Hi everybody,
What do you think is the biggest enemy to tolerance in the world?
Shalom
Bob
Hi Bob,
Sure, go ahead and open up that can of worms!
I guess I would start by saying that I’ve found nothing in the basic tenets of any world religion or eastern philosophy that doesn’t stress tolerance as a virtue.
It seem’s to me that there are two primary causes of religious intolerance.
The first is interpretation. The vision and utterances of the prophets of each of the major religions got lost in the “what he meant by what he said” syndrome that accompanies all religions. The Message get’s buried under the commentary. I’ve always been amazed that the message brought by Jesus of Nazareth managed to come through in spite of the NT - not because of it.
The second cause is really just an extension of the first. Once people begin to accept commentary as “truth”, then those who would twist “holy scripture” to their own ends emerge and that is the end of tolerance.
I suppose there are some other factors that add to the problem. For some people or even some cultures, exclusiveness is seen as positive. This doesn’t help a concept like tolerance, which need’s inclusiveness in it’s make up.
As we have discussed before, abject poverty short-circuits even addressing the question. Starving people will tolerate anyone who feeds them and are intolerant of anyone who threaten’s their food supply. (much like the West’s view of anyone who threaten’s our oil supply)
Could all religions return to their basic beliefs of kindness and tolerance?
Possibly. All at the same time? Possibly. Is it likely? Nah.
Waiting for a ‘second coming’, I remain,
JT
(see post below)
It is in man’s nature to look out for his own interest.
Could we say it is in an institution’s nature to look out for its own interest?
Now what if a religious institution’s interest turned out, (when weighed in the balance,) to be worldly/immoral as opposed to spiritual/moral?
Might this not naturally provide the fertile ground conditions that would suit/favour conflict scenarios?
The biggest enemy of religious tolerance comes from tolerance itself- it’s the wrong-headed idea that in order to tolerate a religion, you have to break it down, strip it to it’s essentials, and make it look like something you are familiar with. In other words, the old “Religions should tolerate each other because they are all basically the same” routine. No fundamentalist or orthodox member of any religion will ever stand for that- they percieve it as a loss of identity, and often have extreme reactions.
Uccisore,
I agree. These are the people who are exclusionary, but in all religions there are followers who are capable of, and understand the need for inclusionary cooperation. To be sure, they are the few, but they are there, looking for common ground with other religions. Typically, they are shouted down and buried by the dogmatists in their own religion, but that doesn’t mean that it will always be so.
My skepticism says it is highly unlikely, but religions united on common ground for the well being of their followers is possible. It may take a worldwide catastrophic event to force people to pay attention long enough to find ways of coming together, but it remains possible.
On a speculative note, how many more school children will we have to slaughter before there is a communal awakening to the need for cooperation? How many more Darfurs?
JT
Lack of religious tolerance stems from a misinterpretations of religious myths. Most religions use the tool of myth to explain the unexplainable. It is not the mythological story that has importance but the message within that matters. When we lose sight of this important perspective we begin to worship the messenger instead of the message. We put more importance in pieces of paper then in spiritual growth. True morality and tolerance comes not from obedience to religious or political authority but from a deeper spiritual perspective. A perspective which says there is only one consciousness in the universe, that of god. When I look into the eyes of my neighbor or my enemy I see my own reflection. God is experiencing existence though my eyes, your eyes and the eyes of all living creatures. Morality and tolerance is not a discipline to be practiced, it is the path of least resistance we should follow. It is the logical path. As long as man has the perspective that he is separate from god and separate from one another, there will always be strife, immorality, intolerance and suspicion.
SideShowBob
Your posts are among the best and wisest on this forum. I absolutely endorse what you say here, (also much of what you say elsewhere!)
My point is, the dogmatists are the ones practicing the religion [i]as it really is[/i]. The people who are looking for acceptance and tolerance end up distorting their beliefs and the beliefs of others into something they aren't in order to force compatibility. I'm somewhat orthodox myself- I don't appreciate someone telling me "Jesus doesn't matter, Moses doesn't matter, Heaven and Hell don't matter, all that matters is the part about treating people nice, and until you accept that you'll never get along with religion X". If that's really what it takes, well, screw religion X. I'd prefer to believe, though, that I can keep the particularities of my religion sacred, and still believe in them, without anybody wanting to cut my head off for it, or vica versa.
phrygianslave the wise
Hey thanks for the kind words.
And right back at ya big guy! 
Hi JT,
I follow your meaning, but if that’s the case, how do we know that the message we deem as Christ’s message is indeed ‘his’ message? What tells us that Jesus was like, what his views were, when not the NT? I suspect that you mean that the Gospel message has survived in spite of Paul’s letters, the other Epistles and Apocalypse, which have become so prominent in the various Christian Theologies.
But then again, was he ‘tolerant’ or rather a conservative believer who pleaded for a renewal of faith and adherence to Torah and the Prophets in order to overcome the Roman occupation? His message, he has been recorded as saying, was for Israel, not for the ‘dogs’ (i.e. Goyim), which doesn’t sound too tolerant.
