Religions and past history

“biography and life of the prophets“

Adam is the first human being created by God according to the Abrahamic religions. Although the perspective of Adam and the story of Adam differ in every Abrahamic religion, they are essentially the same. The period between Adam and Noah’s Flood in the Genesis section of the Torah corresponds to a period of 1756 years.

Moses or Moshe is the prophet who is believed to have freed the Israelites from slavery and is considered a prophet in all Abrahamic religions.

Religion is usually supernatural, sacred and has moral elements; a body of beliefs and worship with various rituals, practices, values ​​and institutions.

Jesus
30/33 AD), first century Jewish preacher, religious leader, and religious elder. He is at the center of Christianity. According to Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God and the expected Messiah. According to the belief of Islam, Jesus is one of the great prophets appointed by God and is the Messiah.

Mohammed, Arab social, religious and political leader and founder of Islam. He conquered all of Arabia and united it under a single administration under Muslim rule and thus secured the teachings and practices of the Qur’an and formed the basis of the Islamic religious belief.

“What is religion;“

Sometimes the word belief is used instead of the word belief, and sometimes the word belief is used in place of the word religion. When we look at the history of religions, it is seen that the concept of religion has different forms in different cultures, communities and individuals, and it is redesigned by the members of the religions according to geography and cultural values ​​in every age. The word religion, an Arabic origin word, has meanings such as “path, judgment, reward” in terms of origin.

Definition of religion;

There are different definitions of religion and these definitions differ from each other according to the perspective of religion. Those who adhere to a religion have defined it in terms of their own beliefs. Scientists who view religion as an object of study made a definition of religion according to the data they obtained. None of these definitions reveal the true nature of religion. There has not been an agreed definition of religion until now. This is because religions have different structures. Many religious scholars who are experts in different fields of religious sciences have a specific definition of religion. The definitions of religion made so far are enough to fill a normal book volume. However, these theologians defined religion in terms of their own fields. For example, Émile Durkheim, who approached the subject in terms of the sociology of religion, said.

“Religion and prophets;”

“Religion is the system of rites and beliefs that makes a congregation come into being.” he said. In this definition, Durkheim is based on the social function of religion in society. “Religion is a desire that manifests itself through prayer, sacrifice and faith.” Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach made a definition in terms of the psychology of religion. It is possible to list many similar definitions. However, these two examples clearly reveal how different religious scholars’ definitions of religion are. In these definitions of religious scholars, issues such as holiness, belief, mental faculty, sense of absolute obedience, desire, awareness of social values, supernatural supreme being and the idea of ​​God come to the fore. Each of the theologians made a definition of religion by focusing on one of these concepts. The difference in these definitions is mainly due to two reasons. One of these reasons is the complex nature of religion. The other is the subjective approach of those who make the definition. An objective definition of religion that will encompass all religions can only be made after determining the limits of religion.

The origin story of religions;

There is no other historical document about how religion originated and what its origin is, other than the information given by the holy books. In this respect, it is not possible to say anything definite about the origin and origin of religion by resorting to scientific methods. However, some social scientists have emerged attempting to find the source of religion. Within the framework of the data they obtained, they put forward a number of theories about the origin of religion. Although these theories were accepted in the Western world for a while and aroused excitement in the scientific circles, later they were criticized and became controversial.

Opinions about the origin of religion are grouped under two headings evolutionist view and revelation-based view.

The appearance of scholars about religion;

Scientists from various fields started to work to prove that human beings also evolved in terms of culture in parallel with evolution. Some scientists among anthropologists, ethnologists, sociologists, and psychologists claimed that the origin of religion can be found by studying the religion and culture of primitive tribes. Based on the beliefs of some primitive tribes living in New Zealand, Australia, Africa and Asia, they began to put forward different views about the origin of religion. Edward Burnett Tylor suggested that the origin of religion was animism, James Frazer magic, Durkheim totemism. Other theories have been put forward by other scientists. All these theories were psychologically and sociologically based theories according to their approach style. According to these theories, man turned to religion because he feared nature or wanted to maintain community consciousness, and these theories were widely accepted in some scientific circles. In these scientific circles, the conviction that religion would not take long to disappear from human life began to prevail. Max Müller said in 1878, “The most read newspapers every day, every week, every month write that the age of religion has passed, that belief is an illusion or a childhood disease, that the gods are a human invention at the end …” In 1905, Crawley wrote that the enemies of religion embarked on a fierce struggle to show the opposition of science and religion, that the idea that religion was nothing more than a remnant of the primitive age in which myths were created spread everywhere, and that its disappearance was only a matter of time.

