How Religion has contributed to world peace keeping.

How major religions of the world have contributed to world peace-keeping

The five major religions in the world are namely, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Religions do play a part in world peace-keeping, as religion is part of almost everyone’s culture. As such, similarities in these religions can assist them to come together and promote world peace.

Christianity has contributed to international peace keeping by its values. Churches regularly provide free counseling, not only to their members, but often to virtually anyone who desires it. Many churches have pastors or staff members who are trained in the art of listening to people, helping them understand their problems and offering advice. Obviously the more people who receive this care, the healthier a community becomes as they can resolve their problems. This will make everyone feel that they are valuable to one another.
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) offers an organized, non-violent alternative to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict. CPT provides organizational support to persons committed to faith-based nonviolent alternatives in situations where lethal conflict is an immediate reality or is supported by public policy. CPT seeks to enlist the response of the whole church in conscientious objection to war, and in the development of nonviolent institutions, skills and training for intervention in conflict situations. As such, world peace can be established.

The organization of International conference is one of the major Islamic organizations in the world which mainly focuses on combating terrorism. The combative measures taken are to ensure effective protection of people working in the field of criminal justice as well as investigators, also ensuring effective protection of information sources and witnesses on terrorist crimes. Extending necessary assistance to victims of terrorism, arresting perpetrators of terrorist's crimes and prosecuting them according to the national law or extraditing them in accordance with the provisions of this Convention or existing Conventions between the requesting and requested States and Establishing effective cooperation between the concerned organs in the contracting States and the citizens for combating terrorism including extending appropriate guarantees and appropriate incentives to encourage informing on terrorist acts and submitting information to help uncover them and cooperating in arresting the perpetrators. Moreover the main preventive measure taken to combat terrorism is developing and strengthening systems relating to detecting transportation, importing, exporting stockpiling, and using of weapons, ammunition and explosives as well as other means of aggression, killing and destruction in addition to strengthening trans-border and custom controls in order to intercept their transfer from one Contracting State to another or to other States unless they are intended for specific legitimate purposes. Thus Islamic organizations are effective in international peacekeeping.

The culture of the Jewish is known as Judaism. It is one of the oldest monotheistic religions and was founded by Moses over 3500 years ago in the Middle East. Judaism also includes Christianity and Islam. Jews believe in one god and they also believe in following the lord’s commandments and laws. The Sabbath (a Jewish holy day) is observed by the Jewish people every week. It is said to be god’s gift for his people to make them feel special. On that day, people do things to keep their minds away from their stressful lives. For example, families gather together in a house in the presence of the lord and perform rituals. By doing so, families have an opportunity spending time together with a common focus. Hence, this helps to build understanding among the Jewish people and therefore creating peace and harmony in the society. Moreover, they have also participated in international peacekeeping by indicating their willingness to participate in the U.S. implementation of the ‘International Rights and Redress Campaign’. Thus they play their part to maintain world peace.

Hinduism, which is one of the oldest religions of the world, has a lot of similarities with the major religions of the world. Although there may be many deities worshipped by Hindus, the Hindu scriptures hold the fact that there is only one formless god, the Brahman. This similar believe itself can promote world peace. There are also various quotes in the Hindu scriptures promoting peace, empathy, compassion and mercy. Also every single living being is acknowledged to be the creation of god. Thus, this can bring about a sense of common identity as humans, where everyone is accepted regardless of their race or religion. These values can also be found in other religions too. Such similarities between religions bring about harmony, thus keeping world peace. Hinduism emphasizes on charity to a large extent. In fact, most Hindu scriptures hold that sins can be rectified if one is charitable and he must donate to the needy without considering caste or creed. Therefore, such qualities can bring about world peace as charity programmes for example, can conducted by various religions together.

Many Buddhist believe that to maintain World Peace, we have to start with establishing peace in our minds first. Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, said that “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” It literally means that anger and any other negative states of mind are the cause of wars and conflict and people might even lose wisdom in the process. Therefore, Buddhists believe that only by abandoning our negative emotions such as anger in our minds, we can cultivate positive emotions such as love and compassion. People will then be able to live in peace and harmony. An ideal compassion is a humane response to suffering as long as beings continue to suffer. They emphasized on the training of their minds to face facts, endure suffering and attain a more lasting state of happiness. Be objective and humble; realize that no party is always wrong. There can never be absolute equality but surely there can be a greater degree of equity. For the last 2,500 years, there has never been any serious discord or conflict created by Buddhists that led to war in the name of this religion. This is probably a result of the dynamic character of the concept of tolerance contained in the Buddha's teaching.

All the major religions of the world will be able to contribute to world peace and work together for the benefit of humanity if we put aside subtle metaphysical differences, which are really the internal business of each religion. Thus, world peace-keeping can be maintained if these major religions play their part with their similar values incorporated as one value.

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