Hello, my friends!
How are you guys doing today? I am hoping you are staying positive and doing better. On my end, I am doing well. Speaking of positivity, according to an article from Mayo Clinic, positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your health. I know this line will enlighten you to stay positive no matter what is going on in your life right now.
Today’s topic is religion.
According to research (https://www.theregister.com) that Stephen Juan, Ph.D. an anthropologist at the University of Sydney conducted, there are about 4,300 religions around the world but only 20 of them (yes 20) are globally practiced.
- Christianity (2.1 billion)
- Islam (1.3 billion)
- Nonreligious (Secular/Agnostic/Atheist) (1.1 billion)
- Hinduism (900 million)
- Chinese traditional religion (394 million)
- Buddhism (376 million)
- Primal-indigenous (300 million)
- African traditional and Diasporic (100 million)
- Sikhism (23 million)
- Juche (19 million)
- Spiritism (15 million)
- Judaism (14 million)
- Bahai (7 million)
- Jainism (4.2 million)
- Shinto (4 million)
- Cao Dai (4 million)
- Zoroastrianism (2.6 million)
- Tenrikyo (2 million)
- Neo-Paganism (1 million)
- Unitarian-Universalism (800,000)
Wow, this is a lot of religion! If you want to refer back to this list you can head over to our website at www.KedlerAbelard.com to view them. By the way, there are about 6,800 languages spoken around the world.
Have you ever asked yourself “what is religion?” Or does it matter at all to be a religious person? What is your hope for a better tomorrow when your life is over on this earth? These are some of the basic questions that we will be answering in the next minutes.
Patrick H. McNamara is quoted to defining religion like this: “Try to define religion and you invite an argument.” I think we can all agree with that. But I want to give a more sustainable definition of the term. According to https://answersingenesis.org/, in the ESV translation of the Bible, the term religion appears five times. By itself, it is a neutral term. It can refer to Jewish-Christian faith (Acts 25:19), Judaism (Acts 26:5), self-made religion (Colossians 2:23), or failure to tame the tongue (James 1:26). But the religion that is acceptable to God is “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27).
If we accentuate this last definition shouldn’t we agree that in some aspect shouldn’t we be religious as to the way, we interact with one another? I will agree with that because the essence of our creation is to live a life of reverence to our creator, God. We ought to respect, treat, love one another no matter the circumstances. When we forgive, we are free from a burden inside of ourselves and can live our life with full potential. Our peace with our master makes us holy and in good harmony with him.
When we are at peace, we always look to live a life full of grace, blessings, and rewards of all kinds. This is why as humans; we look to have a better life after our days are over on this earth. We often fear what tomorrow will bring which is one of the fundamental principles of human emotion.
As you might see, I am a confessed believer of Christ. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus the Son of God who came to die on the cross for the sin of humanity. If you would like to learn more about my faith, please feel free to comment, text, or call for a conversation.
I hope that we will connect again for another episode. But before we end this episode, let’s listen to this song from Newsboys – We Believe to conclude our talk on religion.
Be blessed, my friends!
Kedler
