Religion of Humanity

“ Therefore we also must strive in this pathway of love and service, sacrificing life and possessions, passing our days in devotion, consecrating our efforts wholly to the cause of God, so that, God willing, the ensign of universal religion may be uplifted in the world of mankind and the oneness of the world of humanity be established. ”

“ Religion is essentially universal. If God is our common Father, His truth is our common property. But the religious world may be likened to a vast market, where every religious sect sells only a portion of truth. Religion is many-sided; but each individual, each nation, oftentimes adopts and represents only one side of religion. In different times and in different countries, therefore, we see not the entire religious life of humanity, but only partial religious life. ”

“ This group positions religion as a more essential facet of human life than the first group in that religious expressions are less of a haphazard by-product and more of a crucial instrument that ensures the existence of humanity. ”

“ The power of religious dogma, when inculcated early, is such as to stifle conscience, compassion, and finally every feeling of humanity. ”

“ And his religion—the holy doctrine of an indivisible Unity of God, of man's creation in the image of God, of our destination, to become by virtue, justice, and charity contented in this, and happy in after life—is daily gaining more ground as the only religion complying with the demands of reason and our destination on earth. ”

“ Let others partake of its waters in My name, that the leaders of men in every land may fully recognize the purpose for which the Eternal Truth hath been revealed, and the reason for which they themselves have been created.
CX: The Great Being saith: O ye children of men!... The Great Being saith: O ye children of men! The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity. ”

“ Permit me to speak from the standpoint of history and philosophy. The Christian religion is a chief source of our peculiar civilization, of the character of our institutions, of the growth of altruism, of the equality of man, of the supreme worth of the inner motive, of charity, of liberty. It has given the world the highest examples of pure and devoted lives. ”

“ And does not the blessed Saviour come talking of life, of light, of truth, of joy, and peace? Have not the Christian nations moved forward following after liberty and knowledge? Is not our religion the worship of God in spirit and in truth? ”

“ They were men of sterling character, of deep religious convictions, of willingness to make painful sacrifices for the sake of principle, of great reverence for the Bible and the institutions of religion, of purity of life in the home and in their social relations. They believed that religion was the supreme thing and that the commandments of God were of binding obligation upon all intelligent moral beings. ”

“ From the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of our inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines? ”

“ We have discovered the unity of ethics, of righteousness, of right and wrong, one right, one wrong. A million applications, but one goal towards which all those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are striving.
One religion: for underneath all the diversity of creeds and religions, barbaric, semi-civilized, civilized, enlightened, we find man, the one child of God, hunting for the clearest light he can command, after the one Father, that is, the one eternal, universal search of the religious life of the race. ”

“ We will deal with questions of Education, Society and Morality as, respectively, the planting, the growing and the harvesting processes of Religion. In Religion, we will advocate love; in Morality, justice ”

“ It is necessary to mankind in general, that there should be religion in the world, absolutely necessary for the preservation of the honour of the human nature, and no less so for the preservation of the order of human societies. ”

“ Is this not a convincing proof that religion is not restricted to one age or to one country—not the privilege of one chosen people or the monopoly of one favoured realm? It is eternal as the Truth of God, universal as the Love of God. ”

“ Religion is not theory—it is life. It is not intellectual conviction—it is divine humanity, and nothing else. ”

“ Religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason and its argument give it, and no more. Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more. ”

“ If we desire to adopt religious life in its entirety and fullness, we must not, we cannot, reject or ignore any particular nation or any branch of God’s vast family. If we embrace all nations and races; if we can take in all religious scriptures, all so-called sacred writings; if we are prepared to do honour to all prophets and the great men of all nations and races; then certainly, but not till then, can we do justice to universal and absolute religion as it exists in God. ”

“ To participate effectively in the struggle to bring material well-being to humanity, the religious spirit must find—in the Source of inspiration from which it flows—new spiritual concepts and principles relevant to an age that seeks to establish unity and justice in human affairs. ”

“ The first point which I will ask you to note is, that this very transformation of the idea of a particular religion into that of a universal religion—this conception of an all-embracing human society, naturally, if unconsciously, carried with it a relaxation of the bonds of discipline. ”

“ Let our traditions and practices be such that we can say, to the whole world, in the words of the Apostle, "Follow us, as we follow Christ."
This is the doctrine. In our scanty, hasty reflections to the Latter-day Saints we say, live your religion! If you do, you will do no evil to any person on the face of the earth. I sometimes ask myself the question, "Do people understand what we teach, believe and practice?" They cannot see and understand as we see and understand; they cannot believe as we believe, if they did they would never do as they do—that is our enemies. ”

“ It is in this social process that science, philosophy, art, and ethics are constructed, and these, though distinct from the religious sentiment, always blend with it into a unity of life. Religion proper is simply an attitude toward a Power ”

“ For indeed, what probability, what possibility rather, (speaking after the manner of men) is there that Christianity, Scriptural Christianity, should be again the religion of this place? That all orders of men among us should speak and live as men filled with the Holy Ghost? ”

