IS INTERFAITH VIABLE?

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

In today's realm in which one's religion is superior to another person's religion has bred friction and very little if any commonality. We have read the expression "love your neighbor as yourself" but in many cases we acknowledge it does not apply to us personally.

Lets discuss ways we can bring about peace without conversions and ways we can get along with each other.

It's an utopian vision and may not be reality . But things can improve only with great vision in minds . Without any visions we land nowhere.

Inter faith goodwill can be improved if
1. state uses faith neutral yet ethical language in its dealing with citizens and other states . This has been done in US for printing "In God we trust" on US currency , making it official motto of state . Of course , there is lot more state can and should do .

2. Educationists draft education to provide faith neutral ethical education while also teaching each faith respectfully to those who want to learn it .

3. Religious leaders trying to reach out to other religion's leader and finding commonalities of concepts and principles and encouraging followers to participate in the festivals of other faith.

4. Followers / devotees at individual level encourage and support leaders with above 3 points and follow them sincerely.

Such steps also include increasing goodwill with people who may not be having any faith or so to say are non-believers as the aforesaid orientations will definitely take care of them as well protecting their freedom not to believe or have faith .

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by ketzer

@BigJohn

"Most people become very defensive of their beliefs. For example of a belief: "What happens after death?"

Death is a very mortal fear, fear is very uncomfortable, it makes me want to find a place to escape and hide. How does one hide from a concept in ones mind such as death? If I find a belief to avoid such discomfort and fear of death, then I suppose any attack on that belief will make me rather uncomfortable. If I have a nice lazyboy recliner to watch my movie from, will I not resist if someone seeks to displace me into a kitchen chair. Of course not all beliefs are so consequential in the mind, yet there are many other beliefs surrounding and holding up that one. Perhaps when someone starts questioning my belief system, I just might feel it is best to nip things in the bud. ??

@Gem
Perhaps then, many religions can live in one house, only if they all have their own rooms. When we meet around the dinning room table, we must leave our religions back in their rooms. To eat in harmony, we discuss something other than our religions, IDK... maybe politics, or spirituality concepts. ...

Key to inter-faith goodwill is to find the commonalities of each faith and to increase awareness of other faiths knowledge. General reason why people fear other religions is they lack knowledge of other religions and they fear their identity will loose due to interfaith interactions .

Now if u examine almost all religion , we will find substantial precepts are same like speak truth , protect weaker ,be honest . So people believing in interfaith goodwill must first find all these principles and laws themselves and express in faith neutral language . Such people still are not leaving their religion in any way . And mind these common factors form major part of life than mere superficial differences of worship , concepts , attire and food .

Now here we raised the question what happens after life . Now each religion has discussed about in after life in one way or another . Apparently if you go by letter , there is great difference in it and there does not appear a meeting point . If however you see the spirit of all these writings , you will notice substantial commonality that spirit remains even after death . All religions are unanimous that death is not the end of the spirit and it all-pervasive . So this lets us build strong bridges between people of different faith without getting into superiority / inferiority of any religions and yet making core principles of spirituality infallible and bring it alive in the lives of people with greater ease n faith in the same. Here we are underlining common factor , making it known as common law and leaving the trivia differences to dissenters . People of each faith must be made to understand people of other faith accepting their core principle (in this case life after death ) are far better than people of their own faith not believing and violating such core principle and love such interfaith people is to worship their own Gods .

Other thing is lot of misconceptions prevail with respect to other faiths. This can only be dispelled with continuous interaction with love and respect for each other especially at the level of religious leaderships . Religious followers should not feel they betray their own path of salvation while loving interfaith people and at the same time they learn that there may be another path to salvation just as theirs . It does not make one superior/inferior as the goal is one . Religious leaders must encourage as part of their sermons the learnings and teachings of great characters of other traditions without loosing any of their great teachings .

Indeed in India we do have Hindu groups (albeit on a smaller scale) reach out to Christian and Muslim community on their festival with good will messages and greetings and invite them to Hindu festivals . Of course lot needs to be done in this directions .

Originally Posted by HITESH SHAH

Key to inter-faith goodwill is to find the commonalities of each faith and to increase awareness of other faiths knowledge. General reason why people fear other religions is they lack knowledge of other religions and they fear their identity will loose due to interfaith interactions .........

Indeed in India we do have Hindu groups (albeit on a smaller scale) reach out to Christian and Muslim community on their festival with good will messages and greetings and invite them to Hindu festivals . Of course lot needs to be done in this directions .

Many good points, two in particular bring a question(s) to mind. Is an open mind in the midst of a sea of different ideas about faith a threat to ones religion? And if so, who is really the one with something to lose?

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by ketzer

Many good points, two in particular bring a question(s) to mind. Is an open mind in the midst of a sea of different ideas about faith a threat to ones religion? And if so, who is really the one with something to lose?

............ but then, can a person walk in many streams?
Sure.
............ what prevents a person from walking in many streams?
Them self!

Originally Posted by BigJohn

............ but then, can a person walk in many streams?
Sure.
............ what prevents a person from walking in many streams?
Them self!

The rain finds its way back to the ocean by flowing through through the channels available to it from where it falls. At the headwaters, each branch has its own name, but from the standpoint of the ocean, there is only the one river. We humans think we are so smart and try to damn it up and alter its course along the way, but often we end up creating more problems then we solved. Much easier to let the water find its own way. But you can't tell that to the Army Core of Engineers, they are only recently starting to realize that more engineering and funding are not always the best answer.

