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Religious Acceptance
I think that for many people, it is a natural instinct to condemn the people that do not belong to their group and its way of thinking. To say, ‘if you do not believe what we believe, worship as we worship, and follow what we are following, then you do not belong to what is right.’ It is a sad way to affirm that what you believe in is true and the only truth. Being a Christian, I’m afraid to say that we hold great fault when it comes to accepting other religions. Many Christians think that if you don’t follow Jesus, then you will end up in Hell, a though which seems to me to be very flawed.
My view of acceptance is very different from my view of tolerance. Tolerating something, to me, indicates that there is something that must be put up with. Accepting something is greeting it with open arms. It would be something if the arguing religions found a way to tolerate each other. However, it would be so much more to understand and embrace each other. We must recognize than no one is completely right or completely wrong about death, life, and God. Let’s stop excluding the spiritual stranger and be able to learn something from them.
The key to this policy of open arms is to recognize that God is infinitely bigger than one faith, one religion. God is too complex for us to know all about him, so no one can decide who he acknowledges as his ‘chosen people.’ Even though I’m a Christian, I whole-heartedly believe that God loves, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, the nonreligious, and so on. He loves them and accepts them into heaven after death.
My grandmother once told me that the spiritual journey is like a cluster of paths. Some are longer and more difficult to walk than others, but they all lead to the same place. Everybody forges their own paths; the paths sometimes cross, join, and wind in different directions. Each soul makes its own journey, sometimes inadvertently. Each soul finds its way to God. It is not a certain religion that leads us quickest to him, but faith in what we believe in and devotion to it. Most of all, it is following what God stands for even if you don’t know that it is him that you are following. The quickest path to God is standing for love, compassion, kindness, purity, etc. God is too caring to choose one group of people over another. So the least we can do is follow in his footsteps and love one another, even if are beliefs are different.
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This article has 65 comments.
I'm very grateful for your encouragement, Ms. Hannah Banana! I'm glad that I came across that way.
I thank you dearly for reading and commenting.
Beautiful, beautiful piece. I really enjoyed this article! I could honestly feel your love and compassion kind of emanating from the words of your article. And I loved how you were so gentle about trying to get others to accept other people's faiths. You didn't try to force it anyone, and that in itself made this article more enjoyable.
Keep writing, my friend!! :)
This is very deep. The majority of your writings are. This (I like to think) describes my feelings perfectly.
Are you a Stargirl too?
"Even though I’m a Christian, I whole-heartedly believe that God loves, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, the nonreligious, and so on. He loves them and accepts them into heaven after death"
I'm Catholic and I feel the same way.
I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to sound so harsh when I commented. I was just in a bad mood. What I forgot to say was this: I admire your faith in what you believe in; that is a wonderful trait.
Thanks for commenting, though! I stick to what I said about 'the orangutan and the hound;' I love those two! :)
I really enjoyed this, and I really appreciate that you are so accepting and compasionate about people of other religions. That in and of itself seems to be a forgotten art, which is such a shame.
People are all people despite religious difference, and deserve to be loved, cared for, and accepted, even if their beliefs or morales do not fit a carbon copy of someone elses.
Needless to say, I really enjoyed this. Keep writing!
