Religious Pluralism and Destiny
The question about the nature of god is often close related with the question about self authenticity, and it belongs to the most ancient question that maybe occurred with the existence of human being itself. The question like who am I, why am I here, where I come from, where I will go after death, what is death, etc are the basic question every human being has deep in his or her mind. It is maybe as old as the existence of human itself. That's why the theory of origin by Charles Darwin had a great influence in human civilization and thinking dealing with the life they face.
Every born human being inherited a kind of natural curiosity about those questions. They wanted to reveal the mystery of the life, the rule of the world, and how to manage life properly. In the pursuing to the answers of those questions, then human dealing with religious concepts in which it is claimed that it comes from the God himself as the guidance to humans to get happiness for eternity or salvation. But the problem occurred here when there is not only one religion but many. Those religions claim that the truly God is belong to them, the salvation is belong to them, etc. then the truly problem occur when there are efforts to propagandize and influence people to join to the brotherhood of the religion and at the same time they claim that other religions are false and untrue.
The people who eager to find out the truth rather than just possession and wealthy in the world are called philosophers. From its terminology, philosopher means people who love wisdom or knowledge. To them the most important thing to find out in this world is the truth, and the great truth and the most ancient one is about the nature of god, human, nature, life and death. Such people do not much care about the possession and pleasure in the world. To them what many people try to pursue in this world such as power, wealthy or gold, sex, etc are all trivial and shallow things, mean unimportant. I suppose that Tolstoy is one of them.
A philosopher named Voltaire said that the happiness along the human life is no more than busied schedule (?). Another philosopher exclaims 'find out the truth no matter in heaven or in hell'. And Tolstoy through his short story ‘The Coffee House of Surat tried to teach people how to deal with religions disputes.
Philosophers questioned religion in various ways. In one of his literary work Gibran asked whether God creates men or the inverse. Other philosopher like Nietshze stated that God was die after he saw that Church had lost its hegemony in
In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy present a character that pursue the truth named …(Kitty husband)
If we analyze the tendency of finding the truth (read= to find the abstract pleasure rather than physical one) we will come to the theory of human psychology of fulfilling their needed from Auguste Comte that divided the stage of human development into 3 stage. (More explanation about the theory). the higher the stage, human more concern with the abstract idea.
We can see the applicability of the theory in the real life where the more educated people tend to favor to the more abstract things. (More explanation and example)
Pacifism, Totalism, and the Idea That Everything Is One
The most basic point of view that determines the entire life of man is the idea of whether this life is predestined or not. The belief of external versus internal locus power influences the continuity of one life. (More explanation and example)
The connection with the religious pluralism is clear here that individual point of view is the base of the differences. For example one who believes that life is predestine wouldn’t care too much about other people faith, s/he would let people do what they like as long as it doesn’t disturb him.
In war and peace Tolstoy believe that everything is predestine.
"In historical events great men - so-called - are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity." (from War and Peace)
In the Coffee House of Surat he tried to emphasize the same idea by revealing the story about the inferiority of human knowledge toward the real untouched truth. He praise the knowledge and wisdom by using student of Confucius as the man who mediate and resolve the quarrel of men from different country and different religion. People quarrel because of their lack of knowledge about god and he believe that the god is one and acknowledge by different names by different people. (More explanation)
Tolstoy view is congruent with Gandhi’s. In the Gandhi sutra, Gandhi wrote that he had already learned many religions from Islam, Christian, protestant, and others and concluded that god is one but people acknowledge it in many ways. He argue that the most suitable religion for
Many people who believe that everything is predestined began to be a pacifist and believe that everything is one. That people do not have the right and capability to judge others since there is no different between west and east, truth and wrong, everything is nothing in the nothingness.
There are many things to be written. I have my view about many things different with others. But I am not to judge too, I want to understand. If I define something, it means that I am judging, but how not to do that. All the people do it. When I have my own opinion and I believe it is truth toward others, it means that I judge. I can't avoid it.
Facing this dilema, Tolstoy to be passive. He believed that life is predestined. But how the destiny works?
Why People Have Different Point of View
"What we see is not the reality objective of an object. Rather, it is an image that is created by 'the computer' in our brain so that we recognize it as a familiar object. (Julian Opie, a painter). Just similar with the case where painters will see one object differently and therefore produce or result different painting, people see thing in the quite similar way. So the subject here is brain or thinking. Here we come to the theory of thinking that close related to the theory relativity. (More explanation). and deconstruction in which the truth is not lying in the text but in the context.
(Example, schizophrenia, madness, and other, use psychological and psychoanalysis theory)
Brain manages everything from sick, strong, exhausted, etc. Where the ability derived from, e.g. A marathon can ran hundreds kilometers without exhausted while common people don't have the ability. What is perception role? Body is managed by brain, what manage brain? Etc.
Relativity; Dimension of time and space; when right now is really exist?
Philosophy of time...what is real and unreal?
As long as a man cannot free from the bending of time and place, I can say that her/his life is predestine? Why he born in certain time, certain year, certain place, certain circumstance in which it shape their perception toward everything later and finally influence her/his decision in this life? Have anything to do with them, or do they have any choices in such things? Or even their choices have already destined before he was born?
Actually the choices seem open to every single individual in her/his life and therefore the effects or consequences of the choices will different. It is true either. So in one side a man has choice and in other side a man has no choice. There are different areas here. 1st that certain thing are beyond human capability, for example, why he was born in certain situation, as a male or female, born form certain family (black, white, color), etc in which he has no choice at all. 2nd that he has free will and the consequences in natural law coverage. If he cut his finger, it bleeds, if he cut his throat, he die, etc. The conclusion is that a man cannot free from destiny. Every living being will die (A Quran). It is faith. From here on I see that Tolstoy view that the big things such as born, die, truth was predestine and therefore time is predestine. So the choices are vague. A man only have choices in trivial things that basically do not change anything. Let we take a true example whether a man really has choice or whether it was predestine. Here I will take example from a moeslem figure Umar bin Khattab. Is his change belong to destiny or his effort?
The considerations are many;
- He was live as a cruel people before he became the follower of Islam.
- Not every people who met Muhammad would like to follow him include his own uncles.
If we follow the previous premises that the destiny is stated as nature law therefore Umar should not change his believe. But here too I do not see that his effort that cause his change.
Can religious different be compromised? How?
Why religious different?