“Wilhelm Schmidt and her book”

In the face of the evolutionist view about the origin of man and religion, there were also those who defended the revelatory view among scientists. Wilhelm Schmidt, who was actually a Protestant priest, argued that the first form of religion was monotheism in Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, which he published after his ethnological studies among primitives.

Philologist Max Müller tried to attribute the source of religion to the first divine revelation using linguistic methods. According to Müller, who deals with the history of the idea of ​​God, this idea began with the first revelation when God created the world. He placed the “intuition” of divinity by blowing the breath of life into man. In the beginning the god declared himself in the same manner to “all ancestors of the human race”. However, man gave different names to this god due to language mistakes. Over time, it was misunderstood that each of these names refers to different gods. Thus polytheism was born. Max Müller tried to prove this with his linguistic studies of the Hinduism holy book Vedas. What Müller really wanted to reveal is “what is expressed in different languages ​​in all religions, the same divine truth, the same revelation.” It was detection summarized by the sentence. Those who maintain that the origin of religion is monotheistic revelation are those who hold a certain religious belief. Wilhelm Schmidt is a priestly scholar of the Protestant sect of Christianity. Max Müller is also a devout Christian. The point where he differs from the traditional Christian understanding is that the source of all religions is the same divine revelation. Traditional Christian understanding sees only Judaism and Christianity as the religion of divine revelation. According to this understanding, Christianity is a continuation of Judaism, but the decree of Judaism was abolished with the advent of Christianity. Other religions, on the other hand, are completely invented. God has had nothing to do with these religions. Hinduism takes the same approach. Buddhism’s understanding of religion is completely different. Buddhism is known as a godless religion. This religion bases neither itself nor other religions on divine revelation.

“Religion and notion“

Religious knowledge is acquired, for most religious people, by religious leaders, scriptures, and / or personal inspiration. According to some religions, such information is of an unlimited nature and is an answer to all kinds of questions and problems. According to some religions, religious knowledge has a complementary quality to the knowledge obtained by observation by affecting life especially in religious and practical terms. According to some religions and religious groups and individuals, the religious knowledge obtained through the aforementioned ways is definite, undoubted and never infallible. The definition, understanding and analysis of religious knowledge often varies from religion to religion, sect to sect and from individual to individual.

Scientific knowledge and method, on the contrary, are based on direct contact with the world and seek answers only to cosmological questions and problems related to the universe. All scientific knowledge contains the possibility of doubt and is open to development and change based on more robust evidence.

“Religion, philosophy and metaphysics”

The philosophical perspective of metaphysics is among the religious and scientific doctrines. This approach attempted to draw logical judgments on the nature of the concept of universe, humanity, and god in Antiquity. One of the important philosophical tools developed to resolve the conflict between religion and science is Ockham’s razor, developed by William of Ockham to defend religion. However, this argument is often used in the philosophy of science to defend science. One thing to note in this regard is the epistemology branch of philosophy. This branch questions the nature and limitations of human knowledge, as well as how to analyze or accept beliefs, whether they are true or false.

“Esotericism and mysticism”

Mysticism argues that unlike philosophy and metaphysics, logic is not the most important means of sublimation and enlightenment. It focuses more on various physical disciplines such as yoga, fasting, turning (eg sema), ordeal, and even the use of psychoactive substances.

Mysticism is trying to unite with the absolute, divine, spiritual truth or God or the consciousness of his existence, to follow various paths and teachings, to declare that this cannot be achieved by rational thought. Mystics believe in the existence of various realities beyond experimental and intellectual understanding and think that these can be achieved through personal experience. Esoterism, on the other hand, suggests that it is more sophisticated than religion based on intellectual understanding rather than belief, and that various developments in philosophy can be caused by psychospiritual transformation techniques. Esoterism speaks of the existence of “secret” knowledge, which is only open to the developed, privileged people and passed down from generation to generation. This is the opposite of esoteric knowledge available to the public. It attaches particular importance to spiritual practices and disciplines. The mystical religions of ancient Greece and the modern Scientology order are examples of esotericism.

Prophet names;

“Adam”
“Noah”
“Jesus”
“Mohammed”