Chapter 60, Verse 8Islam encourages forgivenessThe religion of Islam encourages forgiveness. Muslim foreigners attempting to acquire Saudi Arabian nationality must convert to Islam. So the concept of God must be rooted not in reason but in emotion and the will. For example, put in writing the leg work that must be done prior to making a sales call, how you expect existing customers to be serviced, how you expect records to be maintained, how many calls should be made in a week, etc. Think through the entire sales process and detail how you want it to be done, what tools will be used, and your expectations for their results. I’ve been told that my art is the witness, but how does this work when most modern art buyers are after an emotion or feeling – isn’t that loyalty to self? Claims to ancient ori­gin and ulti­mate author­i­ty notwith­stand­ing, the world’s five major reli­gions are all of recent vin­tage com­pared to the cou­ple hun­dred thou­sand years or more of human exis­tence on the plan­et. But we know the broad out­lines: the world’s major reli­gions spread through impe­r­i­al con­quest and forced con­ver­sion; through cul­tur­al exchange of ideas and the adap­ta­tion of far-off beliefs to local cus­toms, prac­tices, and rit­u­als; through migrant and dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties mov­ing across the globe.

The spread of the “Big 5” reli­gions cor­re­sponds with the shift­ing of mass­es of humans around the globe as they formed the inter­con­nec­tions that now bind us all tight­ly togeth­er, whether we like it or not. We know reli­gions trav­eled back and forth through trade routes over land and sea and were trans­mit­ted by the painstak­ing trans­la­tion and copy­ing by hand of dense, lengthy scrip­tures. The argument is that long-distance trade opportunities confer differential gains to populations residing in the relatively more fertile regions, fostering predatory behavior from the poorly endowed ones. Some anthropologists believe that polygamy has been the norm through human history, though today polygamous marriages are more often responses to cultural attitudes, mortality rates, and agricultural needs than religious writings or teachings. However, Smith’s marriages were mostly not relationships in which cohabitation occurred. While it is rare in most Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East, some of the countries in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa report up to 30% of the population in polygamous marriages. This means that some Buddhist areas have commonly practiced monogamy, while others have favored forms of polygamy.

Shamain Webster, who lives in the suburbs outside of Dallas, has seen the signs of a coming apocalypse for a while now, just as the Bible foretold. Frederick II, who was the Prussian king for most of Kant’s adult life (from 1740 to 1786) was called both “Frederick the Great” and “the Enlightenment King.” Hume and Wolff were both Enlightenment philosophers, as was Kant himself, who published a sort of manifesto for the movement, called “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784). There he calls his an age of developing enlightenment, though not yet a fully enlightened age. Chignell and Pasternack develop their interpretations primarily by way of an analysis of texts where Kant discusses the relationship between belief, knowledge and opinion. Hinduism has a vast body of written scripture that discusses theology, mythology, and philosophy as well as providing important guidance on the practice of dharma, religious or right living. Falun Gong is a new religious movement founded in China by Li Hongzhi in the early 1990s. Riding on the qigong boom and initially enjoying support from Chinese officialdom, the movement was estimated to have 70 million practitioners in 1999. The Chinese government soon denounced the group as a cult and embarked on a nationwide crackdown.

The northwest (Brittany-Vendée), the east (Lorraine, Vosges, Alsace, Jura, Lyonnais, and the northern Alps), the north (Flanders), the Basque Country, and the region south of the Massif Central have a higher percentage of practicing Roman Catholics than the rest of the country. Myanmar, for example, did not outlaw the practice of having multiple wives until 2015. Similarly, Tibet was known for practicing polyandry, the practice of one wife having multiple husbands. As with many cultures that practice polygamy, the first or eldest wife was allotted special duties and powers over her husband’s other wives. In that case, the woman from the highest caste would be the chief consort and the wife who would perform religious rites with her husband. Of the other main religious groups: 817,000 people identified themselves as Hindu (1.5 per cent of population); 423,000 people identified as Sikh (0.8 per cent ); 263,000 people as Jewish (0.5 per cent ) and 248,000 people as Buddhist (0.4 per cent ). Polygamy is described and mentioned in numerous Hindu texts, and was a common practice among certain circles of the Indian elite until the 20th century, when India’s Parliament banned it for all Hindus. The most common groups were Pagan and Spiritualist, accounting for 57,000 people and 39,000 people respectively.