Do not compare your religion.
Dalip Singh Wasan. Advocate.
Everyman on this earth has taken his birth and he had got the same religion to which his parents had been belonging. The man on this earth has got no choice in selecting a religion. There had been instances when some people had to change their religion under force from the state side and there had been very rare chances when a man had changed his religion and adopted another religion. There are people who say that they do not believe in the existence of God and therefore, they say that they are not falling in list of any religion on this earth, but they are misleading us. actually, they too belong to a religion in which they had taken their birth and they are counted in that list.
There are religious books and there are religious places and we are seeing that people of those religions are collecting there and they are listening to the religious discourses and they are performing religious discourses and religious ceremonies and rites. The world is divided on he basis of religions. There are some major religions like Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and there are so many sub religions and the people had been adopting their own way of life as per principles of those religions in which they had been taking their birth. They are speaking different languages, they have got different lifestyle, different way of saluting each other, different methods of marriage and divorce, different style of wearing on clothes and different items of eating and cooking in the kitchen. It is also on record that the people in these religions had not been having peace amongst each other, rather there had been instances when they were fighting against each other. The whole history of this man on this earth had been spent in wars and infightings and most of the wars and the fighting had been against one and another religion. The whole history of this man on this earth had been written with the blood of this man and that is the reason a bad smell is coming out of the history books.
There had been occasions when people of one group had been forcing the people of another religion to convert and they had been forced to covert. There had been occasions when people of one religion had been demolishing religious places of the other religions and they had been constructing religious places of their own religions on those places just to establish that their religion is more powerful and more near to God. The people who had been killing people of other religions had been declaring themselves as brave people and they had been claiming that they shall go to God and shall be given Heaven and the people who had been killed were called martyrs and it had been said and believed that such martyrs shall get place in Heaven. These had been the beliefs in the past and these beliefs are still alive in us and we are not joining because of our different religions and this world shall remain divided on the basis of religions. If there is another world war, that shall be between two religions and one religion shall try that the people of the other religion should die or they should convert. So we must admit that religions could not play a useful role in the life of this man and therefore, we should not try to compare our religion with religions of other and we should also not to try and establish that our religion is better than the other. All the religions are telling us the same principles and there is no difference and the difference is only in names and style of living because all the religions had been taking their birth at different places and at different times.
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Religion be a concern of individual.
Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate.
Time has come when we all should decide that our religion is our individual concern and we have got no right to talk to others on this subject. Religions had been created and established by man on this earth just to find out the methods of talking to God and in fact, originally all the religions were talking of prayers to God and nothing more. And when we consider the case of prayer, we come to the conclusion that prayer is our individual concern and it has got nothing to do with others. When we pray before God, we have got our own problems and we are praying for the solution of those problems and at rare case we are really paying for others. The people we hire to pray for us are not having any interest in our demands, they themselves are under troubles and therefore, they are not praying for the person who has hired them, but they are praying for the solution of their own problems and that is the reason the people who do not pray themselves and hire people are not successful people and their prayers do not reach God.
Religion had been a good concept till it had been an individual’s concern, but when it came out of the individual-bounds, it started playing havoc with the life of the people around them. We have seen that one group relating to one religion had been fighting against the other group of people having another religion and they had been killing each other. If we go deep in history, we find that people had been fighting on the basis of religions and it is on record that the winners had been converting the new subjects to their own religions and the people who were not agreeing were killed or forced to convert. We have seen in history that religious places of one religions had been demolished and the new rulers had been constructing religions places of their own religion and at times all the religious books of one religion had been destroyed. As and when religion came out of individual bounds, it played havoc with the life of those who were not following the religion of others.
Religions gave us instructions for conducting prayer and that is the reason in each region there are different methods of conducting prayers and that is the reason each religion has got its own name and its own religious books. Even religious places and religious books are different and even methods prescribed are different. All the religions have got something common, but even then people of each religion are trying to establish that their religion stands at a better place. God is one, we are sent by God, we all live life as per directions of God and as and when He recalls us, we go back and after our death we are called upon to explain our work and conduct following during life time and then the decision lies with God who may send us to Hell and Heaven. These principles are one and same in all the religious books, but even then people of one religion are trying to establish that their religion is better.
We are sorry to note that religions have come out of the individual bounds and now these are touching our social life too and because of these extra-entries, we are being divided into different religions and at present some of the religions are at fight and they are trying to establish their supremacy. Some are turning terrorists, some are starting committing riots and some are trying to establish their supremacy through wars and use of war-heads and thus a new type of imperialism is coming down on earth. In spite of all efforts, none could establish a common religion and it seems there is no chance to establish a common religion. Here history shall repeat and there are chances the next world war could be on religion based war and people of one religion shall try to finish the people in other religion, because conversion is not possible now.
