transformed under Chinese influence, is that it, like Taoism, does not teach goodness and does not expose evil, for “the tangled threads of happiness and misfortune cannot be separated.” The eradicated evil will inevitably emerge in such vigorous growth that the world builder did not even suspect about it. The Japanese perceive their homeland as the sacred property of the nation, which is in the temporary care of the living for transmission to descendants. Several million Japanese are adherents of Shintoism (T. Grigorieva, 1994).
Zoroastrianism distributed mainly in India (Parsis), Iran (Gebras) and Pakistan.
In addition to the major religions, there are dozens of local traditional beliefs in the world, mainly in the form of fetishism, animism and shamanism. There are especially many of them in Africa, primarily in Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Benin.
In Asia, followers of tribal cults predominate only in East Timor, but are also common on the islands of western Oceania and among the peoples of Northern Russia (shamanism).
Source -
Hello, dear schoolchildren!
Today we have a rather complex topic. In elementary school, it is studied as part of the course “Fundamentals of Religious Culture and Secular Ethics,” and it is quite possible that the teacher will ask you to prepare a report or message for the class on the topic “Major World Religions.”
Today I propose to consider them in more detail and give them a brief description in order to have a little idea of what the believing people breathe. I will try to write in simple words so that everything is clear to everyone. Well, if it’s still not clear, you can always ask a question in the comments.
Lesson plan:
What is religion?
There were many of them, and each saint was responsible for his own sphere.
- They turned to some gods to make it rain.
- To others - to help in the fight against enemies.
- Still others were asked for help in trouble and illness.
This is how religion was born - belief in a supernatural helper called God, and the ability to contact him through prayer.
Time passed, people's beliefs changed, matured and united into groups. Today there are many religious movements, the supporters of which may be hundreds, or perhaps billions, of people.
Every religious belief includes:
- standards of morality and ethics;
- behavior rules;
- a set of rituals and rites with the help of which people turn to shrines, asking for help in daily matters.
There are three main religions in the world today. All other beliefs are just branches from them with their own small subtleties. The most important principles of life are preserved in any religion.
The oldest religion is Buddhism
The Buddhist religious movement arose in the 6th century BC in India.
History associates the emergence of Buddhism with the name of Siddhartha Gautama.
According to ancient legend, at the age of 29 he left his luxurious home when he saw the “truth of life”:
- old age in the form of a decrepit old man who caught his eye;
- illness through meeting a seriously ill person;
- death from a collision with a funeral procession.
In search of truth, he reflected and meditated, realizing the inevitability of putting up with the obligatory moments in life. As a result, he found the meaning of existence of everything that surrounds us, and, as Buddhists say, he became enlightened, therefore he was called Buddha.
The truth about the fate of man, found in the depths of his consciousness, Buddha began to share with others - this is how the sacred book Tipitaka arose.
It lists all the main religious ideas of Buddhism:
- suffering in life is inevitable; to get rid of them, you need to renounce earthly desires, striving to achieve nirvana - the highest state of the soul;
- a person himself determines his future destiny by his actions, being reborn in another life into a new living being, who you will be later depends on how you behave in this life;
- good behavior is kindness and the ability to have compassion for others;
- the right path in life is honesty;
- correct speech is the absence of lies;
- the correct action is not to harm anything living, not to steal and not to have bad habits;
- proper training is the understanding that anything can be achieved if you put in the effort.
Today, Buddhism is supported by more than 500 million people in different countries.
Buddhists in Asia, the Far East, Laos, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Cambodia devote all their free time to meditation in monasteries, trying to achieve this highest state and free themselves from the shackles of life.
The Buddhist headquarters is located in Bangkok. Representatives of this religion choose divine statues as shrines, to which they lay flowers.
Cultural scientists believe that without understanding Buddhism, it is impossible to understand the great culture of the eastern peoples of India, China, Tibet and Mongolia. Buddhism is also present in Russia; you can communicate with its fans in Kalmykia or Buryatia.
This is interesting! The name of the Buddhist canons "Tipitaka" means "triple basket", which is usually interpreted as "three baskets of the law." Scientists believe that perhaps the sacred texts of the rules, written in ancient times on palm leaves, were kept in wicker baskets.
Christian religion
The birthplace of Christianity is Palestine, the former east of the Roman Empire.
