Category: Religion

Manifestos that support religious or spiritual beliefs

Don Miguel Ruiz – The Four Agreements

Creator

Don Miguel Ruis is the author of The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. This book has sold more than 8 million copies in the US and has been translated into 46 languages worldwide.

Purpose

Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the Four Agreements offers a code of conduct to help you transform your life and bring happiness and love. These agreements are the ones we make with ourselves, with others, with God and with life itself.

Don Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements book cover

Manifesto

1 Be impeccable with your word
The most important and most difficult agreement to honor – Choose your words carefully and be responsible for what you say.

2 Don’t take anything personally
This agreement helps to limit the impact of hurtful treatment by others in life.

3 Don’t make assumptions
Instead of assuming what you belief, ask questions to avoid suffering.

4 Always do your best
Bring the first three agreements together to live to your full potential.

Source

https://www.miguelruiz.com/the-four-agreements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Agreements

Comment

I love the simplicity of this – four agreements – four simple things to do each and every moment of each and every day.

The great challenge with simplicity is that it takes time and effort to distill your idea down to its core principles.

As Mark Twain once said: ”If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready today. If you want me to speak for just a few minutes, it will take me a few weeks to prepare.”

Worth the effort!

Also, notice the word ‘agreement’. These are not laws, rules, guides, commandments, principles or pillars.

What you call your manifesto is crucial – it sets the tone and flavour for how to relate to it.

In this case, ‘agreements’ is totally consistent with a manifesto with the intent of promoting ‘personal freedom’.

It says, ‘you are free to agree to this, or not’. It just wouldn’t work or have the same meaning if they were commandments.

More

Yvonne Collier – Manifesto for Life

Chris Guillebeau – The Art of Non-Conformity

Todd Henry – Die Empty

Five Pillars of Islam

Creator

The Five Pillars of Islam are an adopted set of practices and beliefs that evolved over many years. While they are alluded to in the Quran, it is believed they were not formally in place during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad.

Purpose

The Five Pillars are the ritual obligations for living a Muslim life. They are considered to be the duties of a Muslim.

While the Sunni and Shia agree on the essential details for the performance and practice of these acts, the Shia to do not refer to them by the same name. (Wikipedia).

Five Pillars of Islam - The Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca
Photo by Adli Wahid on Unsplash

Manifesto

The first pillar is Shahada or the expression and declaration of faith. This is said five times a day during prayer. Muslims recite: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God”.

The second pillar is Salat or prayer. Five times a day a Muslim faces Mecca and performs a physical type of prayer known as a prostration which involves having the forehead, nose, both hands, knees and all toes touching the ground together. The prayer includes silent or spoken versus from the Quran.

The third pillar is Zakat or alms giving to charity. Muslims give a certain amount of their income to support the Islamic community. This is a purification process that acknowledges that all things belong to God.

The fourth pillar is Sawm or fasting. Ramadam is the holy month in the Islamic calendar and is when fasting takes place. A Muslim fasts between sunrise and sunset and it includes abstaining from food, sex and smoking. The purpose is to remind Muslims that all individuals equally need the assistance of Allah.

The fifth pillar is Hajj or pilgrimage. At some point during one’s life, a Muslim is expected to travel to Mecca during the 12th month of the lunar cycle. The hajj is to express your devotion to God.

Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Pillars_of_Islam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sujud

Comment

Religions are something you do.

This manifesto reinforces this viewpoint with a series of rituals – practices with meaning.

While the Quran is the written form of Islam, it is through these practices that Muslims are able to live their faith.

Each of the five pillars has a specific meaning that link the action to a celebration of their faith.

Notably, it starts with a five times daily declaration of your faith through Shahada. You might like to compare this to forming a daily habit – practicing it regularly builds the emotional and neurological connection.

The Five Pillars also has rituals expressed in different timeframes in different ways. For instance, Shahada is daily, Ramadam is once a year and the pilgrimage to Mecca is once in a lifetime.

More

The Bible – Ten Commandments

Wikipedia – Five Pillars

Michael Pollan – Food Rules

Ten Commandments of Chivalry

Creator

Leon Gautier was a French literary historian who lived from 1832 to 1897.

Gautier’s Ten Commandments were written in the 19th century even though the various codes of conduct he wrote about were created between 1170 and 1220.

