Dear Radot,
Thank you for your letter about approach in knowing religion. After reading your letter, I now try to focus on understanding core beliefs of each religion if I want to understand each.
My next question is about the starting point. Where should I start if I want to understand religion? Is there any principle that I may follow? It will be a great lesson if I know this starting point.
Warm Regards,
Hildegard
Dear Hildegard,
I am very pleased to hear that you now understand a proper approach when talking about religion. I will answer your question about the starting point.
The starting point to understand religion is a great question. Actually, great theologians recommend that we start from God Himself. I am actually in favor with their opinion. You may not accept this. But, let’s try to understand this great subject bit by bit. I would like you to follow the logic and sequence so that finally we know the starting point as recommended by great theologians.
The first question we should ask is about ourselves; the simple one is ‘Who are we? Where do we come from? These questions are relatively easy to answer. But, if we keep asking, there is a lot of questions that may arise. To this question, you may say ‘I am Hildegard. I am a teenager; I am from United States o f America.’ Even to these simple statements, there are possibly questions that may arise. One may ask a question, ‘which Hildegard is she?’ Does she have a character of Hildegard of Bingen that lived in the 12th century? Other questions, where is the United States of America located? How big its country is? What is the population? Who is her ancestor?
To question ‘who are we?- we could answer, ‘we are from our mother’s womb; we are the product of our father and mother.’ Some chromosomes of our father and mother are in our body? But still there is a question to that? How one becomes a man or woman? Who are in control to make a man or a woman? These questions could invite long debate.
Let’s follow the logic of our question; where did we come from? We will say that we are from out father and mother. Then, we ask question again, ‘where my father and mother did come from? We will answer again they came from their own father and mother. Where their father and mother did come from? We will say that they come from their grandfather and grand mother, and we ask the same question to their grand-grand father and mother and then at certain point, we don now who they are. Now we ask a question, how the first man and woman did exist in this world? This is a big question.
Answers to this question could be many, but to make it short, there is a book that clearly explains our existence. Christianity called it the Holy Book or the Bible. It consists of 66 books; 39 of them were written in the Old Testament; 27 of them were written in the New Testament. So, the answer to our basic question could be found and only be found on the Bible; no other books that could give a comprehensive answer about the origin of man. Other books just make us confused, but the Bible make it clear; woman was made from man and man was made from dust. It makes it clear where the root of our existence is. It tells everything we need to know about life.
I hope you have that Book. If not, try to buy one from a close bookstore. Please try to get to know and read that Book.
Regards,
Radot