This made me think of a clip from one of my favorite stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58t8lAw5lEY

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by ketzer

The rain finds its way back to the ocean by flowing through through the channels available to it from where it falls. At the headwaters, each branch has its own name, but from the standpoint of the ocean, there is only the one river. We humans think we are so smart and try to damn it up and alter its course along the way, but often we end up creating more problems then we solved. Much easier to let the water find its own way. But you can't tell that to the Army Core of Engineers, they are only recently starting to realize that more engineering and funding are not always the best answer.

This made me think of a clip from one of my favorite stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58t8lAw5lEY

NICELY SAID!

Nice analogy.

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[Gem]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

And of the continual religious conflicts on Earth, how much effort was ever taken the barriers of religious animosity?
It appears you acknowledge that religious animosity does not work. What does a person loose in trying to break down this barrier?

If you break the barriers the religions fade away because it was by creating the barrier that religion is formed. Liken it to nations where we draw lines on the globe to distinguish one nation from another, without which there will be no way of warring between nations, but also, there would be no nations to speak of at all. The religious borders are not drawn on the ground but are of the same arbitrary form, yet exist within national borders and also cross them, but the first essence of a religion is separation from humanity as a whole. Then we can say "I am a Christian (and you are not)". This is the essential structure of symbolic structures, and rather than me being a dualist, I merely point how these symbolic structures are fundamentally founded on dual paradigms.

We do have to see our own religions as good, so the bad has to be situated externally as a reference to said goodness, and because these are the one and same symbol, the evil is continuously encroaching upon the good. Then we want to destroy the evil, thinking doing so is good, but actually, we are merely creating more evil in that act because we wish to define our own goodness, and therein is the battle.

If there was one church, it would not take long for it to splinter into two, and then into more sects and then into more. There is constant division in the psyche you see since we separated ourselves from humanity and called ourselves Christians, Jews and all the others.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Gem

If you break the barriers the religions fade away because it was by creating the barrier that religion is formed. Liken it to nations where we draw lines on the globe to distinguish one nation from another, without which there will be no way of warring between nations, but also, there would be no nations to speak of at all.

The problem as I 'see' it, is liken to 'good' vs 'bad' paradigm. I am not a judge and besides, what criteria would be used to distinguish a 'good' religion vs a 'bad' religion? And then there is the other factor: are not all religions inherently 'good'? For example, is it true that Buddhism is inherently 'good'?

But then, has there been religions in our past (history) that were tolerant even to the point of accepting other religions?

[Gem]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

The problem as I 'see' it, is liken to 'good' vs 'bad' paradigm. I am not a judge and besides, what criteria would be used to distinguish a 'good' religion vs a 'bad' religion? And then there is the other factor: are not all religions inherently 'good'? For example, is it true that Buddhism is inherently 'good'?
But then, has there been religions in our past (history) that were tolerant even to the point of accepting other religions?

To say it is good with no bad is to enter the imaginary, which is what religions do, but since it has to be verifiable to be believed the bad is necessary in the same way as down is necessary for up. This means the idea that your religion is good necessitates a bad, and these are not separate things, but the one-and-same symbolic structure.

The initial separation is when a person through their claim I am (insert religious identity here) separates himself from humanity as a whole. Through people doing that we end up with the numerous sects we see today, and all of these sects have to site the bad somewhere, so they site it in the 'other' from whom they initially separated themselves. The problem is, the religious identity is delusional, people just made it up, and it cannot be observed in nature. IOW, it is a symbolic structure which is fabricated by the mind. If we saw of ourselves how we reaffirm this thought pattern, we'd see it as only a thought which can't be considered as important. They have to take the structure, the story, the symbol to-be-true to invest all that importance in it. They become unable to let it go and will do anything to maintain it.

In Buddhism this has to be regarded as delusion because there is no permanent entity. There can not possibly be a religion that endures from one moment to the next and endures time according to Buddhist philosophy. However, the Buddhist faith does the same as any other religion and fabricates a network of symbols with which to identify.

Then we get people of the same race, such as those living in Srilanka, but some are Buddhist and some are Hindu, and each sites the bad on the other because that is necessary for each of their symbols - it's how the symbols are made just like up and down are made, but actually, there is no Hindu nor Buddhist observable in nature. There is no genetic material. There is no Buddhist breath nor a Hindu breath. Just people breathing.

You see, these things do not exist apart from the imaginings of Men, and if we were to see reality as it is, religious identity could not withstand the gaze, and hence, we need to remain distracted by thoughts, repeat rituals, wear the costumes, continue to reconstruct the signs and temples and statues to convince ourselves these thing are actual things that carry on through time.


If you can name me any major religion that has a conflict free history, then make your case. History is filled with religious conflict, and I'm just explaining why, and illustrating how people what to have their religions and also peace, but religious identity and violence go hand in hand.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

But then, has there been religions in our past (history) that were tolerant even to the point of accepting other religions?

Originally Posted by Gem

If you can name me any major religion that has a conflict free history, then make your case. History is filled with religious conflict, and I'm just explaining why, and illustrating how people what to have their religions and also peace, but religious identity and violence go hand in hand.

All I asked was, if history records religions that were tolerant to the point of accepting other religions.

You came back, apparently only wanting to hear of only major religions that meet that criteria. As you are fully aware, no major religions meet that criteria.
If you change your mind, and open the search for all religions, I will provide you with that information.

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