Religious Tolerance (-or Lack Of)

[Lady Seluna 0]

I find it disheartening that no matter how evolved our civilization becomes, the lack of religious tolerance seems to have lessened very little - if at all. It's amazing to me how mankind continues to move forward by leaps and bounds in areas such as technology, but when it comes to such a small thing as learning to broaden our tolerance for differences in the way an individual chooses to worship, so many seem to be stuck. It takes so little research to understand that primal aim of most all religions is geared toward teaching its followers to be good, kind, and loving, and considerate of others. How then can any one religion debunk another. Wouldn't this go against the grain of their own faith? If not, it should. It seems to me that the very purpose of religion is to lead its followers to their 'Most High'. -No matter what the pronunciation, spelling, or culture.

[yordan 10]

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't see the difference between religion and fanatism. Reliogion explains you how to become better. Fanatism leads to hate anyone who does not agree with you.

[Sohaib1405241555 0]

Well Lady Seluna !!! I agree with you dat da aim of almost every religion is to makes its followers a better human being but in some religion its not juzz datt ... I mean in Islam its a primary duty of every muslim to spread the message of Islam to all the non muslims. According to Muslims all the non muslims are on a great mistake and its there duty to brin them back on trackkkkkkkkkkk .... so they are alwayss found inviting non muslims to Islamda main thing dat we shud figure out is dat what has really turned those followers ov different religion into fundamentalists. I think I shudn't use dat word biczz fundamentalist means something different and ppl connect fundamentalist with terrorist.When theze ppl with fundamentalist personalities become leaders ov political organizations and religious institutions they use violence to create theocratic states and declare holy wars.Whether they r moslim fundamentalists or Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists or Hindu fundamentalists, they hav become a great concern for peace loving ppl of da world n hav been threatening da future ov humanity.Im doin a lil research abt it and will post it here soon.when I tried to undertand the reasons for extremism, I got these factosrs that really contribute towards fundamentalism and the violence generated by it. there r four school of thought that try to explore these concepts .The first group is the religious Factors.according to them there is something in their religious Ideeology dat motivates pple to be self righteous and impose their valuez on others and if these religiouss pple can't impose their values on otherz in a peaceful way then they do not hesitate to resort to violence, even war, whether it is called a crusade or jihad. Theze pple blame religion for creating suicide bomberzzz n believe dat it is the promise of heaven dat is a major contributing factor. Such ppl believe dat if there were no religions there wud be no holy wars.

Edited February 10, 2008 by xboxrulz
merged double post into one. (see edit history)

[Arbitrary 0]

Well Lady Seluna !!! I agree with you dat da aim of almost every religion is to makes its followers a better human being but in some religion its not juzz datt ... I mean in Islam its a primary duty of every muslim to spread the message of Islam to all the non muslims. According to Muslims all the non muslims are on a great mistake and its there duty to brin them back on trackkkkkkkkkkk .... so they are alwayss found inviting non muslims to Islam

See, this is part of where the conflict lies. A lot of non-Muslims are, frankly, not interested in getting other religions shoved down their throats. They are not interested in listening, and have a right to politely tell that person to leave. If they do it impolitely, then it's an obvious lack of etiquette, but if they do it politely and the person does not leave, then I would say it's a lack of etiquette on the part of the religion-spreader. This is obviously all a matter of perspective, but I would say a small amount of courtesy on either side would go a long way.

The first group is the religious Factors.according to them there is something in their religious Ideeology dat motivates pple to be self righteous and impose their valuez on others and if these religiouss pple can't impose their values on otherz in a peaceful way then they do not hesitate to resort to violence, even war, whether it is called a crusade or jihad. Theze pple blame religion for creating suicide bomberzzz n believe dat it is the promise of heaven dat is a major contributing factor. Such ppl believe dat if there were no religions there wud be no holy wars.

