Editorial 

 

The world needs more religiosity

 
In the special "Prophylactic & curative effect of religious feeling", one of the highlights of this edition, Rogério Coelho shows the importance of religious feeling in the world we live in, referring clearly to religiosity and not to the formalism and exclusivism of religions in general , which often lead to fanaticism and radicalism, which many evils have produced and continue to produce on the planet since the dark days of the Catholic Inquisition.
The disrespect and intolerance towards those who profess a different creed, a right that in Brazil is guaranteed in the Constitution of the Republic, is something unjustifiable and unfortunate. When, then, part of any religious group or derives to the radicalism or the attempt against the life, the fact reveals its face more sad and scary.
The latest episode of religious intolerance occurred on November 24th, Friday, when a bomb and gunfire at a mosque in Egypt left at least 305 dead - nearly 30 children - and 100 wounded. This was the number known until the time we wrote this text.
Witnesses said the attack occurred while Friday prayers were being held at the Al-Rawda temple in Bil al-Abed, a city in the Northeast region of Sinai, located 211km from the capital, Cairo. According to witnesses, dozens of men arrived at the scene in 4x4 vehicles and bombed it before opening fire on the faithful.
They would still have fired vehicles parked in the vicinity to block access to the temple

In the mosque that is the target of the attack, followers of Sufism, a mystical current of Islam, often meet. As you know, some jihadist groups, including the Islamic State (EI), consider these people heretitcs. At the end of last year, the head of the religious police of the EI, after the extremist group beheaded two elderly men who would be clerics of that religion, promised that the Sufis who did not repent would be killed.
In the same region, several attacks have already occurred against the Christian Coptic population of Egypt, which is the largest Christian community in the Middle East.
When we speak of religious sentiment, we refer, of course, to the feeling of religiosity which is so dear to us at a time when the ideals of materialism are raging all over the world and in which the desire to have things, money, prestige, power - is the ultimate aspiration of most of those who inhabit our world.
Developing a sense of religiosity would, according to Allan Kardec, be one of the three main effects of Spiritism for those who understand it and see in it more than just phenomena.
(See The Spirit’s Book, Conclusion, Part VII.

The second effect is to strengthen - in the same people who understand the nature and purpose of Spiritism - resignation in the vicissitudes of life. "Spiritism gives the view of things so high, that, losing earthly life three quarters of its importance, man is not so distressed by the tribulations that accompany it. Hence, more courage in afflictions, more moderation in desires," said Kardec.
The third effect is, finally, to stimulate in man the indulgence towards the defects of others.
The true Spirit, on the face of it, will never be able to cultivate or support acts of radicalism, prejudice or intolerance, whose bitter fruits we must, unfortunately, reap on our planet for a long time, given the condition of general backwardness that characterizes majority of Earth's inhabitants.

 
Translation:

Francine Prado
francine.cassia@hotmail.com

 

 

     
     

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 Revista Semanal de Divulgação Espírita