God and Religion have been the subjects of extensive discussions, debates, and talks since time immemorial. The realm of God has remained a mystery for most of the great minds, thus eliciting curiosity in them to explore more in this field. Undoubtedly, time and again several forums have been laid where intense brainstorming, exchange of views, and sometimes raging argumentations were carried out. On such portals, if a handful of queries were attempted to be solved, then hundreds of more such arose seeking answers from man. Let us throw a glance at some of the renowned platforms of discussions that were set in this regard.
World Conference on Religion and Peace
Date: June 1995
Venue: San Francisco
The conference was attended by various spiritual luminaries and political leaders. During the meeting, an idea was proposed by a bishop, William Swing regarding uniting different religions into a single institution called 'United Religions Organisation.' Swing mentioned that there was lack of unity among people of different religion, despite being interconnected with one another through the unified force of that supreme power i.e. pantheism. The underlying idea behind shaping such an institution was to reduce disparities in the name of religion and come up with some common base for all religions. What next? Millions of dollars were spent to spread awareness about sacred beliefs, knowledge, and scriptures of different religions among the people across the world, while attempting to highlight the inherent oneness. However, things lost their direction as it could not be strategized where and how to spend those millions of dollars in order to accomplish the objective of bringing harmony among religions. On the contrary, several voices were raised which said that such a huge sum of money could be rather used for helping the needy.
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The Parliament of the World's Religions
Date: September 1893
Venue: Art Institute of Chicago, America
Amidst a massive gathering of audience, several elite dignitaries from around the world assembled with their long scripts of speeches to debate on a topic like 'God and Religion'. In that crowd, there was also present a young monk, who was not yet known to the world. However, when he rose, his words shook not just the entire hall but the entire world! As many of you must have rightly guessed, this monk was none other than Swami Vivekananda. ...
To know what he said? And many more lectures and talk read the complete article in July'17 month of English Akhand Gyan Monthly Magazine.
