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More welcoming interfaith environment for people who are opposed to some or all religions
- Thread starter Jim
- Start date
Jim
Nets of Wonder
Don't you despise all Abrahamic religions, and see nothing but harm in them? Would you not want to participate in any interfaith activities with any of their followers, or associate with any of them?
ManSinha
Well-Known Member
As we have discussed in various disparate threads - there some common themes across religions some of whom were founded apart from each other both in time and geography. These range from stories about things such as the flood to ideas about how to be and life one's life to recommendations or requirements for charity.
These are ideas that I believe are worth sharing and finding common ground on
The rest I ask for people to check at the door
As @Vinayaka said to me - those from the Saivite Hinduism believe Shiva is the ultimate deity - and those from the Vaishnav Hinduism give that place of honor to Vishnu. There are certain things that perhaps will not be reconciled with it being a zero sum game and no middle ground to be found. For example in my conversations with some individuals here I have been categorically informed that "only those who worship their god will be saved" - whatever that might mean "because their god demands it"
Focussing on the ideas that find common ground will help us start a constructive dialog and perhaps even create an interfaith team that responds to actual crises and just helps those in need
That is my $0.03 (adjusted for inflation)
These are ideas that I believe are worth sharing and finding common ground on
The rest I ask for people to check at the door
As @Vinayaka said to me - those from the Saivite Hinduism believe Shiva is the ultimate deity - and those from the Vaishnav Hinduism give that place of honor to Vishnu. There are certain things that perhaps will not be reconciled with it being a zero sum game and no middle ground to be found. For example in my conversations with some individuals here I have been categorically informed that "only those who worship their god will be saved" - whatever that might mean "because their god demands it"
Focussing on the ideas that find common ground will help us start a constructive dialog and perhaps even create an interfaith team that responds to actual crises and just helps those in need
That is my $0.03 (adjusted for inflation)
Spirit of Light
Be who ever you want
I don't despise anyone personally, but some actions I view as despicable, out of their ignorance. I would participate in interfaith, here in my city, but that council already has plenty of Hindu representatives doing a wonderful job. What it misses is the ultra-conservative Protestant Christians. I personally think interfaith is a great thing, but there are those who don't, and they're the ones that probably need it the most.
If there, I would stand up for the conservatives in most ways. But I would also call for things like a total ban on proselytising, as stuff like that goes against the very idea of interfaith, or respect for one another. So then, as has been history, the proselytisers would pull out the victim card, as has been shown wherever missionaries have gone to 'spread their word'.
I believe in that up to a point. When that belief crosses the civility line, then I don't. A religion that suggests torture for punishment, or more extremely, one that practices human sacrifice, well, sorry, but I don't think they should be allowed to practice. The challenge arises when we try to have a uniform civility line.
Many years ago, I participated in a community group that was something like an interfaith activity. We were a group of very diverse folks who got together to discuss deep matters of philosophy and religion. There were a couple Pagans, some atheists, some Christians... one of whom was an Evangelical. That Evangelical would routinely say to our faces we were going to hell, that we were wrong, and that our paths were harmful. But he was also quite capable of doing this in productive fashion. He would not attempt to dominate all conversations, and let all others have their say as well. That was part of the structure of the group - everyone got their turn to speak without exception. This Evangelist was perfectly capable of respecting the format of the group activity.
In short, there's nothing inherent about fundamentalist positions that prevents them from participating in interfaith activities or groups. If you create a structure for the group that lays down rules for interactions that allow everyone to have their say, it works. We try to cultivate that sort of atmosphere around here, actually, with varying levels of success. RF is a little more restrictive than the group I participated in years ago, though, but when you have face-to-face interactions, there are some things that are just easier.
In short, there's nothing inherent about fundamentalist positions that prevents them from participating in interfaith activities or groups. If you create a structure for the group that lays down rules for interactions that allow everyone to have their say, it works. We try to cultivate that sort of atmosphere around here, actually, with varying levels of success. RF is a little more restrictive than the group I participated in years ago, though, but when you have face-to-face interactions, there are some things that are just easier.
We have a Dir for non-religious movements.
You could visit one of the many forums that are already tailored to provide support for people who used to be religious and where most every conversation is already based on ex-religion. People there can express their anger and disappointment, their ideas, their goals. They may get very excited when a single religious person joins, because its just so rare. There is no lack of such a venue. There many such places on the internet with free access.
There are sites dedicated to specific religious groups. You have the Islamic sites, Christian sites, Bahai sites and Jewish sites. You have your wiccan sites. None of those are in the same niche as this one. There's nothing wrong with them, but they don't facilitate cross-religious communication. If it happens it will happen here in this niche.
I suppose you could start by visiting an interfaith site like this one and try to alter its friendly purpose of getting people of different religions to talk to each other. The forum would completely lose its purpose and become simply another skeptical forum of which there are many. What you are talking about seems not interfaith but anti faith. The hard thing is not getting people to object to religions but getting people in different religions to learn of and respect one another, which is something that cannot be accomplished in an environment like the one you suggest.
You could visit one of the many forums that are already tailored to provide support for people who used to be religious and where most every conversation is already based on ex-religion. People there can express their anger and disappointment, their ideas, their goals. They may get very excited when a single religious person joins, because its just so rare. There is no lack of such a venue. There many such places on the internet with free access.
There are sites dedicated to specific religious groups. You have the Islamic sites, Christian sites, Bahai sites and Jewish sites. You have your wiccan sites. None of those are in the same niche as this one. There's nothing wrong with them, but they don't facilitate cross-religious communication. If it happens it will happen here in this niche.