The religious movement that appeared in the 1st century appealed to all the humiliated who were looking for justice, with an offer to turn to God for help in the hope of getting rid of everything bad. The emergence of the Christian religion is associated with the preaching of Jesus Christ, whose birth was predicted to the Virgin Mary.
When he was 30 years old, the messenger of God went out to the people to preach the holy word, conveying to the people the ideas of hard work, peace and brotherhood, condemning wealth and exalting the spiritual over the material. The Hebrew name of Jesus is Yeshua, which translates as “savior” who was destined to suffer for the sins of all Christians.
The basis of the Christian religion is belief in angels and demons, an afterlife, the Last Judgment and the end of the World.
The holy book of the Christian religion is the Bible, which contains all the basic ten rules - commandments, observance of them for every Christian believer is the goal in life.
The most important of them is to love God as yourself. There are also rules here: not to steal or lie, to work and to honor your parents.
In 1054, the Christian Church split into Orthodox (East) and Catholics (West), and later, in the 16th century, Protestants appeared.
Most Orthodox Christians live in Russia, Belarus, Greece, Moldova, and there are Canadians and Americans. Catholicism is widespread in Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.
Today there are about 2 billion believers in the Christian religion.
This is the largest religion in the world in terms of the number of followers and geography - in every country there is, even a small, Christian community.
All Christians, both Orthodox and Catholics, attend church churches, undergo the baptism procedure and atone for their sins through prayers and fasting.
The youngest religion is Islam
The youngest world religion in terms of age appeared among the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century and is translated as “submission.”
But being young does not mean that there are few believers in it - today there are about 1.5 billion people from almost 120 countries of the world among the followers of Islam. The ideas of Islam were brought to the people by Mohamed, who was born in Mecca, declaring that he was the chosen one of Allah (the god of Islamists) to carry out his sermons.
The holy scripture of Muslims - this is the name given to those who have chosen Islam as their religion - is the Koran, which includes all the sermons of Muhammad.
An Islamic shrine is a mosque where believers come to pray 5 times a day. Many researchers believe that young Islam took its entire basis from the Christian Bible, adding Arabic traditions: here, too, there is God’s terrible judgment and demons, paradise and Satan.
According to the Muslim Koran, a person lives to pass all life's tests, serving Allah and preparing for the afterlife. The most serious sins in Islam are gambling and drunkenness, as well as usury (this is when you give a loan and demand to return it in a larger amount, charging interest).
And true Muslims never eat pork. Muslims are especially attentive to fasting during the month of Ramadan, when even a crumb of food is not allowed during daylight hours.
Islam has a religious law called Sharia, the judgment of which sometimes does not fit into modern conditions - for serious sins and violations of the Koran, Muslims are stoned to death, for minor offenses they are beaten with sticks. Such punishments are still preserved in some areas of Islamic states.
What unites the three world religions?
Whatever the names of the three religions, the characteristics of which we have given today, no matter how they differ in rituals, shrines and faith, all of them, taken together, establish human moral standards and rules of behavior, prohibiting causing pain and harm to all living things, resorting to deceit, behave disrespectfully towards others.
Any of the world's religions teaches tolerance, calls to be merciful and treat people kindly.
By sharing goodness, no one will become a beggar,
Everything will come back a hundredfold.
Who makes our world brighter and cleaner,
He himself will become rich from kindness.
That's all for today. I say goodbye to you with wishes to be kinder to each other.
Good luck in your studies!
Evgenia Klimkovich.
Existing religions can be compared to buildings of various architectural styles. The appearance and shape of buildings are different, but any building has a foundation, supporting structures and a roof.
Likewise, many religions, striking in their abundance of rituals, different structure, decoration of temples and variety of rituals, have similar components: “foundation” and “supporting structures” presented in the doctrine.
Any religion has a) a cult and b) a special worldview. A cult, or cultic practice, involves specific actions of a believer (for example, prayer or visiting a temple). Worldview, or worldview, includes ideas about the world around us and people.
Indeed, if you remove from each religion what distinguishes it from others, what remains is the essence, the “core,” which is practically the same for all religions. This essence suggests that the Universe is more complex than it seems at first glance: in addition to the surrounding world, which is familiar to everyone, there is another, invisible world that influences what is happening around. It was this knowledge that came from people who later began to be called prophets , messiahs, avatars, teachers, and served as the reason for the emergence of all world religions.
The “foundation” of most religions is the same - it is a mystical experience. Mystics and prophets of all times and peoples talk about their mystical experiences often using the same words. In them, the Supreme Reality appears as an all-understanding, loving space filled with light and bliss.
