What Do We Share in Common? Professors Talk about World Religions

The students that went to the Religions of the World conference on Thursday October 7, at Jacobson Hall were spiritually enlightened. They listened to Dr. Kemal Argon, Professor/Pastor Doug House and Dr. Mark Seton talk about each aspect of Christianity, Islamism and Confucianism. The main theme deals with compassion, love, and serving others.

“My hope is that students will find some passion for dialogue across the communities and become interested in bringing momentum to similar projects that create understanding and acceptance,” Dr. Argon said.

The lecture was put together by the International Student Services Office and the World Religions Department.

Dr. Argon was the first to present his lecture on the teachings of Islamism. Throughout his speech, he points out the four stages of spiritual growth including Islamic Law, and talked about the purpose of diversity.

Professor/Pastor House talked about the Christianity aspect of love. HE went on to talk about the types of love such as Eros (romantic love) and Agape (spiritual, motherly love). He mentioned forgiveness and said that forgiveness should be limitless as he read a parable from one of the books of the New Testament.

He wants students to leave this conference learning that just by taking the time to talk to one another; one can establish a connection through commonality.

“When we sit down to discuss, we discover the roads of commonality,” House said.

Dr. Seton explained to the students about the concept of compassion in Asian traditions. He read a poem of Lao Tzu called Lao Tzu’s Three Treasures. In the poem it talked about the three treasures; compassion, frugality, and not to dare to be ahead of the world.

Seton went into detail about in order to govern the state you have to regulate the family first. If the person does not do that, then they could not teach others. He told the students about the Eight Steps for Peace in the World which included, controlling your thoughts, having harmony in the family and having order in the state.

Dr. Seton said that students should not only learn about one religion, but also different kinds of religions early on.

“We hope to teach comparative religion in middle and high school,” Dr. Seton said.

Sophomore Graduate student, Suliat Giwa, attended the conference and learned that all religions share a common ground with one another.

“All religions share love, compassion, and love for our neighbors,” Giwa said.

*article was published on October 2010 issue of The Scribe

*article was featured in dgotay.tumblr.com on September 2011