Hi phrygianslave the wise,
Of course this has happened in the past, but is it the cause of intolerance between the Religions? Why for example, was the andalusian harmony between three Religions possible over such a long time, only to be destroyed by Christianity? What is the cause of rivalry – is it the message itself? Christianity seems to have always had a strong missionary impulse, but what about Judaism and Islam?
Or is it the nature of the Religions, Christianity believing to have superseded Judaism, and Islam believing that both have betrayed the monotheistic faith of Abraham? There seems to be a lot of conflict potential, but what prevents is coming together on a secular level today?
And what about the eastern Religions, is there the possibility of someone being Christian and Taoist? Or Jew and Confucionist or Buddhist?
Hi Uccisore,
you seem to present conservative Christianity with your statement:
Isn’t Fundamentalism one of the problems between the Religions? Wouldn’t non-fundamentalists or non-orthodox find a common denominator far quicker than those who maintain their exclusive positions? You say they see it as a loss of identity, but isn’t practised Religion more about community on a common ethical foundation, and identity more about belonging to a specific group? If that were so, and we agreed to acknowledge each other, there could be tolerance between us.
Hi SideShowBob,
The problem is that we need to find out what would be the ‘correct’ interpretation – or could you imagine that most interpretations could be deemed ‘correct’ if they took the path of least resistance? I have problems with this, wouldn’t it be the ‘easy way out’ and couldn’t we in fact be just supplanting conflict into another time, instead of acknowledging that life is diversity and therefore Religion should be diversity?
Shalom
Bob
One of the problems is the attitude that, “We are right,” that further implies that anyone who disagrees is completely wrong. The division between the right and the wrong is the foundation of intolerance. This division combined with an attitude of superiority contributes to intolerance.
“Why should I tolerate them, they are wrong, and I am right.”
When a nation marches to war, propaganda always presents its version of the old line, “God is with us.” Which of course also means that God is against them whoever stands against us. Its any easy step from thinking, “They are wrong,†to thinking “They are evil.â€
To the self-righteous attitude add in the sense of monopoly on God. As soon as anyone claims a monopoly on God then it puts him or her into a defensive position.
Not to nit-pick, I would say that violence and hatred are the problems between the religions. Fundamentalism is only a problem if we resolve ourselves that violence and hatred must flow from it.
Certainly, because they are more willing to compromise or adjust the tenets of their religion to suit other people's wishes. Perhaps we ought to have a rigorous definition of 'fundamentalist' at this point? I'm taking it to mean "Someone who holds strictly to the original (or at least very old) dogmas of their particular religion".
No, and this is what I'm kind of railing against. Christianity is about the teachings of Jesus and the Church fathers, Islam is about the revelations of Muhammed, etc. etc. These teachings have much to say about community and ethics, but to say that that's what religion [i]is[/i], or that that's the only part we need to preserve, I have an issue with.
I think the point that I most want to make, is that if in order to achieve 'religious tolerance', religions have to abandon their doctrines, forsake their teachings, embrace things they don't believe, and etc., then it isn't [i]really[/i] religious tolerance. For example, if you believe that there can never be religious tolerance as long as there are people who believe in Hell, then odds are what you really want is one global religion- which is what many fundies want too.
[/quote]
So do you think that intolerance is essential for the integrity of a religion?
I would like to use a quote from Karen Armstrongs’s book, ‘The Battle For God’:
But before we proceed, we must look briefly at the term “fundamentalism” itself, which has been much criticized. American Protestants were the first to use it. In the early decades of the twentieth century, some of them started to call themselves “fundamentalists” to distinguish themselves from the more “liberal” Protestants, who were, in their opinion, entirely distorting the Christian faith. The fundamentalists wanted to go back to basics and reemphasize the “fundamentals” of the Christian tradition, which they identified with a literal interpretation of Scripture and the acceptance of certain core doctrines. The term “fundamentalism” has since been applied to reforming movements in other world faiths in a way that is far from satisfactory. It seems to suggest that fundamentalism is monolithic in all its manifestations. This is not the case. Each “fundamentalism” is a law unto itself and has its own dynamic. The term also gives the impression that fundamentalists are inherently conservative and wedded to the past, whereas their ideas are essentially modern and highly innovative. The American Protestants may have intended to go back to the “fundamentals,” but they did so in a peculiarly modern way. It has also been argued that this Christian term cannot be accurately applied to movements that have entirely different priorities. Muslim and Jewish fundamentalisms, for example, are not much concerned with doctrine, which is an essentially Christian preoccupation. A literal translation of “fundamentalism” into Arabic gives us usuliyyah, a word that refers to the study of the sources of the various rules and principles of Islamic law. Most of the activists who are dubbed “fundamentalists” in the West are not engaged in this Islamic science, but have quite different concerns. The use of the term “fundamentalism” is, therefore, misleading.
