Theological ethics
divides humanity into the believers and the non-believers, which may
be Christians and heathens, Muslims and Kafirs, or simply the people
of God and those of the devil, or whatever the religion decides,
including condemning different sects within one's own religion as
heretical. This division is equated with a real division in behavior
between good and evil, holy and unholy, as if only the members of a
particular religion can be truly good and those of other beliefs
must be evil, however good they may appear.
Dharmic traditions,
on the other hand, differentiate human behavior into dharmic and
adharmic actions, actions which further the Truth and those which
promote ignorance and illusion. There is no division of humanity
into dharmic and adharmic souls because the soul, our inner nature
is inherently dharmic. The soul is our dharma. The only division is
between people who know their true nature and those who do not.
Knowledge or ignorance is a capacity of all human beings, and we
must all move from the ignorance to the knowledge, if not in this
lifetime than in a future one.
Hence Dharma can never divide people
into warring beliefs.If there is only One God or Truth then there
cannot be two humanities, the believers and the non-believers. If
reality is one then humanity must also be one. To connect to the
oneness of reality, we must first recognize the unity of human
beings. If we cannot see the unity of human beings - including our
unity with those of different religious persuasions - then we cannot
talk of the unity of God. This requires recognizing the common
dharma of human nature, which is to seek the eternal, not to place
people under restrictive religious identities.
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