Source: Times Colonist
Religion needs to be "a force for healing, uniting, loving and giving rather than anything else. When it's a force for division and hatred, then it's a desecration of the divine," says Victoria Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein.
Unfortunately, the hatred all too often gets the upper hand, he says.
So is religion dead?
Representatives of seven major religions will get an intellectual and spiritual workout answering that question tomorrow in Victoria at the World Religions Conference. And they're hoping the public will turn out for some answers.
Vancouver Sikh representative Puran Singh Gill does not accept the notion that religion is dead. But the dignity of humans should be central to believers despite differences in the way they worship, he says.
In order to make religion more relevant, leaders of all faiths should become more active in protecting the human rights of all people, he says.