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Everyone is blessed in his faith
2003-10-09
Imagine that most people believe we have proof of Gods existence. Simultaneously our life is characterised of strong individualism. Belief and the spiritual dimension is an essential foundation of our existence. How will the spiritual dimension be in ten years, when my belief differs from my neighbour’s?
After many years of dullness and materialism is our lives now characterised of a religious dimension. We recognise God but not a common one. We have given up the concept of a society based on common values. The world is clearly pluralistic. Many religions and ethnicities coexist.
There are a myriad of faith's imported from other parts of the world. There is a much greater variety of beliefs than ten years ago. The world is pluralistic understood from the point of view of religion, but also pluralistic in the sense that there are many different interpretations of each religion. Everybody interprets religion according to their own point of view, and use the elements that exactly matches in their own life. We assume that everyone is a believer. We are convinced that the world must be filled with spirituality for life to have meaning. Life has meaning for most people - but not the same meaning to everyone.
For such a society a great deal of tolerance is necessary. There is great respect of the individual. We have all acknowledged the necessity of tolerance. We think like this: “If I wish to practice my religion freely, I need to allow the others to do the same”. But some problems arise in relation to this extensive equality of religions.
Only God only knows how many years we have been discussing which religious holidays we should have? Shall sunday continue to be the natural weekly day off, also for non-christian? These questions arise all the time.
Some have searched for communality in small equal minded entities, and we have seen special legislation regulating the relationships of the small communities in relation to each other. Special laws, that insure the function of society in spite of the very different ideas of values that fill our lives.
The organisation of society and lawmaking is based on tolerance. Diversity has become so pervasive that we all arrange and adjust our own communities according to our beliefs. We see very diversified day-care centres, schools, etc. representing particular values. Out of practical reasons we find joint working partnerships, everyone agreeing that the most important rule is the right to practice ones own belief.
We have day-care centres where many small spiritual communities live under the same roof. Some institutions are run in a way so it is possible to pay attention to all needed considerations. For example there with several kitchens that make it possible to provide halal food to muslims and vegan food to buddhists in day-care centres. A kosher kitchen to the jewish children and a kitchen to those who would like traditional danish "levepostej" (liver-paté prepared from pigs liver).
Workplaces are acting similarly respecting the individual employees diverse religions.
Temple: Everyone has set up his/her own temple. Each one of us has a fitting space at home, where he/she can worship.
The group’s final observation: “Maybe it is the way to go. Everyone for him/herself, there is no larger community. This scenario is not so different from the centre of Copenhagen today.”
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