Love In World Religions

Beauty in Buddhism

  The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism teach that although life is suffering (dukkha), suffering is caused by desire (tanha), and therefore, if we can eliminate desire, we can eliminate suffering. Desire includes craving for and attachment to a sensuous experience—attachment to beauty (subha), and in particular, to the beauty of the body, can lead […]

Bhakti

  Love is a cornerstone of bhakti, aptly describing the profound emotional commitment a devotee makes to God or to a guru, yet bhakti is not an idealized love; it is a love that is ever inflected with ordinary human experience. Bhakti is often glossed as the Sanskrit word for “devotion,” which speaks to the […]

Bhagavad Gita

  The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most widely known and read philosophical sacred texts of India, and in all of Asia. It is a 700-verse tract of text extracted from the greater epic poem, the Mahabharata. Scholars date the text in its present form anywhere from 500 BCE to 200 CE, and traditional […]

Betrayal

  Betrayal is the violation of some obligation imposed by nature, by an external authority, or by oneself. In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic contexts, the opportunities for betrayal are many, given the enumerated legal codes that outline one’s ethical obligations to family, neighbors, and community. Betrayals of these obligations, and of special religious vows, are […]

Beloved Community

Agape is the ancient Greek word for unselfish love. In contemporary terminology,agape means God-love or the love of God operating within humans. This latter conception of agape provides the foundation for universal human rights in Dr. Martin Luther King’s beloved community, a term first theorized by philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce early in the twentieth century. Morally, […]

Beauty in Judaism

  Beauty is a characteristic that greatly pleases any of the senses, including the sense by which people recognize truths that come to them outside the physical senses. For Jews, beauty provides an occasion to love God, to love one’s neighbors, and to help heal the world— three principal tenets of Judaism. Moreover, Jews are […]

Bliss

  Bliss refers to a state of ecstatic happiness, a perfect and exalted state of joy and love. It also refers to a state of contentment oblivious to any problems or suffering. The term “bliss” is associated with the words “blithe” and “bless.” Blithe refers to happiness —the person in this state is joyful and […]

Bisexuality

  Bisexuality refers to a person who possesses the traits of both sexes or one who sexually desires both sexes. These two definitions highlight the multiple social meanings attached to bisexuality throughout human history and across religions. On the one hand, bisexuality can refer to physical or supernatural entities incorporating both masculine and feminine characteristics. […]

Birth in Hinduism

  According to Hindu tradition, physical birth is one of a series of life-cycle events, beginning with conception and ending with death, that define a human life. Although these events can occur by themselves, Hinduism associates them with specific ritual acts, collectively referred to as samskara, a word that literally means “making complete.” It is […]

Body in Judaism

  Jewish attitudes toward love, sexuality, and marriage are functions of varying assessments of the human body. Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo embraced a Platonic dualism in which the spirit—or soul—is imprisoned or entombed in the body—a viewpoint with strong affinities to dominant trends in Christianity. In this conception, sexual activity has negative valence, […]

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