Love In World Religions

Love: Perspectives from Sociology, Philosophy, and Peligious Studies

  THE ART OF COMPASSION Karen Armstrong .. . The word compassion does not mean to feel sorry for somebody. It is a word of Greek and Latin origin that means to feel with others. It is a difficult virtue, because our natural egotism makes us resistant to anything that seems to threaten our interests […]

Adultery in Buddhism

  Traditional Buddhism treats adultery—sexual relations out of wedlock—as a serious transgression that furthers suffering. Viewed as harmful to oneself and others, it is typically contextualized within the framework of the third of five fundamental precepts of Buddhist morality: Buddhists must refrain from taking life, committing theft, indulging in sexual misconduct, giving false speech, and […]

Reflections on Love by Contemporary spiritual Jeaders

  THE SUPREME EMOTION His Holiness the Dalai Lama Our innate capacity for empathy is the source of that most precious of all human qualities, which in Tibetan we call nying je. Now while generally translated simply as compassion, the term nyingje has a wealth of meaning that is difficult to convey succinctly, though the […]

Adultery in Christianity

  Adultery is consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than his or her married partner. The Christian faith, which takes the Christian Bible as its foundation, condemns adultery within the Ten Commandments and in Old and New Testament passages—for example, Exodus 20:14 and Galatians 5:21 (King James Version). For Christians, adultery  […]

Adultery in Hinduism

  Whether called adultery, infidelity, or unfaithfulness, the Hindu dharmasastras do not permit any act of sexual union outside the socially sanctioned marriage system. The life of a person in the phase of grihasthya (household life) has prescribed functions of prajaa (progeny for family), dharma (meeting religious goals), and kama (sensual and emotional pleasure). A […]

African Religions

  The cosmologies, religions, and spiritual traditions of Africa, a continent that includes more than 50 sovereign nations, represent thousands of linguistic groups and cultural communities that have developed over tens of thousands of years. Continental Africa is the locus of indigenous, vernacular expressions of the sacred including divination, ancestor worship, supernatural phenomena—particular forms of […]

African American Religion

  The notion of love in African American religion is complex and multilayered. Whereas African American religion is itself complex and represented by various and often competing traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and New Age religions, the majority of African Americans are Christians. In popular terms, the loosely affiliated African American Christian organizations, […]

Adultery in Judaism

  The prohibition against committing adultery is well known as one of the “Ten Utterances” cited in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 4:17. Given that biblical law—and rabbinic law in its wake—permits polygyny, at least in theory, men were not expected to limit themselves to a single sexual partner, and adultery is defined in Jewish tradition […]

Adultery in Islam

  Adultery in Islam refers to an unlawful sexual act of intercourse between a man and a woman during which, according to the prophet of Islam, the male organ enters the female organ the way “a rope goes into a well or a stick enters a Kohl canister” (Inamullah 1965). This definition applies equally to […]

Androgynous Myths

  Androgynes have a significant place in the human religious imagination. Androgynes are people who embody both male and female characteristics. But this basic definition must necessarily be qualified by recognizing the diverse forms of androgyny. For example, there are physiological androgynes—such as hermaphrodites—but there are also psychological androgynes. Wendy Doniger identifies three kinds of […]

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