Purpose

The Chivalry code was intended to guide the behaviour of knights during the Middle Ages.

It was applied to men of noble standing or ancestry who were capable of equipping themselves with a war horse and a cavalry of supporting riders.

The world ‘chivalry’ means ‘horsemanship’ in Old French. The Italian word is ‘cavalry’.

Chess fans will note that the ‘knight’ or armoured cavalry is typically represented as a horse’s head and neck.

Photo by Andriy Boechko on Unsplash

Manifesto

Gautier’s Ten Commandments of chivalry are:

  1. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions.
  2. Thou shalt defend the Church.
  3. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.
  4. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.
  5. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy
  6. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.
  7. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.
  8. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word.
  9. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone
  10. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.

Note: The use of old English – not quite how we speak or spell words today.

Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Gautier

http://www.medieval-spell.com/Medieval-Code-of-Chivalry.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalry

Comment

The most interesting thing with regard to this manifesto is the gap between the living of the Chivalry code in the Medieval period and the six hundred plus years before it was written down and published by a historian.

Given the tight knit and elite community of knights in the medieval period, an oral manifesto clearly was effective.

In contrast, in our current social media world, the balance has swung in the opposite direction – if it is not published online then it effectively doesn’t exist.

It is perhaps no surprise that it is written in the classic Bible style of the Ten Commandments given its strong religious tone.

This connection between knights and their ‘war horses’ reminds us of the strong influence that religion had on the politics of the time.

More

The Bible: Ten Commandments

The Eight Virtues of Bushido

Miyamoto Musahi – 21 Rules to Live Your Life

The Ten Commandments

Holy Bible - Christianity and Judaism

Creator: Published in the Bible and said to be spoken by God to the people of Israel.
Purpose: A moral foundation and guide for living in Judaism and Christianity.

Manifesto

The Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish (Talmudic), Anglican and Orthodox Christians have slightly different versions of the Ten Commandments. This a combination of these versions.

  1. I am the Lord your God
  2. You shall have no other gods before me / You shall not make for yourself an idol
  3. Do not take the name of the Lord in vain
  4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
  5. Honour your father and mother
  6. You shall not kill / murder
  7. You shall not commit adultery
  8. You shall not steal
  9. You shall not bear witness against your neighbour
  10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife / You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

Genesis: The Bible Creation Story

Holy Bible - Christianity and Judaism

Creator: The work of many people over many centuries.
Purpose: A manifesto that explains the way the world was created and the role of man and woman in that world. It becomes a framework for living for followers of Judaism or Christianity.

Manifesto

The Creation Story Summary:

The seven steps in which God created with world…

  • Day 1 – God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light “day” and darkness “night.”
  • Day 2 – God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it “sky.”
  • Day 3 – God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters “seas.” On day three, God also created vegetation (plants and trees).
  • Day 4 – God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth and to govern and separate the day and the night. These would also serve as signs to mark seasons, days, and years.
  • Day 5 – God created every living creature of the seas and every winged bird, blessing them to multiply and fill the waters and the sky with life.
  • Day 6 – God created the animals to fill the earth. On day six, God also created man and woman (Adam and Eve) in his own image to commune with him. He blessed them and gave them every creature and the whole earth to rule over, care for, and cultivate.
  • Day 7 – God had finished his work of creation and so he rested on the seventh day, blessing it and making it holy.

Sources

Transcript: http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/creationstory.htm

General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_according_to_Genesis

Scripture Reference: Genesis 1:1-2:3

The Christian and Judaism Bible

Holy Bible - Christianity and Judaism

Creator: The work of many people over many centuries.
Purpose: The Bible contains a collection of stories and lessons for living for followers of Judaism or Christianity.

Manifesto

The Bible

The Bible is a collection of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity. The following are various stories or lessons that are commonly included in a range of Bible versions.

  • Genesis: The Creation of the World
  • Noah Ark and the Flood
  • The Birth of Jesus
  • The Tower of Babel
  • Sodom and Gomorrah
  • The Ten Commandments
  • The Battle of Jericho
  • Samson and Delilah
  • David and Goliath
  • Jesus Walks on Water
  • The Bread and the Fish
  • The Last Supper
  • The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ
  • The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Sources

General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible
Who Wrote the Bible?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible
Stories Within the Bible: http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/tp/biblestorysummaries.htm