There is no one who can stop the fundamentalists to think over the matter and should once again take back the religions to the individual concern and all entries in other fields of life should be banned by law. Religion should remain an individual concern and it should not be allowed to go out and all competitions on the basis of religions must stop. We must accept that all religions are good and there is no religion who is better than the other religions.
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Chicagoan wins top religion award
Interfaith Youth Core founder will be 1st Muslim to deliver keynote address at Greater Chicago Leadership Breakfast Front man for the Obama administration’s renewed focus on interfaith relations has won the Grawemeyer Award, the most lucrative prize for a single work in the field of religion.
Chicagoan wins top religion honor
Eboo Patel — founder of Chicago’s Interfaith Youth Core and front man for the Obama administration’s renewed focus on interfaith relations — has won the Grawemeyer Award, the most lucrative prize for a single work in the field of religion.
Northwest suburban religion notes
Deadline for submissions is noon Monday. Due to space limitations, not all “Your Faith” items are listed here. The complete column appears on the Daily Herald Web site, dailyherald.com under “religion notes.” To submit items, send them to faith@dailyherald.com.
Chicagoan Wins Top National Prize in Religion
Eboo Patel, the founder of Chicago’s Interfaith Youth Core, has been awarded a Grawemeyer Award in religion.
Public sees GOP friendlier than Democrats to religion
More Americans continue to view the Republican Party as friendly toward religion (48%) than rate the Democratic Party that way (29%). President Barack Obama’s administration, however, is seen as friendly toward religion by more people (37%) than the Democratic Party as a whole.
wether is Christianity,Islam,Judaism,Taoism,Buddhism,Athiest etc etc. why do we as people think our religion is better than someone elses? Are we that conceitied or are we just blind to see that there is no true answer out there of exisitance of a higher being. I do believe in this higher being and im aware of his presence. But why is religion becoming a topic that people around the world are fighting and killing themselves over. Will society ever accept all religions? Will religion eventually be erased from society? Will this higher being show his or her face on this Earth?
to all the taoists. i did not mean to suggest your religion judges anyone. i did not mean that any religion judges anyone im saying as society. not as one particular religion/
im not saying that my belifs are better than anyone elses. i was just saying that im not athiest if anyone thought that. yes im a catholic. but that has nothing to do with this question. all im asking is that will society as a whole ever accept all religions
and theres nothing wrong with being an athiest. im trying to make this question as UN-BIASED as possible. the purpose of this question was not to put one religion on the spot. but to see what other people think about society today and how religion plays a big part.
A sundance brother recently asked my views on the differences between religion and spirituality for possible inclusion in his doctoral thesis. An interesting question, I thought, as the common assumption is that religion is spiritual, that the two terms are interchangeable, even synonymous. To question that is to ask if religions actually lack a true spiritual foundation. This is not only a large topic, but borderline heretical in some circles. To do it justice requires an exhaustive study of the teachings and actions of literally every known religion and every nonreligious, but spiritual practice, including an extensive lexicon, all of which are well beyond the scope of this article and capacity of its author. But so what, let’s consider these two phenomena anyway through the device of some admittedly homemade definitions, loaded with limitation and opinion.
As I see it, all religions throughout time and throughout the world, are human-made constructs that attempt to define some higher power, both temperamentally and attributively, in what are essentially self-serving terms. From this, a hierarchy usually evolves, what we call a “clergy” in this country; professional social engineers. Another common characteristic of corporate religion is to impose itself at large, and sometimes violently as witnessed in the Inquisitions prosecuted by the Catholic Church spanning some 600 years, to the recent exploits of the Talibahn in Afghanistan, to a number of Christian churches gleefully acting as Indian reservation agencies in the late 1800s US. The inconsistencies here of preaching love while advancing war or trampling other cultures under foot are not at all limited to these religions, either. The Pews of History are filled with heroic tales of religious wars, religion-promulgated, influenced, or condoned imperialism to the lesser sins of religious chauvinism, to innumerable ethical scandals.
I think it’s fair to say that virtually all religions have exceeded the bounds of their legitimate purpose, whatever they might claim it to be. How many nations associate themselves with a particular brand of religion, even today? More than we might realize. Some overtly in their constitutions; England and the Church of England, Israel as a Jewish State, and Iran as an Islamic State. Others putting considerable effort into becoming constitutionally mandated; the USA, where religion and state are supposedly separate, yet there has been a steady and aggressive calling to baptize the nation into Born Again status, even before it was born the first time. And it has had an effect: Witness the litmus test of every candidate having to proclaim some form of Christianity to be acceptable leadership material, and what about national holidays founded in Christian mythology; Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter?
