The Balance in the world of religions
Each religion including that of Christianity, Buddhism and Islam had its particular impact on the very essence of the word, shaping its culture, politics, science, social life according to the main prerogatives of the religions mentioned. Moreover, religions had, I would say, the most important influence on history. It is due the conflict between Christianity and Islam the progress of Western society turned out to be so extensive and deep. It is due to Buddhism people try to bring profound changes to their lives making an effort to free themselves from negative influence of the society they live in.
Buddhism
As the religion of more than 90 per cent of Thailand’s population, Buddhism became one of the three pillars of the national ideology, alongside the monarchy and the nation. Since the very beginnings of Buddhism in Thailand in the thirteenth century, it has always been closely linked with the state, and specifically with the king in the form of the dhammaraja (Dharma ruler or just ruler).
Buddhists stress the personal choice of the individual or family when it comes to religion. No religion is superior to another: the goal of all religions is identical–to lead a moral life–and converting others to Buddhism is not given much prominence.
Buddhism in the age of Asoka had made universal claims to the allegiance of man. Eventually, allegiance or commitment would become the major feature of other religions such as Christianity and Islam
Christianity unjustified use of force. The Christians are convinced that theirs is the way of ultimate truth. For Protestants even more than for Catholics, Christianity is seen as superior to all other religions.
Christianity has become the religion of dogmas. However, divided by heresy and factionalism, and permeated by impiety, inequity, iniquity and idolatry Christianity was near to lose its humanistic nature. Still, the image Christianity as a vibrant, active, progressive was a good contrast to a passive inert Islam. This was one of the factors that enabled religious and political hegemony of Western culture.
These were common definitions of differences between these two religions. Edward Freeman, for example, defined the west as progressive, legal, monogamous and Christian, and the East as arbitrary, stationary, polygamous and Mahometan. To William Muir, Islam may have been suitable to the Arabia of the time of Muhammad, but quite unsuited to other times and places: “it binds society hand and foot”, he declared. [Smith B, 1995]. So, my evaluation of Christianity as a religion would look as follows.
Cultural tradition: no religious enthusiasm, argument concerning the relative truth Christianity
Artistic traditions: partial religious contest in all kinds of artistic traditions, the prevalence of secular traditions over religious ones
Political system: Legal basis
Social system: secular and religious patronage, the moral value of women, slavery, , violence and cruelty, revolutions of public life.
Islam as religion of enthusiasm
In the later part of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century, religious enthusiasm no longer carried the radical political and social implications it had held during Commonwealth and Restoration times. It was more often viewed as potentially self-deceptive than socially disruptive. As Nathan Alcock put it in 1796: “Enthusiasm may cause a man to deceive himself, and take his own fancies and conceptions for divine suggestions. This probably was the case with Mahomet and the success of his enterprises [sic] might still further persuade him that his cause was the cause of God.” [Thomas Alcock T.,, 1796]
In the Victorian period, the cultural hegemony of west over east allowed for modifications to the image of Islam as a religion of force. On the one hand it could be argued that, while an aggressive Islam needed to be opposed, a peaceful Islam was impotent and only fit for cultural improvement.
On the other hand, the role of force in Islam could be down-played. From the middle of the seventeenth century there had been those who decried it as a vulgar opinion that Muhammad spread the faith by the sword. [Tailor.T, 1868].
To cover Islam from the perspective of cultural, artistic, political and social perspective I would like to propose you the following brief analysis of Islam.
Cultural tradition: religious enthusiasm, argument concerning the relative truth of Islam
Artistic traditions: dominance of religious contest in all kinds of artistic traditions
Political system: justified use of force, mission of spreading the faith, imperial confidence in the virtue of Islamic culture, radical political and social implications, the image of Islam as a religion of force, the political decrepitude and moral and social evils
Social system: secular and religious patronage, the moral degradation of women, slavery, the physical and mental debilities of men, envy, violence and cruelty, the disquiet and misery of private life, the continual agitations, commotions, and revolutions of public life.
According to Smith Islam and scientific and political progress are incompatible.
Thus, Islam was often seen as the source of all the evils which, in the western imagination at least, had afflicted Islamic societies. It was Islam, extravagant but not progressive, that had relieved the eastern mind from the discipline of improving itself, and had left it in its preferred state of untamed wildness. Islam and scientific and political progress are incompatible, as Christianity and scientific and political progress are not incompatible”. [Smith B., 1995]
Consequently, Islamic religion can be characterized by
1.Blind devotion to Muhammad
2.The presence of Islamic fatalism.
3.religious intolerance
4.political despotism
Despotism.
The perceived relationship between Islam and despotism has always been the landmark of many disputes. However, I would again refer to Bosworth Smith, who considered that it to be wrong to judge Islam in terms of despotism as well as Christianity in terms of Anabaptists, Pillar Saints, or Shakers. Consequently, a strong tendency to evaluate Islam as the source of all evil is a mistake.
It is quite visible that there are significant differences in the cultures of different religious societies. However, my reading the book by Herb Ziegler Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past has helped me to shape my perception of history as connection of “complex societies”[Ziegler H.,2005] that eventually is an inevitable process for coexistence of different worlds and ways of life. However, the most controversial issue in this aspect is religion.
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Conclusion.
The world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam) created the history and shaped it in the way of continuous contest the outcome of which is the society we are having now as it has been stated in my paper. My research also proved that each religion is unique in its own way, and is build upon long-term traditions. In fact, all religions has both positive and negative sides. Eventually, neither of religions could be defined as right or wrong. That is why everyone must be aware f other civilization’s presence and its cultural, social and political values. Consequently, the rivalry between this West and that East–between the West and Islam–is natural rivalry of two different systems each of which has strong demand for world dominance.
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