the meaning of freedom in all religions

[dailogue is the best]

are we free? are we completly free? and what is the meaning of freedom in our own view? and can we be completly free?.....all these questions are usually encountering our minds and preocupe us. most of us see that freedom is to follow our desires and instincts and to respond to ourselves demands. yet, suddenly, we become aware that by doing this, we are not free, but on the contrary, we are slaves to ourselves.
through His prophets Moses, jesus and Muhammed and through his Holy messages Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God shows to us that the real freedom is to submit to the only one God and to fight ourselves demands for His sake. man cannot be completly free, he must be a slave of one direction either people, himself/herself or God.and because God is all Merciful, he directs us to worship Him only, to serve Him only, to fear Him only, to ask Him only so that we can be free from any psychological complexes like inferiority complex or superiority complex.
also, by being a servant of God only, and not ourselves, we are then directed to surpass our anger, our jeoulosy, our envy, our greediness and our evil in order to spread happiness and justice around us. experiencing these feeling is normal thing, but by surpassing them we proof that we are not slave to ourselves. we in fact must be free from all except God who directs us towards our best

[I, Brian]

Okay, I was going to bin this as witnessing, but I've moved it into the Monotheism area so it can be discussed a cross-religious piece, rather than be construed as a specific call to Islam.

[rasifnajeeb]

I would like to know what is the “freedom” that George Bush and co. keeps proclaiming. There is no complete freedom anywhere. I do not have freedom to drive my car at 150mph on a normal road. And nor do the Americans. I cannot go and sleep in my neighbour’s home without his permission. And an American also cannot do that.

So everywhere there is a limit to the freedom and rights. These limits are made by man. The beauty of Islam is that - limits have been set by the Creator on matters which cannot be left for man to judge.

For example, Islam is the only religion which advises to marry only one. But it goes further and puts an upper limit of four. Other religions have no upper limit. Man has put an upper limit of one. And man then goes and have one wife and countless mistresses.

[I, Brian]

Heh, different religions provide their own proscriptions on a range of matters - but whether their followers actual follow them is another.

[rasifnajeeb]

Exactly....
So do not judge Islam by looking at Muslims but by looking at the authentic sources - The Quran and the Hadeeth...

[seattlegal]

If you have to define "freedom," are you truly free? (You create a paradox by doing so.)

[pohaikawahine]

I don't know if I can explain my view on this very clearly, but I will try .... it is not based on a religious context, but on what I refer to as the ancient path of wisdom and knowledge ....


It is, in my view, the connection in almost all ancient traditions and religions .... how to move the internal energy within the body to open the brain to visions and revelations .... when one is able to do this and learns the "way" it is done the three hemispheres of the brain become One (this is in my view the description of the trinity .... the three that become One) .... one also opens up the center of the brain or what is sometimes called the "hall of records", the "place of all knowing", the "bridge to the world of spirit" etc .... my point is that once we return to this part of ourselves we achieve the ultimate mind-body connection and our capabilities are beyond what we experience now .... this, I believe, is the freedom we gave up when we went into the long sleep and fogot who we were .... so I believe that when we remember who we were, we will know who we are, and our sovereignty or freedom can never be taken away again. The problem today is that we spend so much time looking for power outside of ourselves, and all alone it has been right inside waiting for us to find that path to the mountaintop .... to achieve this requires that we return to the balance point and we will enter a new world, one of harmony and peace .... this is the meaning of freedom to me .... it is a path to God, it is a path to balance, it is Buddhism, it is Islam, it is the promised land of Israel .... we will live in balance and act in balance with our world and our universe .... then perhaps we will survive another seven generations .... he hawai'i au, pohaikawahine

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by rasifnajeeb

So everywhere there is a limit to the freedom and rights. These limits are made by man. The beauty of Islam is that - limits have been set by the Creator on matters which cannot be left for man to judge.

For example, Islam is the only religion which advises to marry only one. But it goes further and puts an upper limit of four. Other religions have no upper limit. Man has put an upper limit of one. And man then goes and have one wife and countless mistresses.

You can do anything but not everything is good for you and not everything is healthy.

For example, there is no divine law forbidding me from drinking poison or deliberately exposing myself to disease so that I get sick. I know, however, that poison and disease are not good for me, so I don't do it.

So perhaps God will stop me from drinking poison or getting sick deliberately by decreeing a law that tells me not to go near poison or sick people in case I get tempted into drinking poison or trying to catch a disease.

Some religions say we need limits, some religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, say we should need none.

Then there was Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, who also emphasised the need for virtue.

If a person doesn't need limits, he/she is a person of virtue because people don't need to impose limits on him/her. He/she does what is right because it's part of his/her character.

There's a saying: "wisdom is knowing what to do next, virtue is doing it."

If a person needs limits, he/she has problems with self-control.

In other words, that person is a law-breaker. Rules and laws were made to be broken, so if we have to set limits for a person, it's because that person is the kind of person who is always causing trouble and doing the wrong thing.

If you've got problems with self-control, you're in trouble no matter what your beliefs are. You're a danger to yourself and other people.

In this sense, I would agree with Dialogue is Best -- that we should not be slaves to the dark side of our human nature. No limits are needed. All we need is a liberation from the dark side of human nature. The notion of limits suggests that we are still slaves of our dark side and therefore still slaves of sin -- still under the power of sin.

Some of us keep within limits, others practice their virtue.

True freedom is where we do by instinct what is right without the need for limits.

Originally Posted by Dialogue is Best

we are then directed to surpass our anger, our jeoulosy, our envy, our greediness and our evil in order to spread happiness and justice around us. experiencing these feeling is normal thing, but by surpassing them we proof that we are not slave to ourselves