ASTANA - Did god create man in his image or was it the other way around, Israeli President Shimon Peres wondered while addressing a global faith conference that opened here Wednesday.
“Did god create man in his image or is man creating a god to suit his own image?” Peres asked during his address to the third Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions that Kazakhstan President Nurstultan Nazarbayev inaugurated.
“Only god, who created man, has the right to take a life. No one who cannot create life has the right to take life,” Peres, a co-winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, maintained.
“We must stand up and retract fanaticism. Their god is not our god, the god of killers is not our god,” he added.
He followed his words with perhaps the boldest offer Israel has yet made for peace with its Arab neighbours.
“I call on his excellency, the king of Saudi Arabia, to meet wherever you wish, in Jerusalam, in Riyadh, in this beautiful country of Kazakhstan; we will be able to realise your vision (of peace in the Middle East),” Peres said.
“We must stretch our hands one to another in a spirit of mutual commitment, with a prayer for peace and prosperity.
“Swords will be beaten into ploughshares and wars will forever be of the past. So let it be,” Peres added to deafening applause.
Referring to the venue of the Congress, the Israeli president said: “I must say I prefer the pyramid to the Tower of Babel.”
“With the Tower of Babel, we got nowhere, but here, in this pyramid, we can talk directly to god,” Peres said, glancing up toward the tip of the structure.
A nine-storey monument, the Palace of Peace and Concord rises more than 200 feet high and was specially built for the first meeting of world religions in 2003. The second edition was held in 2007.
“The decision to initiate the dialogue can serve as an example for rest of world - a world that seems to have forgotten we have been created by the same god,” Peres maintained.
At the end of the inaugural Congress, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Hindu and Tao leaders adopted a declaration stating: “Extremism, terrorism and other forms of violence in the name of religion… are threats to human life and should be rejected.”
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