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Spiritual Community
2003-10-09
The world is created and inspired. That characterises our interpretation of existence. We have strong feelings for religious and spiritual community. How will such a religious consciousness influence our world in ten years?
The condition for all to live in a society based on spiritual community is the acceptance of other religions. On the face of it there is a contradiction between the claim to historical and religious roots of society and the accept of other religions.
Because of this the scenario can go in two directions:
A:
We believe in principle that being religious is a human norm. We acknowledge that all religions come the same source and we will reach a mutual cross-religious, spiritual understanding. We see the world as created by the same God. The different religions manifest this God in different historical and ethnic expressions. The image of the world is quite rosy. We have an understanding of a common good. We all strive to reach common goals. This understanding of religion implies far-reaching political consequences. The international organisations become superfluous, when there no longer is a need for legal regulation of international relations. We are all in search of a natural law striving for equality of all. This world compares to the adventure of all animals in the forest becoming friends.
B:
The scenario of the spiritual community can also go in the opposite direction:
Here we see a world where the religions fight each other. We see countries divided by religious conflict. Many countries experience religious conflicts like the one in Northern-Ireland.
Denmark defines itself as a Lutheran Christian country with grave consequenses for other religions. We started to have a tighter refugee-politic because we wanted to protect our own religion from alien influences. We acknowledge religion as an essential fundamental of society, because of that we are afraid of the presence of other religions in Denmark. It is all right to be a muslim, only if one stays at home where one belongs. Generally we are seeing a shift to the political right in many countries as a natural aftermath of this new status of religion.
In Denmark we are witnessing a stronger religious community and church attendance has increased considerably. We see an ever growing opposition between those who belong to a religious community and the minority who keep out of it.
Of course there is freedom of religion, but one places oneself clearly as an outsider by not believing and practicing the majority religion.
Temple: Our bid on the future’s temple is connected with the scenario where “all animals in the forest become friends”. It is difficult to imagine a building where all denominations could accept to practice their own religion.
Therefore the temple is an open space in nature. A round grass field. Nature is a good framework for the coexistence of religions. “Belief” has a close relation to natural law. We are all created equally and God has proven it by creating us as part of nature.
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