What Prevents Tolerance Between Religions?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
21

In my estimations, there are three fundamental obstacles to religious tolerance:

  1. Dogma

  2. Lack of education

  3. Social inequality

In their own ways, each of these affect the extent to which individuals are intolerant of one another’s religious persuasions. Howoever, while levelling the playoing field on each of these aspects would undoubtedly lessen intoelrance, I think a certain degree of intolerance (let’s say residual intolerance) would persist anyway. That’s why the world is no (unblemished) garden of Eden!!

22

the biggest challenge I see to religious tolerance is religion. Religion by it’s very core (the majority at least) teach that if your not part of that religious group then you are condemned to hell. if your christian any non christian group needs “saved”. Eastern religions for the most part tend to be more tolerant except for Islam which I think is as intolerant and controlling as mormonism.

I tend to believe that the majority of people do things that they believe are right and good choices. mankind is inherently good you have to learn how to be violent, intolerant, etc. :wink:

23

I agree with scythekane…

To follow his point, religion doesn’t make the “live and let live” ideal possible. Because religion has strange ways of defining what hurts others. In other words, I might say “do it as long as it doesn’t hurt others.” What I define as “hurt” being a secular humanist, is very different than what Bin Laden defines as “hurt.” I.e., Bin laden’s intolerance stems from his belief that he is defending from those who do NOT ascribe to “live and let live,” because “infidels” are imposing cultural practices and messages on the souls of Muslims. As long as we don’t share an IDENTICAL version of what it means to “not let live” we will never have mutual religious tolerance. The reason these definitions are so wildly variant and arbitrary stems to the core of religion-based belief, the following of ancient doctrines, and turning your back on the Star Trek utopia that lies just around the corner of giving up all forms of belief that are unfounded. Let the debate rage on as to what is unfounded, for everything depends on it. All the premises of all the religions are unfounded. Some of the practices and metaphors are useful and salvageable, but they need to be named as such, and not to be taken as mandate.

24

Hi Bob, The short answer is Homo Sapiens. People are either not interested in the subject of religion or they approach it with their minds already made up.

About 20 years ago I decided to start from basics with such questions as ‘Did somebody called Jesus ever live?’ and ‘Does the mind survive the death of the body?’ (Incidentally I concluded yes to both.)

I came out of the exercise with a strong religious conviction compatible, in the main, with most of the worlds religions, the latest theories in science and various experiences I had either read or talked, with those who had experienced them, about. (It is based on re-incarnation.)

I have a fairly comprehensive view on the mechanisms involved and the implications for everyday life.

The one thing I can say for certain is that I am WRONG.

I, obviously believe that, in the main, I am correct, but, in view of the fact that far better brains than mine have come to believe in completely different, and incompatible, ideas, at least some, and some would say all, of my beliefs must be incorrect.

They are still, however, my beliefs. (ASIDE. To anyone who disagrees I would, and do, say ‘I’ll see you in a hundred years to discuss the matter over a beer!’)

The point is that an attitude of ‘These are my beliefs, some of which may be wrong, and I feel you may also be misguided; lets discuss it.’ is far from the general ‘I’m right, you’re wrong, end of subject.’

Even when it is discussed it is usually not long before a quote from some ancient manuscript of highly doubtful authenticity is introduced as cast iron fact.

The problem of tolerance is man’s almost unavoidable propensity for taking opinion as fact especially if it’s written down.

I will add more in time but I must go and watch a programme on a belief system - in this case vitamins

25

The problem with this is the same as always- Your post boils down to you saying “Most people are ignorant and inept in matters of religion. Fortunately, I am one of the enlightened few who sees things for what they are. If only most people saw things my way, the world would be better.”
In other words, “I’m right, you’re wrong, end of subject”.
The fact that you say that you may be completely wrong about everything doesn’t take away from this, it just makes it slightly harder to spot.

26

What prevents religious tolerance? I would say that people feel the need to ‘prove’ the truth of their god to others. Starts out innocently enough, and before you know it wars are fought, Inquisitions spill blood, and evangelists are pissing me off. Then people start feeling ‘righteous’ and feel the need to prove the opposition. There also seems to be the never-freakin-ending battle over land/religious relics that are ‘owed’ to each religion and so the obligatory wars begin and go on…and on…and on.