I frequently bring this up with members of the forum here to point out the purpose is specialized. We do not aim to pack the forum with complaints against religions. No, that is not at all our niche according to the rules. The idea here is to help religious people talk to and especially to understand and listen to each other: Catholics, Jews, LDS, JW's, 7th Day Adventists, Bahai's, Muslims. There are hundreds or thousands of sites for complaints against religions and ex-cult support. I myself am a member of an ex-cult support group. I grasp anger and betrayal some people feel towards religions, but there are other places to express that. There are places for those warriors who wish to do battle with religion but not here. We do allow ex-religious people and non-religious people, but this forum is for making friends and exchanging ideas not for correcting or changing religions. It will always cater first to religious people, especially those who have a lot of religious knowledge and who are polite. If those people ever stopped coming here then the forum will be lost, completely indistinguishable from hundreds of others, redundant. It would lose its value rapidly. Similarly we do need some non-believers, especially knowledgeable and educated ones; but we don't need to become I think a very anti-religious support group.
There is unavoidably a bit of tension between the open admission that there are harmful religions (or pseudo-religions) and the goal of having a welcoming, interfaith environment. A decision must be made, communicated and (hopefully) agreed on about what to encourage and what to refuse. And in order not to lose one's way, that decision must be revisited and reconsidered at least somewhat often.
Which is not to say that it is not a good idea. I personally think that it is in fact paramount for pretty much everyone. But it is a considerable amount of work, a permanent challenge even.
How do we establish and maintain such an environment? Mainly, by attempting to be wise and to employ sincere effort. A part of it is attempting to acknowledge and address frequent shortcomings of the currently well established structures.
As an example, there is presently a lot of effort globally at establishing rules of some form or another and deciding how they apply, how they should be enforced... and also how legitimate they are, how to take advantage of them, and how to disregard them safely. That generates quite a lot of conflict and difficult feelings as people have a hard time attaining mutual respect and acceptance, or even agreeing that such is a worthy goal in the first place.
What we have there is a specific perspective about how to care for a society - in this case, by way of rules. As any other model, it will have certain limitations and drawbacks, yet it is more likely than not to also have some amount of practical use in certain scopes. There is a natural tendency to adhere to the models that we are familiar with or, when that is not possible or practical, to directly rebel against them. Any specific model will require a measure of effort to maintain, and bring with it the seeds of its own rebellion and its own blind or uncaring followers. It will also be nurturing in certain circunstances and harmful in others. And because people have very real limitations in their abilities to understand and participate in such models, we can't help but take sides and neglect many or most of the conceivable perspectives. That, in a nutshell, describes how and why societies suffer under their own weight.
How best to deal with that? In my opinion, initially by refusing the temptation of being over-reductionistic. If promised easy, "harmless" solutions to the problems that plague us, we should remind ourselves to ask immediately what the drawbacks are and how much effort to maintain those promises will require. And we should make a very sincere effort to care for those that fall between the tracks of those promises, for they can't be blamed for the limitations of the models that failed to account for them.
Another part of it is the decision to accept and care for the emotional needs of people of all walks of life. This is a very real need that in my opinion is far too often neglected, perhaps because it has been only in very decent decades that it became more of a practical reality. Historically, it was very easy to avoid dealing with the people that we might be hurting, or even to convince ourselves that such harm was not relevant. That is not really a luxury that we can affort any longer.
Yet another key element is the very pragmatic realization that we all have various forms of limitations, including emotional, intellectual and monetary ones. Tempting as it may be to then decide that there is a holy duty to make those limitations crumble, it stands to reason that in practice that may often be a waste of effort, and a distraction from more fruitful pursuits.
Personally, I think that emotional limitations are something of a neglected reality in our societies at the current time. There is in fact a lot of pressure to have people harm themselves in pursuit of some form of achievement or another, and that creates a lot of problems in consequence, including chemical dependencies, emotional fragility, and trouble in living in society.
The bottom line, Jim, is that your proposal is inherently very ambitious and must be acknowledged as such.
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As a vilified atheist a would love various religious groups to get together and work out their loathing, mistrust and hatred of each other and other human beings not of their faith (atheists for example)
I dont really see it getting off the ground at more than a local level where acquaintance and friendship can play a part.
The biggest problem is see is getting over the "my religion* is better than your religion*" syndrome that has plagued religion since day one. It will take many years to get over that insult.
* The word religion can become god or gods
Jim
Nets of Wonder
@LuisDantas I like all of what you said, a lot. My thoughts on this have changed since I started this thread, and they're still evolving. I had an idea that it's popular in interfaith circles to malign people on the far right, but actually I know very little about what happens in interfaith circles offline. The only ones I've seen online are in forums, and I'm not sure that it's any more popular in interfaith forums to malign people on the far right than it is to malign people on the far left. If I am right about people on the far right not feeling welcome in interfaith circles, I'm thinking now, rather than trying to change that, just to promote more close personal friendships between people in interfaith circles, and people on the far right. And now that I think of it, that might already be happening. I know of people in interfaith circles myself, who are close friends with people on the far right.
I myself have a very difficult time with the far right, Jim. More than a little bit of that seems to me to be a very real challenge of mutual acceptance.
Jim
Nets of Wonder
Exactly. That's what I'm thinking now, too. Close friendships at the local level between people in interfaith circles and atheists, and between people in interfaith circles and people on the far right. It might actually be happening a lot more than I thought, but I would like to see it getting more attention.
Jim
Nets of Wonder
I have very difficult time with the far right sometimes too, but no more than I have with the far left sometimes. For the same reasons. Besides, it isn't about close friendships with all the people across those lines from us. It only needs to be a few of them.
It is certainly important to resist the temptation of dehumanizing people. No small challenge.
Jim
Nets of Wonder
Every time I learn not to do that with one group or category of people, I start doing it with another.