Ummm, I'm inclined to say I didn't get what you were saying, because the two parts of this paragraph seem to be talking about very different people. In the first part, you seem to be saying that some people believe that religion is what brings about morals, and without a religious upbringing, a person cannot have morals. Then, you say that these same people are the people who believe that religion is the cause of holy wars. This does not compute since one person is condemning religion while the other is a proponent of religion. :-)
The last statement that if there were no religion, then there would be no holy wars is actually quite accurate. A holy war is entirely based on religion, so obviously if there were no religion, there'd be no holy wars. Religion doesn't necessarily create suicide bombers, but it does give the bombers an excuse--they can think to themselves that they are doing their deeds to serve a greater good, and use religion to justify that. (Even if the religion doesn't justify it...)

when I tried to undertand the reasons for extremism, I got these factosrs that really contribute towards fundamentalism and the violence generated by it. there r four school of thought that try to explore these concepts .

This, I think, goes for any type of fundamentalism, not just religious. After all, we've all heard of stories of environmentalists who were crazy enough to stage violent protests, and they too, were fundamentalists---it just happened to be about the environment.
EDIT, from the OP:

It takes so little research to understand that primal aim of most all religions is geared toward teaching its followers to be good, kind, and loving, and considerate of others. How then can any one religion debunk another. Wouldn't this go against the grain of their own faith?

For this matter, I think it's because many religious folk who claim to follow whatever their religion teaches do not actually follow through with actions. Actually, Gandhi said it better than I ever could, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." Interestingly enough, there is also a group called Atheists for Jesus (link: http://www.atheists-for-jesus.com/) who support Jesus' moral ideologies, but not God.

I find it disheartening that no matter how evolved our civilization becomes, the lack of religious tolerance seems to have lessened very little - if at all.

To add on to this, I would say that the lack of tolerance in general seems to be rampant. Look at all the folks out there who are intolerant of gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, who are anti-semitic, anti-American, anti-everything-that-is-different-from-me. This tolerance issue really doesn't only apply to religion, it applies everywhere, and personally, I think there is little that can be done about it. People will continue being intolerant either because they've been raised that way or they've been exposed to some negative aspect of a particular group. So, if when you were young you were attacked by a group of crazies with green skin, you would probably discriminate against all those with green skin. That's a natural reaction, and even if it's not a helpful one, it will continue to happen.
Besides, I highly doubt nature selects for "tolerance" genes, if such a gene even exists. If it does, then it nature would have to balance out selecting for aggression (which plays most of the negative part in intolerance) and tolerance since aggression is very important to survival. I.e., if a marketer is not aggressive, he or she would not be able to get their products out as quickly. This same sort of aggressiveness is then used whenever a person disagrees with his or her opinion, and they head straight on for the attack. On the other hand, if all people of a population are aggressive, then there would be much bloodshed, not achieving the end goal of evolution--reproduction. Bleh.
Edited February 16, 2008 by Arbitrary (see edit history)

[Sohaib1405241555 0]

See, this is part of where the conflict lies. A lot of non-Muslims are, frankly, not interested in getting other religions shoved down their throats. They are not interested in listening, and have a right to politely tell that person to leave. If they do it impolitely, then it's an obvious lack of etiquette, but if they do it politely and the person does not leave, then I would say it's a lack of etiquette on the part of the religion-spreader. This is obviously all a matter of perspective, but I would say a small amount of courtesy on either side would go a long way.

Well....let me make you claer that religion spreading does not happen the way you imagine it . a religion spreader doesn't have to stop someone to listen to him but today .... in the age of technologies, a religion is spread through television media, internet , international debates and books etc. so this etiquette thing doesn't really matter here but agree with you dat one should show etiquttes when listening to other religion's scholers or something . you correctly said that lot of non muslims are not interested in invitations from other religion infact I would say almost every non muslim is not interested in invitations from other religion ... dats why its a duty to spread the message to those who dont want to come to right path but ofcourse in a manner which is based on politeness.In Islam you cannot force a person to accept islam.

