Divine (revealed) versus cultural religion
Anthropological researches have confirmed that the believe in a supernatural being is innate in humans. And no theory to support atheism has been approved unanimously. Ernest Mayr, one of the major defenders of the so-called evolution theory of Darwirn, discovered that it is not possible to retrace the evolution of humans from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens. Even though religions have been transformed and manipulated for several purposed, they remain a reliable source of explanation of human experience and constitute a foundation of ethics. For our purpose of interreligious dialogue, we have made a distinction between divine religions and so-called cultural religions.
Divine religions rests on solid scriptural foundations and were revealed by prophets who performed set of miracles to proof their prophethood. Cultural religions are a result of the anthropological evolution of a group of people and are primarily polytheistic, as every group of people can consider a personal entity as divine, being it an ancestor or an an historical or even legendary figure. Cultural religions can also be mere philosophical, giving basic principles of a way of life. Pluralism of cultures is a natural phenomenon and humans adapt to their environment and the environment varies. But astonishingly the major world monotheistic religions have transcend space and time.
There is a common points in the world’s major religions. It is an urgent necessity in a conflictual secular society where various religions and cultures come together into a melting pot, to lay emphasis on these common points to enable mutual understanding. As we have already mentioned, The three so-called Abrahamic religions originated from the same area, from Egypt to Palestine and the Arabic peninsula. These religions have their major prophets in commons and claim to have be brought by prophets of God, the creator of heaven and earth and everything it encompasses.
Christianity starts with the foundation of Judaism, and according to the some religious scholars, Jesus came to improve on Judaism. It means that the religion that Jesus was teaching was the same religion that the other prophets taught. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 17, Jesus said: “ Think not that I have come to destroy the law , or the prophets, I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil .” There is a claim by many scientist that since Jesus preached just about three years and was persecuted, the written form of his teachings was modified and a least a part of the gospels available today is not authentic. For this reason, Muslims believe that Muhammad (pbuh) brought a continuation to the teachings of Jesus. The quran says:
“He has ordained for you the same religion which he did for Noah, and that which we have revealed to you(O Muhammad) and that which we did for Abraham, Moses and Jesus, saying, you should establish religion and make no division in it. Intolerable for polytheists is that to which you call them” (quran 42:13).
The three revealed religion are therefore finalized in the quran and opposed to polytheism. It is curious however, that some Jews are drastically opposed to Christianity and Islam and Christians opposed to Islam and Judaism etc… Probably these oppositions have been stirred by political ideologies or people in quest of power. This can be seen even in history as crusades were organised in the name of Christianity but had mainly political motives. Even among Christian sects there were great wars. In 1849 the Catholics organized a massacre of protestants to force them accept the authority of the pope. Most of the political leaders of the time were involved in the massacre. In the contrary of what people have been brought to believe negatively about Islam, there have been horrible barbarism perpetrated by Christianity in the course of history. Muslims were considered barbarians and crusades were organised to save Jerusalem from Muslims. Crusade were organised by major European leaders against the Byzantine Empire.
The Russian invaded Afghanistan in 1400 and destroyed the Islamic books. And invaded the same country a couple of decades later. History is full of stories of barbarism committed by men in the name of religion and therefore only scriptural evidence and scholastic argumentation can be accepted to compare religions, and only ethics should be used to judge which religion is more suitable for who. It is a miracle that religious doctrine has survived and that the attempt by many groups of leaders to suppress the fundamental teachings of religion from their original source has failed.
It is an evident contradiction to claim on the one hand that Islamic monotheism is a treat to freedom and at the same time a religion of submission whose follower are ignorants. The criteria for superiority of a way of life should be ethical as even some great civilizations vanished in the course of history when they became might hungry as failed to be useful to mankind. Humility and simplicity are signs of faith and the prophet(pbuh) taught the believers during his last sermon that no one is superior to others except by good conduct and piety. The God monotheism is the creator of the Universe and is Eternal, Living, all-knowing , all hearing, all seeing and all wise. He spoke to Moses, sent angel Gabriel(Jibril) to Maryam with the glad tidings of the birth of Jesus , the son of Mary, and sent Gabriel( Jibril t)to Muhammad with the last revelations.
To point out the fact that all religions revealed by the creator are the same in their essence, t he prophet Muhammad(pbuh) said;
“The religion of all messengers are identical; and the prophets are as brothers. I am the most closely related to Jesus the son of Mary, for no Messenger appeared in the period intervening between me and him.”
The basic teachings of all divine religions is the same. In every period of time if one was to worship God the way he prescribed it will be the Islam(submission to God of that time). People are being manipulated with religious ideologies to engage in conflicts, but religion was revealed to prophet to guide mankind for a successful purposeful life. The way of the messengers of God and of his books is a transparent way. The purpose of creation is a test and we should assist each other in good work and piety, only that can be a proof of the superiority of our way.