27

Shadow–

That may be what the average practitioner feels but it’s not what motivates the religious leaders who point the way – there is a more pressing motive behind it that’s hard to outgrow with simple “nothing to prove” widsom. Many religions, by definition have evolved to be mutually exclusive, or mutually usurping, of other religions. Conflicts are inevitable, by virtue of doctrine. The only solution is to sand down religious dogma and piece together a puzzle where all the religions’ doctrines don’t trump eachothers’ in ways that lead to violence. If religion A’s scripture requires that we always eat ducks on Thursday, and religion B’s scripture requires that we must rid the planet of all ducks, and these two doctrines evolved in a completely unrelated way, there’s going to be intolerance of eachothers’ positions for obvious reasons. I agree there are other more base reasons for conflict, and if you’re right, we should have no trouble, at some point, adopting as a social organism the basic mellow attitudes that we learned on Mister Rogers. But the doctrinal conflicts are the real problem, and to go with this line of reasoning, the doctrines are the problem, and the way they were formed, with reasonable myths (bad) rather than the myth of reason (good.)

28

You are of course right, that dogma and doctrines have a large part in the conflict between religions. But that also ties into my thought that each religion feels to need to out trump the othe. If religion A was eating ducks on Thursday and religion B was strongly opposed to ducks at all, Religion B would of course first try to ‘dissuade’ B of that notion by at first trying to convert them. When that would prove mostly unsuccessful they would then try to prove why their religion is the mightiest and try to breakdown the belief systems behind B. Then before we know it outright war fare begins.

Doctrine is to blame, but the human motivations behind it are the true danger. Many religious texts are not the same as they were say 500 years ago. People have a tendency to bend even doctrine to their will.

But using the doctrine argument I will say that the concept of Hell can motivate believers to exhibit extreme hatred towards non-believers or people who believe differently. They feel the need to opress the people who believe differently in fear that they will begin to ‘infect’ the people around them and therefor be responsible for sending more people to hell.

29

So we have two reasons we discussed:

  1. Mutually exclusive doctrines (Telling a lion to live and let live when we know full well it must kill to survive.)
  2. The “will to be right” psychology (If you don’t agree it makes me, well, nervous)

As I said, it’s obvious to me which is a priori, objectively ironclad, beyond any kind of solution, and therefore, more of a problem.

But I do think these two operate in a double-pronged assault against the human race. When one is temporarily alleviated, the other kicks in, disoreinting our efforts and causing us to give up or oversimplify the mess. Clearly a person enforcing a doctrine’s laws is a much different than a persons argumentitive attempts to sway others to believe what he does simply for the emotional gratification. (The latter being the bigger baby.) You were smart to point out that sometimes such swaying is actually PART of the doctrine.

30

someone should creat a grid so we can see exactly where religions mutually exclusive doctrines overlap. this would probably be easier said then done, since religion is such a slippery matter open to all kinds of interpretations. the cheifs will probably do their best to justify and integrate what seem to be wartring doctrines, rather than accept the inevitablility of a clashing doctrine. Religion is good at this – fudging the facts about scripture and putting spin on them to work in their favor as new information about the world is revealed. But it would be a good exercise, to force them to evolve towards peaceful coexistence instead of keeping fuzzy doctrines inhe closetuntil they result in 9/11 or worse.

31

I bet someone has attempted somewhere in the murkey waters which is the internet.

runs to Google

Perhaps simply the fact that say, Chrisitanity says Christ is the messiah, and Judaism says (as far as I know, I dont pretend to be an expert) that he was just another man and not the messiah. Which, you know, royaly pisses some christians off and they get sanctimonious. And then in return the other people get un-neccessary as well. Does this count as part of doctrine being that it is doctrine that tries to explain who Jesus really is?Did that make sense? I hope so…i just woke up and Im not sure that I am making sense yet.

32

well then you have the muslims who say mohammed was the greatest prophet ever, mormons who look to joseph smith, all of them claiming they are the way the light and the truth.

These groups more than anything fear being wrong. so what prevents religious tolerance? fear of being wrong. (which is brought on by religion itself.) Fear of “not knowing” every religion claims to have knowledge that is impossible to know, like what happens after we die. people within these groups cannot face these fears. thus cannot accept other ideas as possibilities.

33

It occurs to me that the intolerance between religions is mainly restricted to the three monotheistic religions. Why should this be?

The glaring reason for the monotheistic attitude of “I’m right, your wrong, end of subject.” is that the small rider is added “And I have that on the authority of God.”

One claims to have the copied the words of God, one claims they were delivered by his son and one claims they were delivered by his prophet. On such authority I must be right and therefore you must be wrong.

Unfortunately all three were formed immediately following a conjunction of the planets Venus and Mercury, an event that occurs twice, eight years apart, every 480 years in the eastern sky just before dawn and I therefore presume similarly in the western sky, at some other time, just after sunset. I suspect we have found the ‘Divine Shekinah, the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ and the’Two visions in the West’.