Ummm, I'm inclined to say I didn't get what you were saying, because the two parts of this paragraph seem to be talking about very different people. In the first part, you seem to be saying that some people believe that religion is what brings about morals, and without a religious upbringing, a person cannot have morals. Then, you say that these same people are the people who believe that religion is the cause of holy wars. This does not compute since one person is condemning religion while the other is a proponent of religion. :-)

yes you are right. this paragraph belongs to those so called fundamentalist who are brain-washed by some evil minded people who use religion to exploit these people.

Religion doesn't necessarily create suicide bombers, but it does give the bombers an excuse--they can think to themselves that they are doing their deeds to serve a greater good, and use religion to justify that. (Even if the religion doesn't justify it...)

here I completely disagree with you.In Islam suicide is completely HARAM(not acceptable) no matter how pure follower of Islam the person is if he dies of suicide death, he will definitely not enter into heaven. So here the stimulating factor for suicide bombors is definitely not Islam but there must be some worst thing happened to them which made them forget their religion completely in the fire of revange.Knowing that he can never enter into heaven by attacking a suicide bomb, he does that so we can understand the ammount of anger he/she has and we can easily figure out the reasons for this anger .

[Arbitrary 0]

Well....let me make you claer that religion spreading does not happen the way you imagine it . a religion spreader doesn't have to stop someone to listen to him but today .... in the age of technologies, a religion is spread through television media, internet , international debates and books etc. so this etiquette thing doesn't really matter here but agree with you dat one should show etiquttes when listening to other religion's scholers or something . you correctly said that lot of non muslims are not interested in invitations from other religion infact I would say almost every non muslim is not interested in invitations from other religion ... dats why its a duty to spread the message to those who dont want to come to right path but ofcourse in a manner which is based on politeness.In Islam you cannot force a person to accept islam.

Yes, I know it doesn't have to happen by word of mouth, but it very often does. I am not imagining anything--I've had plenty of religious people stop me and give a speech about how I ought to join their religion because their religion has done X, Y and Z for them. Of course you don't force someone to accept a religion, but the fact remains that the spreaders are taking up other people's time, and oftentimes don't leave when asked. The point is, Islam as a whole may not force anyone to accept it, but there are certain people who do. It's these people who are the problems, not the normal religious folk.

 

I've had many instances where the messenger chooses to continue to "spread their message" despite the fact that I've already told them I'm not interested. It's this kind of aggressive advertising that turns many people off. In general, I'm fine with non-obtrusive advertising, such as those in books and on the internet.

 

 

yes you are right. this paragraph belongs to those so called fundamentalist who are brain-washed by some evil minded people who use religion to exploit these people.

Haha, to take this on a lighter note, I always liked to pretend that they were just too smart for their own good and knew how to manipulate other people and give excuses by believing in something crazy.

 

here I completely disagree with you.In Islam suicide is completely HARAM(not acceptable) no matter how pure follower of Islam the person is if he dies of suicide death, he will definitely not enter into heaven. So here the stimulating factor for suicide bombors is definitely not Islam but there must be some worst thing happened to them which made them forget their religion completely in the fire of revange.Knowing that he can never enter into heaven by attacking a suicide bomb, he does that so we can understand the ammount of anger he/she has and we can easily figure out the reasons for this anger .

Hmmm, I don't know if you're completely right here. According to this link: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/, suicide in defense of Islam is tolerated, so these people could very well believe that their actions are justified as they are defending Islam.

