My family lives in an unknown small town in southwestern China. Although it is not prosperous and far from the tall buildings in Pudong, there are many religious places related to spirituality. Buddhist temples and Catholic churches often attract many devout believers.
From a very young age, I knew that on Sundays, my grandfather and grandmother would go to the Catholic church to perform a ritual called "worship", and the priest would often come to our house as a guest, but I always felt that they were very mysterious and difficult. communicate. But because neither of my parents believed in Catholicism, I never had any faith.
Along with growing up came more exposure and thinking about the world, including religion, and I started to have all kinds of questions, why do people go to temples and churches, what can people get there, religion and superstition have what a difference. Only recently, after taking the course of the history of Western religious thought and having contact with many friends with religious beliefs, did I have a little in-depth understanding of religion.
Let’s take the example of watching the Passion of the Christ as an example to talk about the religious world that I have experienced from this course.
This film vividly restores the painful experience of the twelve hours before Jesus' crucifixion and death, from the betrayal of Jesus to the flogging, and then carrying the cross to the mountain. The process of being crucified and then reborn makes me feel extremely mortal. Big shock. I believe these things are real, and I believe that Jesus sacrificed himself to help the world and thus gain eternal life.
The fraternity Jesus told his disciples: "Whoever strikes the sword will die by the sword." Because of this sentence, how much hatred can be given a smile, why should human beings kill each other. Jesus had no defense for himself, he could have excused himself from punishment, but he was willing to punish himself in order to bear the sins of ignorant people. When receiving the flogging, Jesus looked up to the sky and said, "My heart is ready, Father". At that moment, I felt an unprecedented energy, and I should not turn back for the faith in my heart, even if the world ridiculed me , even if I was abandoned by the whole world, I don't regret it, because I was born to pursue my goals, I don't care about other things, everything has its own conclusion. Block my eternal faith. After Jesus was crucified, he also prayed for those thugs, hoping that the Father would forgive these ignorant people because they didn't know what they were doing, from this we see how merciful Jesus is, just like an old Chinese saying Yes, people do not know and do not hesitate.
I think we mortals will never be able to reach the spiritual height of Jesus, but we can follow his story, follow his footsteps, follow his example, and constantly restrain ourselves to make ourselves more spiritual and moral Living in this world and taking more social and moral responsibilities, no matter how chaotic the world is, we must ensure that the world continues to move forward along a moral path.
Arthur Kleiman, a tenured professor at Harvard Graduate School and Medical School, has written a book called The Weight of Morality, which mentions the application of religion in modern medicine. Arthur himself is a master of research psychology, and has been conducting research and practice of psychotherapy for many years. In his book, he holds a positive attitude towards the idea of religion in the treatment of mental illness. He said that at present, many psychiatrists in the United States have tried to use religion to assist traditional psychotherapy, and achieved good results. In fact, this truth is obvious. For example, we often hear that "Although a certain person was diagnosed with cancer and was sentenced to death two years later by the doctor, the patient's mentality was very optimistic, and the result was that he still lived like a normal person for many years." , it can be said that many of us have tacitly acknowledged the positive effects of mentality and belief in the treatment of diseases. Religion is the source of such optimism and firm belief, so it is not difficult to understand that religion can be of great help in curing diseases.
Therefore, people need a little faith.
This statement has also been confirmed in my chats with friends.
Once I had a meal and chat with a Muslim from the University of Finance and Economics, and we talked about food safety issues that the society is particularly concerned about recently. I talked about helplessness, the helplessness of being an insignificant person in such a big country, I hope I can do something to change it, but I don’t know what to do or what to do. Muslim friends immediately sighed that if the majority of people in society had religious beliefs, this kind of thing would not have happened. I was puzzled, and my friend explained that there is a lot of content about conscience in Islamic teachings. Any Muslim is in awe, and they dare not do things that hurt the world. If they do, they will be punished. Allah will punish them. Although I can't understand how this kind of reverence comes about, I can feel from his serious expression that they have extremely strict moral self-discipline. Although it is unrealistic to make all members of society believe in religion, if the reverence for a certain order can be established in the hearts of most people, there will be more fertile soil for mercy, kindness and integrity, and this society will also change. better.
Take American society as an example, more than half of the population is religious, and Americans also have the most devout belief in the laws of their own country, especially the constitution. As long as anything is unconstitutional, it is wrong. This is them The most basic social rules of the country clearly define right and wrong, encourage good and suppress evil, so that the entire society can operate efficiently on the basis of reducing internal friction and quarrels. It can be seen that a certain order (which can be The awe of the gods, or the law, played the most fundamental role.
Therefore, people need a little faith.
Another chance to realize this is that a Christian friend of mine took me to their house church to feel the atmosphere a month ago, because I had expressed my desire to have faith to this friend before, so my friend was very happy. He told me enthusiastically: "Since you have such a desire in your heart, it proves that God has chosen you. Come to our brothers and sisters quickly."
It was a Sunday morning. We came to a residential house in a certain community in Wujiaochang. Everyone was already praying. There was a quiet and peaceful atmosphere in the room. Reading out the words in the Bible, some people showed particularly moved expressions on their faces. After praying, I sang hymns. For the first time, I found that Christian songs are so beautiful and passionate (of course, there are also a few songs that are more muffled), and I really felt their heartfelt love for the Lord from everyone's singing. Praise, it doesn’t matter if you sing well or badly, what matters is to express your praise to the Lord with everyone. There is also a link where the pastor organizes everyone to talk about various things that everyone has encountered in life this week and their life insights. At this time, they can feel the harmonious atmosphere in this "family" more. When a person encounters difficulties, he will Having a lot of siblings come to help her/him find a way to get this person out of bad emotional troubles very quickly.
So, that was another time I felt the role of religion.
Religion provides people with a place to relieve depression in their hearts. Life will always be unsatisfactory, and everyone will encounter setbacks in their life. In this gloomy moment, people always hope to find spiritual comfort, so religion provides people with a quiet place. A place and sustenance for self-reflection and healing of internal injuries. This is why many people say that as soon as they enter the church, they feel that their whole body and mind are quiet, as if they have come to a paradise.
In general, the reasons why we need religion can be summed up as:
one, to provide us with the strength of a belief that will support people in the face of adversity;
two, to constrain our actions so that people can live more morally;
three, to bring people together Get up and remove the individual's sense of loneliness and helplessness.
Fourth, to provide a habitat for people's spiritual world, so that people can quietly reflect and think in the religious world.
Of course, religion also has other functions. For example, young people in Egypt used religion to unite the people and eventually overthrew Mubarak's regime; for example, Saddam promoted Islamic fundamentalism and successfully planned terrorist attacks. But I don't think that's what religion is meant to do, because what religion is meant to do has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with violence. The four points summarized above are only the role of religion that I have truly experienced in my life. It is not as complete as the summary above in academic works, but it is the real intersection between religion and me. I believe that such words are more lifeless than those in textbooks. Preaching can restore the meaning of religion.
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