Abrahamic Religions

Abrahamic Religions

In this presentaion, you will find a description of Abrahamic religions, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Abrahamic Religions from montathomas

Politics and religion are technologies

Noah Feldman makes a searing case that both politics and religion -- whatever their differences -- are similar technologies, designed to efficiently connect and manage any group of people.

Famous Quotes about God

Famous quotes about God

1. I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.
   Henry Ford
2. God places the heaviest burden on those who can carry its weight.
   Reggie White
3. What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
   Eleanor Powell 
4. God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
   St. Augustine 
5. God: The most popular scapegoat for our sins.
   Mark Twain 
6. Clearly, God is a Democrat.
   Patrick Caddell 
7. People see God every day, they just don't recognize him.
   Pearl Bailey 
8. I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
   Mother Teresa
9. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
   Voltaire
10. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world
    C.S. Lewis
11. I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.
    Albert Einstein
12. They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
    Emily Dickinson
13. Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
    Leo Buscaglia
14. God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.
    Jean Paul Richter

The centrality of God in religion

God is central for all religions

Religion according to Oxford Dictionary is:

the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods

There are two major features characterized by all the main religions of the world. The first is the belief in God or gods, a supreme divinity that is

• omnipotent
• and omniscient

The second feature is that followers of all religions believe that the god they worship is the same god for them as well as for all the others.

Buddhism

Budhism

Buddhism is for some  a religion for others, it's a philosophy of life. Buddisim teaches people to reduce suffering by reaching a deep understanding of themselves. It is a way of finding reality. Buddhism is named ahter Gautama Buddha, a man who lived between about 563 and 483 BC. He was a rich prince who gave up everything to work out how best to live. He is considered as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings (beings in contrast with buddhahood; sentient beings are characteristically not enlightened, and are thus confined to the death, rebirth, and suffering) end ignorance of dependent origination which is a concept that states that all phenomena are arising together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. This leads to escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirth.
According to Buddha when people do bad things all they get is evil responses. His teachings started in India and slowly spread, after his death, through most of Asia, to Central Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and the East Asian countries of China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan and have now spread to the west.

Nirvana

Overcoming suffering bis the key principle underlying the praeching of Buddha.

• overcoming suffering allows a person to be truly happy.
• if people make good decisions they would be happy and have peace of mind.  
• life is imperfect and suufering is inevitable.
• we suffer because of desire, anger and stupidity.
• we could end our suffering by letting go of desires and overcoming anger and stupidity.
• The complete letting go of these negative influences is called Nirvana, meaning "to extinguish", like putting out the flame of a candle. 
• Nirvana and enlightenment mean the same thing: to avoid all evil, to do good, to purify one's mind.

Buddhism teaching

• Non-harm and moderation or balance in everything. This refers to a practice of non-extremism: a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification
• Buddhists often meditate, or think deeply, while sitting in a special or specific way.
• They often chant and meditate for the following reasons:
  1. to understand the human heart and mind,
  2. to understand the way the world works,
  3. to find peace.
•  The ultimate state of being is Norvana (perfect enlightenment). It is a state wherein it becomes clear that all dualities apparent in the world are delusory.

Three Marks of Existence

1. Impermanence:
   the Buddhist notion that all compounded or conditioned phenomena (all things and experiences) are inconstant, unsteady, and impermanent. Everything we can experience through our senses is made up of parts, and its existence is dependent on external conditions. Everything is in constant flux, and so conditions and the thing itself are constantly changing
2. Suffering (Dukkha):
   This is a central concept in Buddhism. The word roughly corresponds to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration. Although the term is often translated as "suffering", its philosophical meaning is more analogous to "disquietude" as in the condition of being disturbed. As such, "suffering" is too narrow a translation with "negative emotional connotations" which can give the impression that the Buddhist view is one of pessimism, but Buddhism seeks to be neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic. In English-language Buddhist literature translated from Pāli, "dukkha" is often left untranslated, so as to encompass its full range of meaning.
3. Not-self:
   Upon careful examination, one finds that no phenomenon is really "I" or "mine"; these concepts are in fact constructed by the mind. In the Nikayas anatta is not meant as a metaphysical assertion, but as an approach for gaining release from suffering. In fact, the Buddha rejected both of the metaphysical assertions "I have a Self" and "I have no Self" as ontological views that bind one to suffering.

Islam!

What is islam?
Who is Allah?
Who is Muhammad?
What is the Quran?
What does history say about Islam?
Islamic art and architecture, science and philosophy!
What impact did Islam have on European Renaissance?
Who are the followers of Islam?

Goddess Hera, the Queen of Heaven

Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea,. She was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology. She was called the queen of heaven. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. In Roman mythology, Juno was the equivalent mythical character. The cow, and later, the peacock were sacred to her.

Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy.
Hera was known for her jealous and vengeful nature, most notably against Zeus's lovers and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris offended her by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess, earning Hera's hatred.