Diálogo e sentido: vida espiritual e encontro inter-religioso na sociedade contemporânea

Abstract

In analyzing the development of modern society, we realize that despite all the economic and technological progress, society is experiencing a moment of spiritual crisis. The Brazilian context of globalization and plurality, added to the increasing demand   of    people   for  spiritual  and  religious  experiences,  makes living with religious diversity an urgent challenge. Therefore, the goal of this study is to reflect on the necessities and possibilities of the contemporany human being to find life meaning, and specially to understand how religions can contribute in favor of such ontological human movement. Despite all the means of communication that favor contact, the contemporary human being has become increasingly closed and intolerant in relation to diversity. We need to think about criteria for living with diversities that considers human beings in their entirety, and offers greater meaning and peace to humankind. Our hypothesis is that religions can contribute to the expansion of consciousness in relation to otherness, through dialogue amongst them and through cultivating caring for oneself, for others and for our common home. The premises of interreligious dialogue presupposes dialogical openness, humility, knowledge of self, recognition of otherness and, therefore, meets the human structure and our need to constitute ourselves as persons and to offer meaning to our existence from and through our relationships. As methodological procedure, preference was given to bibliographical review. At first we will contemplate the human structure in accordance to the perspective of phenomenological psychology. Thus highlighting the human being as a relational being, whose structures are based in living with otherness and in contact with the world, seeking for the meaning of existence. Then we will present the characteristics of contemporary society in relation to the axioms that sustain it and what are the consequences of this way of life in the understanding that human beings have of themselves, of others and the world. Finally, we will show the importance of the dialogue, particularly of interreligious dialogue in this context of plurality. And in view of the responsibility of religion in the construction of these bridges, reflect on how a dialogical praxis may favor the construction of human subjectivity and a coexistence within diversity that prioritizes caring for otherness.