eyeofthestorm:
i dont understand can't you just say one positive thing… Actually can we all say at least one positive thing about other faiths not your own faith, or culture… give it a try…
Well, as you suggested, I gave it a try, but I, too, failed – in multiple ways. For one, I had trouble limiting my comments to just “one positive thing”, and for another, there are so many “faiths” that the work became quite tedious – so I gave up!
But then, upon seeing some of the responses from others, maybe I’ll just go ahead and submit my inadequate and incomplete list, anyway – but with the disclaimer that I know it’s incomplete and I don’t guarantee that I wouldn’t modify this list after further reflection.
• What I like most about Shamanism is its respect for all aspects of Mother Nature.
• There is much to like in the “Pagan” religions. I’ll mention just a few topics:
1. I like the idea of assignments of different roles (different ideals) to different gods, e.g., different gods for different aspects of nature (e.g., the wind god Woden, whom we in the West still honor every Wednesday = Woden’s day; the thunder god Thor, whom we honor every Thursday = Thor’s day; the Mother god, Frey, whom we honor every Friday = Frey’s day; and so on), different gods for different concepts and ideals (justice, love, wisdom, etc.), and especially I like the way that many polytheistic religions specifically identified a way to honor the accomplishments that have helped humanity (e.g., the Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Prometheus).
2. I like the way polytheistic religions generally leave the challenge of defining and assigning morals to tellers of stories about heroes and behaviors within families and communities. This can be seen in the first writing in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. An example from Mesopotamia is shown below, showing “moral instruction” contained in one of the oldest clay tablets (dated to be from about 4600 years ago), the “The Instructions to Zi-ud-sura from his Father”. For comparison, I’ve added the indicated and obvious parallels in the Old Testament, put together more than 2,000 years later:
• You should not speak improperly… You should not curse strongly… --> “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain…”
• You should not speak arrogantly to your mother… You should not question the words of your mother… The instructions of the father should be complied with. --> “Honor thy father and thy mother.”
• You should not cause a quarrel… You should not pick a quarrel… My son, you should not use violence… --> “Thou shalt not kill.”
• You should not buy a prostitute… You should not play around with a married young woman… You should not commit rape on someone’s daughter… You should not have sex with your slave girl --> “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
• You should not steal anything… you should not commit robbery… --> “Thou shalt not steal.”
• You should not… [tell] lies… --> “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
• You should not serve things; things should serve you… --> “Thou shalt not covet…”
3. Also, I like the idea in polytheistic (or pagan) religions that the gods were assumed to be nearby, and everywhere – and they instantaneously evaluated people’s behavior. To illustrate, I’ll quote Francis Clark’s on-line book entitled Monotheism and Madness:
To the ethical pagan, right actions are a matter of choice. Your moral quality is determined by the choices you make when presented with alternative courses of action. It is not a matter of black-and-white rules as much as a matter of general principles applied to varying situations. Simplistic rules remove the opportunity for moral choice. They are also not applicable to many situations, since the difficult moral choices, the ones that truly define your nature, are often not clearly defined. If rules come to mean the denial of natural desires in situations that bring no harm to another, they become absurd. If the rules lead to an increase in human suffering or to results that are unjust, morality becomes unnatural. The result is that the concept of morality itself is undermined.
[Although] the pagan viewpoint is not one of strict rules, it is one that contains a clear concept of right and wrong. In its simplest statement, morality can be expressed as: “If it harms no one, do what you wish.” This principle is simple in statement and difficult in application, as few human situations offer easy choices. The pagan considers it moral to pursue your own happiness, but one must also assure that this pursuit does not harm others. And, in situations where your own happiness is not involved, the objective is to minimize harm to others. To a polytheist, concepts like honesty, compassion, and truth are moral guidelines. Principles and guidelines allow you to resolve moral quandaries, even when rules don’t apply…
Paganism is the cauldron in which our civilization was created. The stories and legends of those times are still with us. It is a religion that is less forgiving, but more malleable. It has a more human scale. And perhaps of greatest importance, it is “imme-diate.” [From Latin in or im meaning ‘not’ and mediatus meaning ‘intervening’.] The gods are believed to be all around us. That belief is a strange one in a society in which the divine is separated from daily life… For a pagan, the gods are immanent. They are not “there,” they are “here.” How different this world might be if that perception were true for most of the population. And if it seems impossible, remember that this state of mind was considered normal for much of our history.
Other, later, great “Pagan” ideas (taken here from the Akkadian Councils of Wisdom, as cited in Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts) include: “Do not return evil to your adversary; Requite with kindness the one who does evil to you; Maintain justice for your enemy; Be friendly to your enemy.”
• Who could not like the brilliance of the ideas in Taoism (and similarly in Shintoism) of the connectedness of opposites and the unity of the whole?!
• Kung the master (aka Confucius) was so brilliant that it’s difficult to choose what I like most about Confucianism. For the time being, maybe I’d suggest his idea about reciprocity, e.g., “recompose injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness” – but then, immediately I’d want to add his “When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves”, his “While you do not know life, how can you know about death?”, and his “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”
• If some of the ancient phrasings in Zoroastrianism are converted to more modern usage, there’s much to like, but if I were forced to pick the best, I’d probably go with Voltaire: As Paul DuBreuil wrote: “Voltaire wrote that the best expression of morality he had ever known stands in this Zoroastrian precept of the Saddar: ‘When you are not sure if an action is right or wrong, just abstain from doing it, i.e. when in doubt, don’t’.”
• There’s much to like in Judaism, but perhaps the best is what’s written at Ecclesiastics 32, 23 and Ecclesiastics 37, 13:
Whatever you are doing, rely on yourself, for this, too, is a way of keeping the commandments… [T]rust you own judgment, for it is your most reliable counselor.
• I like the ideas in Gnosticism that “if you pray, you will be condemned” and that the only Heaven is here, on Earth, now, but people don’t see it.
• I think that the best in Christianity are the coupled ideas of separating church and state (render to Caesar, etc.), the separation of money from the religion (turning the tables, etc.), and the separation of clerics from the spiritual life of the people (if you would pray, etc.)
• In my view, the best of Islam is its attempts to eliminate racism.
• The best of Science is undoubtedly the scientific method – a way, finally, to discard “mere speculations” and to struggle toward “truth”.
• Who wouldn’t like the Humanitarian ideal expressed in Albert Schweitzer’s “Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality”?
• The best of Humanism is surely its promotion of basic human rights for all.
• Secular Humanism has the great idea, paraphrased as: “Forget about placating gods; how can we help humanity.”
• In my view, Scientific Humanism puts it all together: attempts to help solve human problems intelligently, via application of scientific methods and results, taking great care to protect basic rights of all humans.
And I apologize that my list is incomplete and inadequate, but I have both limited knowledge and limited time.