I haven't read Christopher Hitchens' recent book, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, yet its title compels me to present an opinion for discussion.

Religion has two faces: one unites and the other divides. Religion unifies people into communities and simultaneously divides by building tight boundaries around them.

Religion generally is founded upon one reality underlying the entire universe. This reality is infinite. It is the one source of all diverse beings. It is indescribable. Itself beyond attribution, it is the source of all attributes. This is the unitive face. It represents core spirituality. Spirit, unlike material, is all inclusive. It unequivocally declares the essential oneness of all created beings. It is the root of our ability to perceive equality. This face of religion is nectar of love, life and justice.

Now examine the divisive face.

Having given one infinite reality, religion goes on to confine it in finite forms, in words or otherwise. Describing the indescribable in particular ways, religion identifies the underlying reality with its respective form. The form becomes the God. Suddenly, somebody's God becomes less Godlike, somebody's prophet less prophetic or un-prophetic, and somebody's community less righteous and deserving.

In its drive to distinguish communities and demarcate territories, religion implicitly and explicitly encourages divisive thinking. This face not only sets communities apart but against each other and is toxic, insidious and downright poisonous.

Strong religious identities may be harmless within homogenous communities, but they are known to cause havoc between them.

We live in a pluralistic secular democracy. Secularism requires the citizens of our country, its social structures, support systems, and all levels of government to be equidistant from or equally respectful to all religions and all people. Religious identities must be balanced against the responsibility of equal respect, heartfelt and not merely superficial. Are we capable of it? Are we genuinely teaching and encouraging it in our youth?

Democracy is very spiritual in its recognition of our underlying oneness which is foundational to equal rights. Rights demand responsibility. What is needed for our responsibility: core spirituality by itself or multi-faced religion as it is? Can religion discard the divisive face and fully embrace its core spirituality?

Inability to perceive equality threatens pluralistic societies. The best we can then hope for is an uneasy peace; and history is proof that uneasy peace is easily broken.

We need to enrich and expand our identity. Let us not be so fearful about losing our religious identity that we isolate ourselves and shy away from building bridges to survive in pluralistic societies or a pluralistic global village that the world is fast becoming.

We must wholeheartedly adopt the unitive face of religion. We must discard the divisive one in our lives and in educating our children. Otherwise, the sustainability of everything inter-religious or pluralistic, including dialogues, marriages or democracies, is threatened.

~~Originally published by The Kitchener Waterloo Record at http://news.therecord.com/article/214121

Author/Creator
Dr. Shiv Talwar
leslieb123

This will be a great content. We can keep this under the theology essay. For most scholarship essay writing service the writers are selecting this topic. We can think a lot about it. Uniting face of religion means that the concept of one god for all.

Thu, 08/07/2014 - 01:51 Permalink
ShivTalwar

In reply to by leslieb123

Everyone talks of one God. Thus, all agree on God being one. So what is different? Different people have different perceptions of the same one God. We forget that different perceptions do not make for a multiplicity of Gods.

Sun, 10/05/2014 - 21:19 Permalink
re

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Wed, 10/14/2015 - 04:26 Permalink
rosemary

It is shameful that people are going crazy on religious facts and are quarreling for the same reason. Discussing about God is good but when it comes to religious the entire matter changes and something bad happens there. Thanks for sharing this great article and I suggest that everyone should share these types of things.

Wed, 04/06/2016 - 11:18 Permalink
Paulthomas

Correctly said, religion has two faces—one unites and one divides. And it is just like everything in the universe. And many people want to exploit the weakness of the religions which creates the divisive nature. But people must see the positive side of the religion and there shouldn't be any feeling of disgust towards one another. No religion was there when the universe started. We must understand it and work towards the betterment of each single person.
the holy spirit is god

Tue, 08/16/2016 - 02:40 Permalink
TodRichard

Thanks for sharing this article.People go crazy these days arguing and fighting over religion.If they truly believe in their religion,one must learn to propogate peace and not violence.

Wed, 10/19/2016 - 07:36 Permalink
dwyane

We all know that there are lots of religions in the world. Some people are trying to make the people separated in the name of those religions. But it is not a good purpose. Religions should be used to unite the people all over across the world.

Wed, 11/30/2016 - 23:36 Permalink