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Disclaimer: I'm parking this translated version of the article I responded to with my essay, "Response from Christianfaith on a commentary article about Human Fraternity". Please be advised that the translation from Indonesian to English might somewhat missed the intended meaning but I have done my best to carefully put it in English. My TOELF score in 2019 is 600, to assure you of the translation process.
links to the article in Indonesian:
https://kompas.id/baca/opini/2019/04/04/persaudaraan-umat-manusia-2/
http://doa-bagirajatega.blogspot.com/2019/04/artikel-opini-persaudaraan-umat-manusia.html
Human Fraternity, an opinion article
Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri, April 4, 2019
Al-Azhar and the
Vatican carved out important historical mark through the signing of the Document
of Human Fraternity in Abu Dhabi on February 4, 2019.
The symbolic
signing of the "Abu Dhabi Declaration" marks a new era in the
relationship of Muslim-Christians worldwide. The two communities are expected
to be able to live together side by side in a more peaceful manner and work
together to fight humanitarian challenges, including the enemy of all humanity,
namely terrorism (Kompas, February 6, 2019).
How should we interpret the monumental event above?
Universalism of Nature
Human Fraternity is a key concept that reveals many basic things that so far have not been
clearly undertsood by most people. This concept basically rests on the
understanding that all human beings are basically the same and are brothers.
As a result, a man who tyrannizes his neighbor; ceteris paribus, doing the same for all humanity. Thus, terrorism which has caused destruction to many places and human souls, hard to imagine the magnitude of the dimensions of damage that has been caused.
As a result, a man who tyrannizes his neighbor; ceteris paribus, doing the same for all humanity. Thus, terrorism which has caused destruction to many places and human souls, hard to imagine the magnitude of the dimensions of damage that has been caused.
Logically, humanity
fraternity is easy to understand. All humans built from the same element. He
was built of physical and spirit union. The physical itself is a gifted entity,
not independent. It totally depends on the existence of the spirit. During
sleep or post factum of death, the body becomes a pile of flesh, and the bones
cease functioning.
Thus, the brain and senses are only mediums and are not
controllers. The process of thinking, then, physically is an amazing
complicated phenomenon. However, in essence it is very simple. It is the spirit
that makes the brain think and creatively reasoned. This perspective blows down
the classical understanding of Kartesian that believed reason centered on the
physical abilities of the brain, cogito ergo sum.
As known, the
human body originates from the elementary structure of the soil quintessence.
It starts from the meeting of the ovum and seed that takes place in the
"great glass palace", the womb. Modern medical science has proven
that the meeting of the two above continues to form a lump of blood, then
becomes a pile of flesh, then becomes a super tiny human body structure or
fetus, then becomes a fetus.
As recent gynecological research has shown, at the age of four months and ten days, the
transformation of an astonishing "human" usually occurs: life begins
to look complete with all its features. The fetus that at that age
"gets" the spirit as the source of life will survive so the baby is
ready to be born, vice versa will abort and demise.
The mentioned life, academically supported, is brought about by the presence of the spirit. It is a gift of the Supreme Creation as an unspeakable blessing for all humanity without exception. He is the light (nur) that brings humanity from darkness (infidelity), which is the basic character of the soil entity, towards "right". This spirit cannot choose to be blown in whose body and where, complete with all its ascriptive attributes.
This is entirely
the supraprerogative area of the Creator. As a result, diversity and
differences are extraordinary gifts given by God to all humanity. It is logically
easy to understand, if the Supreme Creation wants to make all humanity the same
is not difficult. Humanity was created in different formats for only one
purpose, namely "interpreting" the greatness of God in the process of
understanding and making peace with one another.
Humans who submit
to the majesty of the Creator and make peace with others, have an educated
spirit. Educating spirits is not in human-created educational institutions. It
is a product of his encounter with the Creator in a ritualistic or
non-ritualistic arena in His Palace at all times.
In this context,
religion was given down by God from the prophet to the prophet - through
revelation - is in order to educate the spirit so that its light is always
glowing grandly over the darkness. Thus, the wisdom and mind emanated as a
beautiful form of love, peace, and spread kindness to others and the natural
surroundings.
Religion as an
essential right from the spirit relationship with the Supreme Source has been
intervened by the power of human interpretive thought. This is further compounded by the
phenomenon of religion which manifests itself into a social institution,
complete with a variety of purposes for its interests. Furthermore, the
reduction of religion in certain cultural identifications is an amazing
stupidity, beautifully packaged to deny the essence of light called
"right". Religion in practice, thus, is often trapped in the wave of
daydream in textual narrative interpretations of divine law in the midst of the
cradle of involution institutional prison.
