At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
In my last year of religious school (I'm a Jew), each and every Sunday we attended a different religious service. I'm sure we visited 30 churches during the year. We went to mass with the Catholics and we shared an incense filled room with the Shintoist’s. We rolled on the floor with Holy Rollers and lied on mats with the Muslims.
I loved it. It was the BEST part of my religious education. Would your church do that? Why not?
My church sort of did that when I was a Junior and Senior in High School. Now I lived in a small town - only about 7500 people. So there was not a huge selection of churches, mostly mainstream, except for the Jehovah Witnesses (the most radical element in town at that time -1969-1970). It was fun as we got to interact with people that we had been told from early on were going to Hell. I was Catholic at the time. Of course the other churches thought we all were going to Hell because of the Pope. When I think back if there was a neighbor or friend who died and that person was a Lutheran, we actually had to get special permission to attend the funeral. So glad all that changed.
But going to those churches and learning about their beliefs was a real eye opener and led me to believe that my church had really been lying all along about Catholics being the only ones to get to Heaven. My parents were very distressed about my discovery and vowed to send me to a nunnery, which I escaped by saying I would go to a Catholic college.
Ran into the "Holy Rollers" in college. The Krishna's were there too. Yes, I got a liberal arts education allright. lol
Most Christian sects don’t allow people to explore other religions and other books. .....If all religious sects learned to accept each other instead of tolerating each the world would be a better place.
Hello again, Married:
That was the point of my question. Why are Christians so guarded?? Are they afraid that if their people get exposed to some other line of thought, they'll be lost forever? I think they do. If that's so, doesn't THAT diminish the message in the first place???
I did a similar thing in school my favourte place of worship was the Hindu temple. It was massive and made of white marble. One of the most peaceful places I've been. The place had a strange resonance about it I really enjoyed. I was told you could visit even if you weren't a Hindu but I felt too alien to go on my own.
Not as alien as I feel in churches though- I always feel someone is going to jump out at me with holy water and chase me out of the place!
Anyway to the original question, I think it is really important for children/ young adults to learn about and in some way experience other religions. I think it helps breed understanding and respect.
Can I ask doesn't it say somewhere in the bible that you are not to learn about other religions? A baptist friend once told me about it but she said a lot of things most of them on the more fanciful side of truth so I don't know whether it's true or not.
Linear Mode