“ It has been the illustration of a supreme and deeply interesting problem—the causes, namely, why a religion so humble in its origin and so feeble in its earthly resources as Christianity, won so majestic a victory over the power, the glory, and the intellect of the civilised world. ”

“ Many ways have been tried, and always the recognized object has been the religion of the people—religion, that is, in the sense which I have defined as that faith in the Highest which is the impulse of human progress, man’s spur to loving action, man’s rest in the midst of sorrow, man’s hope in death. ”

“ On the one side, Christianity is identified with civilization, and the function of the Church is regarded as simply the gathering up, from age to age, of the higher aspirations of mankind: her call is to enter into, to sympathize with, and to perpetuate whatever is pure, noble, and of good report, in laws and institutions, in art, music, and poetry, in industry and commerce, as well as in the moral and religious usages and beliefs, of mankind. ”

“ If, therefore, you will carry to completion what with a mind so disposed you have conceived, study to form that people to good morals, and, as well by yourself as by those whom you shall find qualified for the purpose by faith, word, and conduct, so act that the Church may be adorned, that the religion of the Christian faith may be planted and may increase ”

“ What, then, are these Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan and Buddhist religions? They are not religions at all: they are merely philosophies, or systematised accounts of God, the world, and of man, which have obtained large support in earlier stages of the world's history. ”

“ And holding this view, we will express our humble but honest opinion on every moving topic of the day.
The sum of human happiness is contained in that single word, Religion. The basis of every human concern is Religion; which is, indeed, the greatest boon that man enjoys. But the religion that we ill plead for to the utmost of our poor capabilities is, not the religion of hostile creeds and clashing churches, nor the religion of rites and ceremonies, of rituals and sacraments, but a faith and a hope that are. ”

“ Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion, which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? ”

“ This ultimate ground of right, thus found, makes plain why ethics, in its full meaning and issue, is so closely allied to religion. Religion, in its spirit and aim, means fellowship with God, accordance of desire, will, and life with him. ”

“ The ethical side of religion corresponds to the general ethical standard of the people—in savages it is low, but it exists. (5) The conception of salvation as the goal of religious faith and service; the salvation looked for is at first physical, is gradually moralized, and ultimately takes the form of spiritual union with the deity. These are the essential elements of religion; they all exist in crude form in the lowest strata of society, and are purified in the course of social growth. ”

“ But how, in the name of common sense and charity, is religion—that special provision for bringing strength to the feeble-minded, elevation to the lowly, and wisdom to the ignorant—to be brought home to all mankind, without the use of even coarse symbolism, which is as "relative" to the masses for whom it is intended as scientific conceptions are to philosophers? ”

“ The unity of the world, the triumph of the divine plan, the supremacy of good in the universe, these are the interests which religion expresses by asserting that God reigns as a rational, self-conscious, world-possessing, and single Being. The freedom of individuals, the deathless meaning of the life of each person, the opportunity for moral action, these are the interests of every form of ethical religion. ”

“ Such authority, then, as is commonly granted in science, politics, or commerce to the past results and expectations of men bringing human life in these provinces down to our time and delivering it, not as a new, but as an incomplete thing, into the hands of our generation, we may yield also in religion. The lives of the saints and all those who in history have illustrated the methods and results of piety, their convictions, speculations, and hopes, their warning and encouragement, compose a great volume of instruction, illustration, and education of the religious life. ”

“ That which alone, if anything, stamps Christianity as the supreme religion, is that its essence, its object, is in none of these things, valuable as some of them may be as signs and symptoms of the change which every mission is intended to effect. ”

“ Let me say now, to set you at ease, that we will always remain what we are, but we fervently hope with you, that it may be granted us to make our own form of religion admirable in the eyes of those who think differently.
We feel that the kernel of all religion is right living, and that all religion is good and beautiful. ”

“ The fundamental teachings of Christianity were based on the same conception of social duty and on the religious conception of God as benevolent and loving, calling out loving fealty of heart rather than external rite and sacrifice. In Christian times religion has become a spiritual and moral motive power throughout the world. ”

“ Our people not only created the noblest religion of the ancient world, a religion which is destined to become the common property of the entire civilized world, but continued to develop it, keeping pace with the progress of the human spirit. ”

“ Worship and sacrifice, procedures for working on the dispositions of the deity, theology and ceremony and ecclesiastical organization, are the essentials of religion in the institutional branch. Were we to limit our view to it, we should have to define religion as an external art, the art of winning the favor of the gods. In the more personal branch of religion it is on the contrary the inner dispositions of man himself which form the centre of interest, his conscience, his deserts, his helplessness, his incompleteness. ”

“ And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts by which the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself,—religion, that voice of the deepest human experience,—does not only enjoin and sanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail ”

“ What is this great common need and yearning that all men have, and which, to men in sympathy with it, every religion fulfils?
Can it be that all men have a like need and that all religions have a common quality which serves that need? ”