Anyone with sufficient intelligence and intent might be able to turn these events strongly to their own advantage, particularly if it can be seen to be of advantage to the general population.

I am sure that if that rider’And I have that on the authority of God’ could be removed we might see a substantial increase in tolerance

34

Mutually exclusive doctrines are not the example you gave, but that i.e. the Christians assumed to be superseding the Jews, and that Islam claims to be bring people back to the ‘right’ monotheism in criticism of the Jews and the Christians. Another exclusive doctrine is the claim that the roman church is the one and only church of truth, claiming all other churches are ‘religious groups’ at best - or heathens.

This is of course a major setback for the ecumenical movement - let alone for achieving tolerance between the various religions. It is the inability of many theologians to waver from their theology, which has itself developed through the ages in answer to intellectual attacks, that makes religion often very ‘stuffy’ and it’s view of the world narrow and poky.

But it is very much the establishmentism of religious institutions (or even antidisestablishmentarianism) that is the death of tolerance. That’s why it was such a suprise when the extremely conservative Pope John Paul II invited the leaders of other Religions to Assisi for a ‘Prayer for the World.’ I always see this kind of happening as a sign of hope.

Shalom
Bob

35

Hi Bob,

I’m afraid my cynicism find’s nothing of use here. That the head of one of the most tradition-bound religions ask’s for ecumenical prayer strike’s me as just so much theatre regardless the good intentions. I find very little in any of the traditional religions that suggest’s tolerance of any other. Perhaps we should ask if there is any way for the major religions to cooperate in a meaningful move toward world peace. I may agree that tolerance has to be the end goal, but at this point, I’d settle for some kind of truce that would allow cooperation.

It is little wonder that spirituality is increasingly secular when 'God’s Children" can’t quit squabbling long enough to truly minister to the needs of the people they supposedly care about. It isn’t enough to pray for the starving, those threatened with destruction. It is time for the major religions to use their authority - if they have any - to demand an end to the insanity.

As for tolerance, let that be a heated discussion at the kitchen table, not on a battlefield where only the innocent suffer.

JT

36

We keep confusing tolerance with endorsement in this thread. If you ask many leaders of the the big three, they’d say that they have no problem with you or anyone claiming that their religion is wrong and yours is right. (Except for the most fundamentalists, who are considered crackpots by most mainstream religious leaders) Visit your friendly neighborhood priest, rabbi or islamic whatever, he’ll say he has no problem with people who don’t believe in his faith, that his religion is “tolerant.” As for orthodox jewry, there is a very distinct way to view and treat those who don’t believe. Such people are viewed with pity, and are considered to be lost lambs. They are not, however, to be strafed on the cross. So here again, we have lack of endorsement, but not lack of tolerance. If you equate endorsement with tolerance, then the answer to this thread is that the problem with tolerance is that it is by definition impossible when you have different competing dogmas. But i would never say tolerance is impossible or even that it isn’t around today…it is. The ONLY time tolerance is impossible is when active, physical encroachment of personal rights breeches a certain line. The Pope saying the cloth is the only true way is certainly not a case of this.

37

One way of achieving tolerance is to stop telling lies about eachother, scythekain, the Quran is very clear on the position of the Prophets:

Say (O Muhammad SAW): “We believe in Allâh and in what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down to Ibrâhim (Abraham), Ismâ’il (Ishmael), Ishâque (Isaac), Ya’qûb (Jacob) and Al-Asbât [the twelve sons of Ya’qûb (Jacob)] and what was given to Mûsa (Moses), 'Iesa (Jesus) and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between one another among them and to Him (Allâh) we have submitted (in Islâm).” (Aali Imran 3:84)

38

here is an example of the old testament god telling Isaiah not to forgive. (the opposite verse below that from mark)

Isa 2:8 Their land is full of idols;
they bow down to the work of their hands,
to what their fingers have made.
9 So man will be brought low
and mankind humbled-
do not forgive them. [1]

mark 3:28 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.

and this which is in the section prophesying about christ

God’s Judgment on Assyria
Isa10:5 "Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
6 I send him against a godless nation,
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
7 But this is not what he intends,
this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
to put an end to many nations.

but this is also in Isaiah 10

Isaiah 10:1 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.

which is what christ’s main lessons covered.

then we have this which shows what christ says that he forgives all sin and gave everyone a get into heaven free ticket.

jer 31:31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD ,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to [4] them, [5] "
declares the LORD .
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD .
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD ,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD .
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

matt5:3"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

we’re all poor in spirit at some time in our life right?

(I will look for some more prophet destruction verses it’s easier to do with an actual bible than the internet bible)