It is important to emphasize that the founders of any religion spoke only of what was reality for them, the result of their own experience. They did not have faith in what they were talking about, but direct knowledge of it. Direct knowledge is the result of direct perception. In the same way, a sighted person knows about the existence of the sun because he himself sees it, while a blind person can only believe in its existence from the words of a sighted person. Therefore, in every religion an element of faith is required and, as a result, the various rituals of worship that accompany it. After all, ordinary people, attracted by the miracles and sermons of the saints, themselves have never experienced anything similar to the insights of the saints. Therefore, for them, the only way to touch the Great Truth was faith and worship. Temples were built, prayers and rituals were created - all this strengthened faith and helped worship.
As for religious doctrine, here too the main “supporting structures” are often common principles. The structure of the external and internal world of man, the paths leading to God and salvation, have common features. Many religions recognize the path of renunciation of selfish aspirations, the path of love, as the only path to God, and instruct their followers to follow ethical rules similar to the New Testament commandment: “... turn away from evil, cleave to good” (Rom. 12.9).
If we consider the main principles of ethics of the main directions of Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and other religions, it turns out that they all complement each other in one way or another. For example, the New Testament says that “God is love”; Sanskrit sutras recognize God as “the source of all knowledge and all love”; Taoism notes that “Tao is a gentle being”; and the Koran states: “Allah is Gracious, Merciful.” This implies that at the origins of being is Divine Love and you can get closer to God only by developing more and more perfect love in yourself. “Carelessly develop bodhichitta within yourself” (i.e., perfect compassion for all living beings), Buddhist monks urge. “I command you this, that you love one another” (John 15.17), Jesus Christ taught. And for the mystics of Islam, the Almighty “is Love, the Lover and the Beloved.”
Many religions offer detailed explanations on how to develop perfect love. This happens as a person learns to love the entire world around him and see in every person and event a manifestation of the Will and Love of God.
Other prescriptions and rules arising from this main covenant of many religions are also very similar. They include principles similar to the commandments of the New Testament, i.e. the instructions “thou shalt not kill,” “thou shalt not steal,” etc. Thus, in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the principle “thou shalt not kill” corresponds to ahimsa (non-harm to all living beings neither in thoughts, nor in words, nor in actions), but to the principle “do not steal” - asteya (lack of desire to own other people's things), etc.
Disagreements that ultimately lead to murderous conflicts arise between believers because they argue about their different beliefs (i.e., different fantasies or interpretations of sacred texts), and not about the one Truth itself. It is impossible to argue about it, you can experience it
The similarity of basic religious moral precepts leads to the fact that many philosophers, theologians and religious scholars begin to talk about a unified world ethics, “cosmic ethics”, represented to one degree or another in the moral code of one or another religious tradition.
Those who lived thousands of years ago had their own beliefs, deities and religion. With the development of human civilization, religion also developed, new beliefs and movements appeared, and it is impossible to unambiguously conclude whether religion depended on the level of development of civilization or, on the contrary, it was people’s beliefs that were one of the keys to progress. In the modern world, there are thousands of beliefs and religions, some of which have millions of adherents, while others have only a few thousand or even hundreds of believers.
Religion is one of the forms of awareness of the world, which is based on faith in a higher power. As a rule, each religion includes a number of moral and ethical norms and rules of conduct, religious rituals and ceremonies, and also unites a group of believers into an organization. All religions rely on human belief in supernatural forces, as well as on the relationship of believers with their deity(s). Despite the apparent difference between religions, many postulates and dogmas of various beliefs are very similar, and this is especially noticeable in the comparison of the world's main religions.
Major world religions
Modern researchers of religions identify three main religions of the world, the adherents of which are the vast majority of all believers on the planet. These religions are Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, as well as numerous movements, branches and based on these beliefs. Each of the world's religions has more than a thousand years of history, sacred scripture and a number of cults and traditions that believers should observe. As for the geography of the spread of these beliefs, if less than 100 years ago it was possible to draw more or less clear boundaries and recognize Europe, America, South Africa and Australia as “Christian” parts of the world, North Africa and the Middle East as Muslim, and states located in the southeastern part of Eurasia - Buddhist, now every year this division becomes more and more arbitrary, since on the streets of European cities you can increasingly meet Buddhists and Muslims, and in the secular states of Central Asia there can be a Christian temple and mosque.