Others, however, argue simply that, like it or not, the word “fundamentalism” is here to stay. And I have come to agree: the term is not perfect, but it is a useful label for movements that, despite their differences, bear a strong family resemblance. At the outset of their monumental six-volume Fundamentalist Project, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby argue that the “fundamentalisms” all follow a certain pattern. They are embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis. They are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion itself. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. They fear annihilation, and try to fortify their beleaguered identity by means of a selective retrieval of certain doctrines and practices of the past. To avoid contamination, they often withdraw from mainstream society to create a counterculture; yet fundamentalists are not impractical dreamers. They have absorbed the pragmatic rationalism of modernity, and, under the guidance of their charismatic leaders, they refine these “fundamentals” so as to create an ideology that provides the faithful with a plan of action. Eventually they fight back and attempt to resacralize an increasingly skeptical world.
Shalom
Bob
I think that remains to be seen. What I [i]do[/i] think, is that many attempts at reaching religious tolerance have involved a giving up of integrity. What I also think, is that many people who claim to be working towards religious tolerance are actually just proselytizing their own views of relativism, and attempting to denounce and destroy other views.
It seem’s that tolerance or the lack thereof remain’s in the intent of the potential participants.
This is perhaps a side issue, but the ability to have tolerance would imply trust in the ‘good faith’ of all parties involved. Given history and the multitude of hidden agendas within every major religion, tolerance doesn’t seem likely.
Given current world affairs, where fear is used to govern, trust would seem to be a rare commodity. No trust, no tolerance.
JT
Bob
No this is not a problem. Interpretations can and should be as varied as there are practitioners of faith. It is the very acceptance of the idea that one’s religion is myth rather then fact that allow for this possibility. Theist do not bomb abortion clinics or hijack airplanes to preserve myth. They do it in defense and preservation of a dogmatic interpretation of scripture.
As far as I know God has sent messengers preaching humanity in most cultures. In fact I would say that according to God, HUMANITY would be the only religion that God advocates because ALL messengers have preached humanity. Therefore logically, no religion could be high or low. It’s only us who forget the basic reason why religion is there that we put all upon a weigh scale. But according to God there is only one religion and that’s humanity. I think people need to understand that. And when we all act in the name of humanity, how can we ever go wrong? We can’t!
So it’s only by being INHUMANE that we can ‘prevent tolerance between religions.’ Whatever…
Hi BeenaJain,
I quite like this idea because it portrays what I had long subscribed to, even though I found that my fellow Christians begged to differ. I saw the chief aim of Religon to show what humanity could be, showing the potential and the hope of harmony that is always in us somewhere.
It seemed to me that whatever reason we find for it, humankind has strayed from the path that would do us good. At some point in the past, people started realising that the idea of man as ‘a saint’, ‘a sage’, ‘righteous’, ‘just’ or whatever terminology we choose to use, was in fact throughout the varying cultures very similar. Indeed, as eight of the ten commandments are recognised almost everywhere.
With this widespread consense we could assume that this is ‘the spirit’ of humanity as it should be - an indication that it was ‘intended’, which we believe only a person can mean to do. Hence the idea of an ‘intender’ or God or world spirit or whatever. It seemed clear to me then, that such an idea could grow within cultures, forming traditions that are intended to support this thesis and show what being a human being, as against other forms of life, means.
This seemed to be confirmed by everything I read about Jesus, the Prophets, Buddha, Lao-tzu, and numerous followers of the founders of Religion. Everywhere I looked, it seemed to find affirmation. But then I was confronted by the conservative circles who accused me a perverting the truth, of making Christianity into just one of many Religions, and Christ into an archetype instead of a redeemer. All discussions on what a redeemer traditionally is and what common ground was available if we read between the lines were rejected and I was told not to read between the lines but believe what was written on the lines.
I have been very clearly ousted from conservative groups, even though my sermons are missed to this day - my wife works in a shop, where she is often visited and told that. It seemed to me that the form has dictated over the content in such a degree as to prevent any creative handling. In fact, that is what ‘inspiration’ was described as: a ‘dictation’ from heaven - a notion that was around in the middle ages but obviously still around today.
Today, I am an elder of our local parish, still very much a controversial and misunderstood person, because I can accept the mythical content as reliable truth and the liturgy and rituals as a means of expressing that truth, but I am also at home in rational thought and reason. It is the fact that I am at home in both that causes problems for people - something that seems to be a common fact for society today.
Reading Karen Armstrong’s book, quoted above, this has been the problem that has brought us into great difficulties today. In order to come to terms with modernity, people were called upon to sort their lives and differentiate between the hard logic of physical life, and the thought processes that help us grade experiences. Unfortunately, they were given little or no assistance with this task. The ‘scholars’ were more interested in their influence than the welfare of the people, despotic leaders sought short-termed profits, the power game was played, and very often the most progressive thinkers were accused of subversive tendencies.
This was so in Christianity, Judaism and Islam (read Karen Arnstrongs brilliant book). Effectively, the wars of modernity prevented the adaption of cultures to the new way of thinking - the twentieth century having prevented this adaption probably more than any century before. The loss of values in Europe has rendered us weak in comparison to the combined capitalist/ fundamentalist values of the present administration in America, and we are reeling dramatically. Britain was probably best able to adapt to the onslaught of globalisation - but at a cost. Mainland Europe, especially France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy - but also other EU countries are struggling similarly.
This all plays a role in finding a common denominator called ‘humanity’ - sorting out the physiological and psychological needs before going on to self-actualisation or spirituality.
Shalom
Bob