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On the occasion of Religions Dialogue Week (first week of September), a religious discussion meeting was held in the Institute for Inter-religious Dialogue on Monday, September 1st. Hojjat-ol-Eslam Seyed Mohammad Abtahi (Head of the Institute) and Haroun Yashayaei (Head of Tehran Jewish Committee) were the lecturers in this meeting. In his lecture with the title of “Religious Reactions To Violence” Hojjat-ol-Eslam Abtahi emphasized the necessity of inter-religious dialogues, due to the growth of the violence made by religious motives. He identified radicalism and not religion as the main cause of these violent actions, since religion does not have a philosophy and target except peace. Abtahi called the crisis of religious violence as the worst kind of violence. Due to non-existence of after-death element, in different kinds of non-religious violence, because of hope for life, the violent actions are likely to stop somewhere. But in religious violence, these violent actions are unlikely to end and stop due to penetration of spiritual and unworldly in the crisis. “ Common values, and moral and spiritual principles of the religions” was the title of the lecture made by Haroun Yashayaei. He focused on the religious moral principles around the following three areas: 1- Acceptance of Divine Religion 2- Moral Rationality 3- Social conventions Yashayaei identified the moral principles in all common religions being almost the same, notwithstanding the difference in their execution. Mentioning the first clause of the Old Testament’s 10 Commandments, including the necessity of human freedom, the head of Tehran Jewish Committee identified any radical violence as opposite to this religious order and Divine blessing. Later in this meeting, in which Moslem and Jewish thinkers and scholars from other religions had taken part, discussions were made over the two lectures made. Participants in the discussion focused on the amalgamation of rationality with religion, taking into consideration the title “Religious Morality.” g |
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