 

I also wanted to add that what the religion approves and disapproves does not necessarily reflect the beliefs of those who use religion to justify their actions. It's like what Gandhi said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Islam as a religion may preach good things, but many so-called believers of Islam twist the religion and use it to justify whatever they wish to do. I think, though, that we're really talking about the same point--we're talking about a person who has twisted Islam to suit their needs and has, in reality, abandoned Islam, just like those "Christians" that Gandhi mentioned. This may as well be one of the reasons religion seems to be losing its foothold on America--the Christian right has finally realized that they've accomplished something horribly hypocritical.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Arbitrary (see edit history)

[iGuest 3]

There's nothing hard about accepting a religion. It's just that some people are too fanatical and believe you need to be their religion. Another problem is the religious actions they make. The terrorists that attacked the US on 9/11/2001 were doing it supposedly for religion. We don't approve of that. I think you can make up anything as a religion, and I'll tolerate it, as long as it doesn't involve killing people. That is immoral, regardless of religion.

[Miles 0]

There are so many followers of the religion in the world that are determined to destroy anoyone who dosen't follow their religion. So long as those people exist, complete religious tolerance will never exist. It's sad in many ways. If only complete respect for belief existed, a very high amount of wars in the world would never have happened.

[herenistarion 0]

I think its just many feel patriotic towards their religion as one would feel towards a country. Then it leads to extremism, which leads to a whole lot of "insert your word of choice"..Its generally not a good thing..I went through some rl stuff, which i came out of hating everything which had religion, and conservative attached together:P take your guess on what it was lol.

[LegallyHigh 0]

Honestly, I don't care what others believe since at this point I don't really have a religion, I guess you could say I'm an atheist. So, I guess I am very tolerant of others' religions, however sometimes people bring ideas or themes from religion to the wrong places and it can be a bit of an annoyance, but other than that it's okay.

[mitchellmckain 0]

I find it disheartening that no matter how evolved our civilization becomes, the lack of religious tolerance seems to have lessened very little - if at all. It's amazing to me how mankind continues to move forward by leaps and bounds in areas such as technology, but when it comes to such a small thing as learning to broaden our tolerance for differences in the way an individual chooses to worship, so many seem to be stuck. It takes so little research to understand that primal aim of most all religions is geared toward teaching its followers to be good, kind, and loving, and considerate of others. How then can any one religion debunk another. Wouldn't this go against the grain of their own faith? If not, it should. It seems to me that the very purpose of religion is to lead its followers to their 'Most High'. -No matter what the pronunciation, spelling, or culture.

I think one thing that helps is to realize that this lack of religious tolerance is not a product of religion itself, however much some people want to make this out to be the same thing. The dreams of athiests of a world without religion bore fruit in the Communist holocost that was far far more terrible than anything done in the name of any religion. I have been led therefore to a rather useful distinction between atheism and anti-theism, the first simply being non-belief and the second being an assertion that the beliefs of others are a symptom of illness or evil of somekind - the most commonly used word is delusional. These are actually two poles of response to alien belief to which we can add the agnosticism which refers to either ambivalence (it doesn't matter) or a conviction that these things are unknowable.

As a response to alien religious belief this is also a part of religion because religious belief is diverse, which means that even among the religious there is the question of how they respond to the relgious beliefs of others that are different from their own. The atheist response of disbelief is rather natural but when it goes past this to anti-theistic response of condemnation, this can be a motivation for doing violence to ones fellow man. Therefore, I challenge the prevalent rhetoric that seeks to blame the evils of the world upon religion or the lack of religion (atheism or secular humanism), for I would claim that it is the anti-theistic sentiments found among both the religious and the atheists that is the real source of evil, both when these anti-theistic sentiments are a part of religion, like in the Crusades, and when these anti-theistic sentiments are a part of an atheistic philosophy like communism.

I believe it is quite possible to be an atheist without believing that all the religious are delusional, just as it is possible to be a theist or relgious without believing that all atheists (or religious whose faith differs from your own) are delusional. I believe that those who manage this have a higher sanity than those who do not. To put it in terms of this "anti-theistic" distinction I have made above, we can separate the anti-thieistic impulse and rhetoric from both religion and atheism and identify it as the real evil to be avoided. This is of course the path of tolerance, and where that path leads is a world rich in human diversity recognized as something beautiful just as natural diversity is recognized as beautiful, and where we can learn from one another and be a source for the cross-fertilization of ideas.