Both of human
interpretive thought and daydream in textual narrative interpretations of
divine law, has perfectly transformed the intrisic goal of the religion into
devices for reaching it. Fanaticism and religious militancy and the schools
within it have made humanity horrifyingly compartmented. In this context, hostility often arises in
everyday life. In fact, religion does not carry a gene of differences, sourced
only in one treatise.
In short, the
declaration of Abu Dhabi is a revolutionary honest recognition of two important
world religious institutions on the basis of human brotherhood in essence. The
conception of God the Creator may be constructed differently in every religion,
sect, and school. However, God who created nature and everything in it must be
the same.
This understanding primus interpares penetrates truth
claims. At the same time it has
shifted the attention of mankind from sibling quarrels, to substantial
cooperation dealing with the threat of destruction of civilization itself.
Humanitarian challenge
Religious people
are like a group of people clawing each other on a leaky boat that sails
towards the island of hope. They are not looking for a point of equality, to
move together to close the leak and guarantee the safety of the sailing;
instead, they are engaged in fierce quarrel for the claim of the island of hope
that still clearly uncertain. So, the Abu Dhabi Declaration was a symbolic
reflexionist puncto to end the siblings quarrel of humanity as well as sparked
an optimistic hopes of building a better future together.
For example, the
planet earth, which has been around four billion years old, is characterized by
the vulnerability of being overwhelmed by excessive loads.
can support the ideal
presence of around 4.5 billion people. However, the population of the earth has
now approached twice the capacity. Mankind needs food, clean air rich in
oxygen, mobility, space, and so on. Every inch of the above needs also carries
a dimension of damage. The population that increases uncontrollably also
means the greater the damage the populace could cause. In reality, most human beings are morphed
into carpe diem creatures, who pretend to forget that the future fate of the
earth must be maintained and guarded together. It seems that this is a
challenge for the religious community to move together towards a synergistic
point in order to respond to the above challenges.
Another example is science revolution that acts like a
double-edged knife. Michio Kaku, in this instance, suggests that Einstein's
theory of relativity was not closed by a period, but with a comma. He spoke of optimism for the future born
from the womb of the wonders of science and technology. He predicts the future
of civilizations jumping higher and faster so that in an instant changed the
patterns of old life.
Another surprise will keep on approaching even when we are
still surprised. New patterns emerging based on widespread use of data,
artificial intelligence, and supermicro technology such as nano and genomes. The challenge of science and technology is
the fact that the worship of the human brain is acute, forgeting the
fundamental forces that move it. The wilderness of science and technology becoming
a space of unlimited exile. On one hand it provides solutions to technical
limitations, on the other hand it minimizes the natural space of human function.
Thus, science and technology have an unimaginable evolutionary impact.
No less
important, the humanitarian challenge arises from the fact that the
capitalistic system of liberal life has brought life to fantastic imaginary
bubbles. There is some degree of validity in Fukuyama's classic, a quarter-century
ago, about the dangers of a single system post socialism collapse in Cold War
struggles. There is also some validity about the liberal-Westerm
dichotomy with Huntington’s version of Islamic puritanism. Both ideas
dissolving into capitalism thesis and becoming a silent, expansive force with
massive trampling capability. It also subconsciously able to beautifully
packaging humanity as a commodity and sorting it then divided on prices.
Finally,
universal humanity is experiencing challenges and even serious threats from the
spread of terrorism, drug abuse, bleak possibilities of WMD based war, the
spread of infectious diseases such as AIDS, and so on. It's time for humanity now to matrix the
equality of fate to cover a leaky hole in a boat that is being shared.
Proposal
It will be marvelous if the important symbolic steps above can be if taken seriously by both
parties together. The fundamental thing is mutual “juxtapose” the nature
of human fraternity itself. This,
can be then, followed by socializing and application among the
"elite" of religion so that the echo could even be transmitted to the
most basic grass roots. With that, religionist and their adherents would be
able to shift to the same awareness in responding to humanitarian challenges as
an inherent responsibility.
In the above
conditions, efforts to safeguard the earth from damage will meet with the
increasing quality of humanity. As the result they will be able to become wise controllers of
the mercy from the revolutionary of science and technology. In fact, both of
these met in balance between the gentle nature of human care and the wildness
of liberal market practices.
At this point,
human race always strives to stand on its humanity as the controller of various
"tools" and to not get lost on its intoxicating seduction. Finally,
challenges and threats should be responded by the construction of wise
character as a manifestation of "spirit" being maintained by the
Supreme Creator. Thus terrorism, drug abuse, WMD-based war, and the spread of
AIDS can be minimized.
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