Guide to Divinity
Guide to Divinity
Our Guide to Divinity has two uses for the reader. As a primer, it will acquaint the reader with the major religious systems of the world by concisely exposing the doctrines of various faiths. Understanding the parallels between various religions might be the only way for one to learn what is unique about any one faith.
The Universal Life Church makes as its goal the promotion of interaction between various religions and the free exchange of ideas to the end that each faith tradition can benefit humankind.
All of the ideas and concepts expressed are debatable. The sections for individual faith traditions express the most common or popular beliefs of each faith’s practitioners.
Introduction
The Universal Life Church invites each of its ministers to define religious terms as they see fit, but for the purposes of this guide we shall define the following.
“Religion,” as ULC defines it, is a method by which a sentient entity can bring out some profound beneficial change. We prefer this definition to all others because it encompasses all world religions as well as most other less prominent faith systems. One interpretation of this definition is that all religions have a way of expressing that humankind at large has some flaw.
- •The flaw makes all who possess it unsatisfied
- •The flaw is the only cause of dissatisfaction
- •A specific faith system is a way to relieve the flaw
Almighty God
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The name for a single God who created the universe from nothing, and who is omniscient, omnipotent, and by definition benevolent. Respectfully this name is used as the English translation to describe any such being.
BCE / CE
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Terminology now standard in world media corresponding to the calendar system. 1 CE, meaning year 1 of the Comm on Era, refers to the year of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. 1 BCE, meaning 1 year before the Common Era, refers to the year immediately before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth
Canon
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Ideas, almost always in text, which exist in a permanent form and which define a religion
Divinity
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A sentient spiritual entity
Enlightenment
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A profound ability to make correct assessments and right decisions
Faith
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Belief in the absence of proof, supported by evidence which is not universally recognized
Spirit
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the opposite of material; anything which exists but cannot be measured with methods used in physical science (physics)
