Saturday, October 1, 2011

ALLEGORY OF A TWO-STORIED TEMPLE

The world with its many nations and religions can be compared to a two-storied temple, where each great culture, inseparably identified with its predominant historical religion, has a private room of her own, on the ground floor, partitioned from the rest by sturdy walls, belonging to the structure of the whole building. In order to communicate with the rest of the world they cannot tear down the walls, because such an effort at ‘interfaith’ would lead to the building’s collapse, burying them all in the rubble. The only solution is to use their individual sets of stairs to walk up to the upper level, where there are no partitions, and where it is possible for all of them to mingle the smart way, without bringing the temple down.


This allegory works both in its application to normal international relations, the enlightened way of doing business with each other, but also in finding the only solution to the complex dilemma of common ethical denominator where the discovery of common ethics is complicated by the apparent incompatibility of their respective religions and denominations. See my other entries on the subject of transcending from different and invariably conflicting religions toward the One Absolute God of the Philosophical Abstraction, that is, ascending to the upper floor of the same temple.

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