The Purpose of Religion

The Promised Messiah^as & Imam Mahdi (Guided One)
Founder of
THE REVIEW OF RELIGIONS
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as

The purpose of religion is that people should recognise the True God who created the world, love Him so much that every other love should grow cold in their hearts, be kind and compassionate towards His creatures, and strive to attain the utmost purity. This purpose is being neglected in this age and most people are practically following some form of atheism. They do not seem to be aware of the existence of God, and it is this lack of awareness that causes sin to be committed with more and more audacity. It is plain that unless we possess true knowledge about something, we cannot understand its worth and can neither love, nor fear it. All forms of love and fear and appreciation are born out of awareness, and the major cause of the profusion of sin in this age is man’s lack of awareness about his Creator. The sign which distinguishes a true religion from others is that it opens up for the believers many paths to knowledge and awareness about God, which causes them not only to desist from sin, but, when they have seen the beauty and glory of the Divine, to fall in love with Him so completely that to them even a moment of separation seems worse than the torments of Hell.^[1]

Endnotes

1. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as, Lecture Lahore, (Tilford, Surrey: Islam International Publications Ltd., 2008), 4-5.