Austria (Muhammad Amir Siddique)On Thursday, July 8, 2021, 7:30 p.m. The online conference “Paths to Reconciliation Contributions of religions to personal and social peace” was held by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF Austria),
together with the Family Federation for World Peace, About 200 people participated in the webinar through Zoom and other social media. Afterwards, the webinar received more than 2,000 views on YouTube and other social media. The moderator of the webinar, Family Federation for World Peace, President Elisabeth Cook spoke about the people whose conscience is fueled by a relationship with God, or Allah, or a supreme being (who may be called differently by different religions) have enormous potential in not only setting the standard of morality in society but also to be real peacemakers. She said our society today is characterized by numerous tensions and divisions, be it between political parties, religions or situations that shape our everyday life. Where can we find a hierarchy of values that meets the needs of all people and enables solutions that are sustainable and beneficial? Aren’t the religions especially called upon to discover our common roots, to put disputes about rituals and dogmas aside and to settle conflicts from the past in a spirit of reconciliation? Moderator said i want to get to the bottom of these questions in our online conference. Speakers at the meeting were among those who expressed their views, Universal Peace Federation (UPF Austria) President Mr Peter Haider, Dr Roger Wüst, Dornbacher Ecumenical Round, Mr Gottfried Hutter, theologian, psychotherapist and author (Honorable Peace) and Mag. Markus Gerhold, Evangelical Pastor, Parish Steyr. Expressing their views, the speakers said all religions are different. We are from the same Lord, and our base is identical. We must preserve the morality of the people.“We, by the will of the Almighty, are endowed with essence, a soul, and we must not dissolve in this environment today, we must unite. All these things are the moral bonds of our country. We call on all religious people to unite. We have one platform, we have one country, we have one people, and today we are most responsible for those young souls who are losing their orientation today. We would like us to unite and think about what we want, where we are going, what we want to do to strengthen our youth so that in the future there will be no inclinations in this direction. More speakers said “Religion penetrates many zones of human activity and occupies one of the leading positions in them. A person makes decisions based on religiosity and conscience. Even atheists who do not recognize the presence of higher powers, in moments of despair seek intercession from higher powers. Every citizen has guarantees of freedom of development and freedom of speech; we have no restrictions on religion. We are very similar because we have many common traditions. The strength of our people lies in dialogue. It is in dialogue that we must develop and grow. We have many values—respect for elders, care for others. This is inherent in each of us. These moral values allow us to see like-minded people in each other. Following this dialogue, it becomes clear that all our interreligious strife does not occur because of the difference in religions, but from completely different things that have nothing to do with faith. They are trying to tie religious laws to extremism, but faith has nothing to do with it. would like to get to know each other better, get acquainted with the faith of other people, and find common ground. Here we will meet like-minded people and friends. Such dialogues contribute to the development of trust in each other. If we want to preserve our country and give a good experience to our descendants, we must unite. Our ancestors united and performed heroic deeds. Many of them are glorified as saints and are our intercessors before God. More speakers said We can unite through religion, unite our culture, unite our common efforts. All these centuries have shown that we live and have lived together in peace and harmony. We need to keep these traditions and try not to deviate from them. “With the help of dialogue, statements of wise, important words, you can reach out to young people and convey an important mission to them. There is a very useful experience when priests meet together at roundtables, among young people, on holidays, and talk about values.“We are all people, we are all born in the same way, we suffer from the same diseases, we all die; what should divide us? They are examples of how to follow the path. They were religious people, but they conveyed wise values. On the shoulders of the clergy lies the responsibility to convey these wise words. We must show by our behaviour that the world of spirituality is what we need for a happy and prosperous life—not wealth, not money, but inner peace, the harmony of the soul. For the material world not to close the world of spirituality, we need to remind our young generation so that they do not confuse these two concepts. The world of spirituality is much more significant than the material world. Of course, we need the material world, but we do not need to go there headlong and forget about morality and ethics. We can harm with body, speech and mind. We need to make sure that our body, speech and mind do not harm living beings.”Religion is a union with God. This can only be by the religions that are close to our people. A sect is when they take one quote and attach their ideology to it. After a lively discussion among the speakers, answering questions from the audience, the conference closed “Paths to Reconciliation Contributions of religions to personal and social peace”.
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