In 1993 I interviewed Deepak Chopra for publication. Now, whenever I spoke with the more interesting personalities, there was usually an agenda or two imbedded in the interview. Chopra’s interview was no exception. And so, I asked him if he thought religions had helped or hindered the growth of human consciousness. I honestly had no idea if he would even take on the question, or cut me off short. You decide.
“R
C:
You have no idea how stoked I was when he stepped up to the plate and gave the answer I hoped he would. Not only did he speak directly to the ubiquitous negative effects of religion, he gives us one of the most eloquent informal definitions of spirituality I’ve heard; “…they were spiritual devices or you might say spiritual styles of living with an exact science and methodology to find the truth about one’s own nature…” To fully appreciate his words, we need spend a little time on the term “spiritual.”
In the Medicine Wheel workshop, we define a few terms, two of which are Soul and Spirit. I offer them here for your consideration only. Whether you agree or not is up to you, it is none of my business. But I offer these in an effort to shed light from a different direction:
“Soul & Spirit: I recognize we all have our own ideas of what Soul and Spirit mean. I offer the following definitions of them for the purposes of this class. Thinking of them in this way may help you connect with the Wheel on a deeper level.
Soul
Spirit Soul is the “Being.” Spirit is the “Actions of the Being.” We know the Soul by what the Spirit does. Spirit is Soul in action, expressing in the physical through us. Spirit is the relational link between Soul and all others. Since Soul is part of the Great Mystery, and all Souls are, of all that is, animate and otherwise, all souls are one. Spirit, then, is the Great Mystery experiencing itself through infinite avenues of expression. Soul is the Center of our being, it is the Cause of us, that which catalyzes life into existence and action, outside the physical Void, outside of space-time. The Skan. There is no separation between the spiritual and the material, though mainstream society and its various religions would have us think so (heaven in the sky, spirit only accessible in the afterlife, God looking down upon us “from a distance,” that sort of thing.) Without the spiritual, the material would not function as we know it. Do not confuse “spirit” with “religion.” They are in no way interchangeable.” 2
We need also to broaden our discussion of “spirit” to include its use when referring to nonphysical beings, or the intelligent, self-aware energies we call “the Spirits.” One popular perception of Indigenous ceremonial practice is its reputation for working directly with these Spirits, in real time and real contact. This idea fairly rankles most professional clergy when you get right down to the truth of it, except for certain strains of Evangelical Christianity, a relatively recent phenomenon, and one I’m not so sure was not inspired by or heavily influenced by Indigenous practices. In my lifetime I have heard from more than one pulpit on how the Spirits, what many call Angels, told about in the Good Book no longer talked to humankind, that was then, this is now, they have spoken, end of story. Makes it tough when sincere religious people start having direct contact with the Spirits.
Corporate religions actually deny direct contact from the Spirits, especially by the unclean, denigrating those who claim such experience, the intimidation so aggressive from the pulpit most of the flock will close down to the possibility, thereby taking themselves out of the processional long before the first note is even played. For instance, the whole idea of the “personal relationship with Jesus” actually serves to block out any kind of personal relationship with any Spirit not Jesus, as Jesus is the only approved Spirit, but held in such high esteem that we can never expect that he would actually be present at our next prayer meeting in such a way as to physically reveal himself as do the charlatan spirits of pagans.
Some of you may have heard me say or read it on the website, that the Red Road is not a religion, that in general, traditional Indigenous spiritual practices are not a religion (ancient Aztecs, Mixtecs, Inca, Toltecs, et al excluded). Granted, there has been a great erosion of these ways. Consider the hyper-aggressive imposition of Christianity in the Western Hemisphere, Australia, and New Zealand for instance. When you hear an informed person use the word “religion” when discussing the Red Road, it will be more in the nature of an accommodation to those in the mainstream who are unaware of the differences. In our June newsletter (Ceremony) we touched on some of the differences between ceremony and ritual, the most notable being that religion is primarily ritualistic while the Lifeways of Indigenes are more ceremonial in nature. Further, you’ll recall one of the differences between ritual and ceremony is that ritual tends toward rigid and is usually the exclusive domain of professional clergy. Ceremony is flexible and seeks to include everyone present in its execution.
From this, we see it becomes a question of power. In religion, all power is vested in the Church, Temple, or Synagogue etc., usually what is termed religious (Church) Law, and carried out, or franchised, through its various orders or sects, and their clergy. Spirituality, whether Indigenous, New Age, neo-Pagan, or unaffiliated, tends toward acknowledging Creator is in every literal “thing,” be it animated or not, and that we as two-leggeds are directly connected to all Life, not separate from it, neither above nor below it. Where religions perceive their assorted deities generally in anthropomorphic images, they are also set apart in some fictitious place, such as heaven, which is significant as it underscores the erroneous idea of separation. Indigenous spirituality and ceremonial practice tends toward the mundane, its dominant purpose being to support life right here, right now and with immediate benefits. Unlike most major world religions, there is no Great Payoff that can only be received in the afterlife. And where this idea of perpetual forgiveness doled out by the Church for the same repetitive sins actually breeds irresponsibility (”Hey, I can do this…all I gotta do is ask to be forgiven…again…”), the Lifeways of Indigenes may be a little more difficult in that they require one take responsibility for his or her actions now. In other words, there is no Heaven or Hell at the end of this road, we just keep moving ahead.