[herenistarion 0]

its something that you can openly say but almost everyone can improve on. Everyone feels patriotic to their own religion as they would feel patriotic to say their country. Thus they feel its right, and often doesn't look at other religions with a open mind. In my opinion, its really a set of rules to keep man under control. One good example is islam. The majority are very nice caring people but due to the actions of a few they are being unfairly targeted.I was surprised when someone i knew said:"I am not voting for Obama, because his very early backgroun is one of a muslim fate and i think he still carries some of those values with him"Hrm..

[docduke 0]

[Religion is] really a set of rules to keep man under control ...

Exactly on target, and that is why many governments do their best to stamp it out -- they don't like the competition! Theocratic governments, of course, have it under their direct control, so it is simply an extension of government control.

 

For better or worse, the need for religion, or some other form of faith, seems built into the human personality. Those who lack a conventional religious faith seem to involve themselves in nationalism, environmentalism, or some other "large undertaking" that gives an activist an outlet for cooperative action.

 

Almost 4,000 years ago Egyptians began building pyramids. Their purpose was to serve as a gigantic stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could ascend to the heavens. Using this very pharoh-centered justification, the government managed to persuade a large number of its citizens to perform very difficult manual labor.

 

Fortunately, modern religions are not as demanding of their believers!

[Eggie 0]

The problem is that we DON'T really know if any god existed,we can just believe what our ancestors said...but imagine this (brutality),if your friend tells you that your (not so good) friend died in a car accident,you will believe it,until you find out the truth (or another lie) from someone else...you can never know the truth until someone close to you or someone who witnessed it says that it was really that way...since we can't contact 12 apostoles...we are "screwed"

[mitchellmckain 0]

I find it disheartening that no matter how evolved our civilization becomes, the lack of religious tolerance seems to have lessened very little - if at all. It's amazing to me how mankind continues to move forward by leaps and bounds in areas such as technology, but when it comes to such a small thing as learning to broaden our tolerance for differences in the way an individual chooses to worship, so many seem to be stuck. It takes so little research to understand that primal aim of most all religions is geared toward teaching its followers to be good, kind, and loving, and considerate of others. How then can any one religion debunk another. Wouldn't this go against the grain of their own faith? If not, it should. It seems to me that the very purpose of religion is to lead its followers to their 'Most High'. -No matter what the pronunciation, spelling, or culture.

What I think is important to understand is that the challenges presented by the diversity of human thought is in no way trivial and should not be avoided because the maturity of the human race is the fruit of this struggle. The interaction between diverse points of view is the fertile ground for development and creativity much like a diverse gene pool provides fertile ground for evolutionary development. And just as the latter is the best insurance against species extinction, so also is the former the only hope for the survival of human civilization. The last thing we need is suppression of conflict in either a forced uniformity or in a prohibition by something like political correctness or an attitude that such beliefs just don't matter. Tolerance and religious liberty are neither of these things.

It must be understood however that tolerance and religious liberty are self-limited for not all religions/philosophies are going to be compatable with this. Obviously religions of human sacrifice cannot be tolerated, and atheist agendas calling for the prohibition of religion must likewise be opposed. But this does NOT mean as many of the new fascist-like thinkers have been arguing, that tolernace and religious freedom are inherently contradictory or nonsensical. Every ideal has natural limits in its opposite. An ideal of love does not mean that we must love hatred and cruelty. And so likewise it is only logical that tolerance does NOT include a tolerance of intolerance, AND religious liberty does not include the freedom to trample on the religious liberty and rights of others. AS A RESULT, one of the fruits of the interaction between the diverse points of view is that all the various religions and philosophies MUST learn to conform to the principles of tolerance and religious liberty because those that do not are NOT an advantage to the human race and civiliation but a blemish.