The founders of world religions are known to every person: the founder of Christianity is considered to be Jesus Christ, Islam - the prophet Magomed, Buddhism - Siddhartha Gautama, who later received the name Buddha (enlightened). However, it should be noted that Christianity and Islam have common roots in Judaism, since Islam also has the prophet Isa ibn Mariyam (Jesus) and other apostles and prophets whose teachings are recorded in the Bible, but Islamists believe that the fundamental teachings are still the teachings of the prophet Magomed, who was sent to earth after Jesus.
Buddhism
Buddhism is the oldest of the world's major religions, its history goes back more than two and a half thousand years. This religion originated in the southeast of India, its founder is considered to be Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who through contemplation and meditation achieved enlightenment and began to share the truth revealed to him with other people. Based on the teachings of the Buddha, his followers wrote the Pali Canon (Tripitaka), which is considered a sacred book by followers of most movements of Buddhism. The main currents of Buddhism today are Hinayama (Theravada Buddhism - "Narrow Path to Liberation"), Mahayana ("Broad Path to Liberation") and Vajrayana ("Diamond Path").
Despite some differences between the orthodox and new movements of Buddhism, the basis of this religion is the belief in reincarnation, karma and the search for the path of enlightenment, through which one can be freed from the endless chain of rebirths and achieve enlightenment (nirvana). The difference between Buddhism and other major religions of the world is the Buddhist belief that a person’s karma depends on his actions, and everyone goes through their own path of enlightenment and is responsible for their own salvation, and the gods, whose existence Buddhism recognizes, do not play a key role in the fate of a person, since they are also subject to the laws of karma.
Christianity
The birth of Christianity is considered to be the first century AD; The first Christians appeared in Palestine. However, taking into account the fact that the Old Testament of the Bible, the holy book of Christians, was written much earlier than the birth of Jesus Christ, it is safe to say that the roots of this religion are in Judaism, which arose almost a millennium before Christianity. Today there are three main directions of Christianity - Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, branches of these directions, as well as those who also consider themselves Christians.
The basis of Christian beliefs is belief in the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in angels and demons and in the afterlife. The difference between the three main directions of Christianity is that Orthodox Christians, unlike Catholics and Protestants, do not believe in the existence of purgatory, and Protestants consider inner faith to be the key to the salvation of the soul, and not the observance of many sacraments and rituals, therefore churches of Protestant Christians are more are more modest than the churches of Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and the number of church sacraments among Protestants is less than among Christians who adhere to other movements of this religion.
Islam
Islam is the youngest of the world's major religions, originating in the 7th century in Arabia. The holy book of Muslims is the Koran, which records the teachings and instructions of the prophet Muhammad. At the moment, there are three main currents of Islam - Sunnis, Shiites and Kharijites. The main difference between the first and other branches of Islam is that the Sunnis consider the first four caliphs to be the legal successors of Magomed, and also, in addition to the Koran, recognize the Sunnas telling about the Prophet Magomed as sacred books, and the Shiites believe that only his direct blood relatives can be the successors of the Prophet descendants. The Kharijites are the most radical branch of Islam; the beliefs of the supporters of this movement are similar to the beliefs of the Sunnis, however, the Kharijites recognize only the first two caliphs as the successors of the Prophet.
Muslims believe in one God, Allah and his prophet Magomed, in the existence of the soul and in the afterlife. In Islam, great attention is paid to the observance of traditions and religious rituals - every Muslim must perform salat (daily five times prayer), fast in Ramadan and make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life.
What is common in the three major world religions
Despite the differences in rituals, beliefs and certain dogmas of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, all these beliefs have some common features, and the similarities between Islam and Christianity are especially noticeable. Belief in one God, in the existence of the soul, in the afterlife, in fate and in the possibility of help from higher powers - these are the dogmas that are inherent in both Islam and Christianity. The beliefs of Buddhists differ significantly from the religions of Christians and Muslims, but the similarities between all world religions are clearly visible in the moral and behavioral norms that believers must observe.
The 10 biblical Commandments that Christians are required to observe, the laws prescribed in the Koran, and the Noble Eightfold Path contain moral standards and rules of conduct prescribed for believers. And these rules are the same everywhere - all the major religions of the world prohibit believers from committing atrocities, harming other living beings, lying, behaving loosely, rudely or disrespectfully towards other people and encourage them to treat other people with respect, care and development in character positive traits.