As you can see, this is indeed a very large subject. We’ve not even gotten into the geographic foundations of religion or spirituality, of how language impacts whether a culture develops religious institutions or remains centered in a living spirituality (the implication here that religions are spiritually void is intentional), nor have we discussed how exporting religions changes them, of how they shift out of geographic relevance and into a historical archive when that happens, of how merging a religion into government fully compromises any spiritual efficacy it might have once claimed, of how religions are damaged when they involve themselves in economic exploitation, or bind themselves to or even instigate the blind religio-nationalism we see in so many countries today, including the US. In the coming months and years, we may consider these.
1: © Rick McBride, Connexions Magazine, 1993
2: © Rick McBride, Teaching of the Medicine Wheel, 2007
This article © Rick McBride, 2008
be well, Rick
DOES RELIGION CAUSE TERRORISM
Religion as a Source of Terrorism. Media sound images of a Muslim terrorist shouting “Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!” as one of the four 9/11 hijacked jets was spiraling toward the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, left an indelible mark of association between Islam jihadists and terrorism. Such a connection is not unique to Islam. Comparable images were etched in people’s minds about Christianity by the Crusades and the Inquisition, by John Brown’s nineteenth-century killings of slave owners in the name of Christ, and more recently by fundamentalist Christians who killed people at abortion clinics. Similar connections have been established with other religions: Hindu militants slaughtering Muslims, a Jewish extremist spraying machine-gun fire inside a Muslim mosque, and Buddhist extremists poisoning passengers in a train in Japan. It is tempting to conclude from such events, as many have, that religion is a source of conflict in general and an important
cause of terrorism in particular.
There can be little doubt that religious extremism and intolerance have contributed to serious acts of terrorism. Still, religious intolerance and violence begin typically, and often most violently, within rather than between religions. Sunnis and Shi _a have killed many more Shi _a and Sunnis than they have Christians or Jews, as have Muslim militias in Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the Muslim world. For many centuries, Christian fundamentalists have killed other Christians who departed from a prevailing orthodoxy, labeling them as “heretics.” More than 3,000 Christians were killed by other Christians during the strife between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. Wars have often had strong undercurrents of religious intolerance among different sects within major religions. The killing is often justified by references to sacred text, typically involving literal interpretations of passages that are often invoked out of context, separated from the larger meaning of the surrounding text.
Killing has become increasingly common as well between major religions. After centuries of relative calm among the religions of the world following the Crusades, battles have raged for decades between Muslims and Hindus in the twentieth century, both within India and, after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, between India and Pakistan. Then, what had been a fairly low-level struggle in the Middle East exploded into a major conflict with the 1967 Six- DayWar between Palestinians and Israelis. Subsequent conflict in theMiddle East has been fueled largely by Iranian support of Palestinians and Lebanese factions since the Iranian Revolution of 1979; what were once primarily local conflicts have now escalated into a far more dangerous and expansive one between the world of Islam (consisting of more than a billion people) and the West, consisting predominantly of Christians (more than two billion) and Jews (about 15 million).
It is the extreme militant factions of any particular religion that are the source of most episodes of religious conflict that lead to violence, both within and between religions. Militant extremists are typically fanatical and fundamentalist, but religious fundamentalism is generally less of a problem than militant extremism. In the domain of comparative religion, fundamentalism refers to the strict, literal interpretation of sacred texts – for Christians the Bible, for Muslims the Qur_an. Generally, fundamentalists who read the text literally take strong positions against modernism. But religious fundamentalists may have no interest in resorting to violence to defend their positions, whereas militant extremists typically do – it is, after all, the willingness of some religious fanatics to resort to violence that makes them militant. If the sacred text says that killing is forbidden, many fundamentalists will not kill; militant extremists are more inclined to find passages that can be interpreted as providing a justification for violence.
Some scholars see religion as the major impetus behind today’s wave of terrorism. Mark Juergensmeyer, for example, sees religion as “crucial . . . since it gives moral justifications for killing and provides images of cosmic war that allow activists to believe that they are waging spiritual scenarios”. He goes on to say that, although most people feel that religion should provide tranquility rather than terror, “all religions are inherently revolutionary . . . capable of providing the ideological resources for an alternative view of public order”. He argues that religion provides “the motivation, the justification, the organization, and the world view” to facilitate acts of terrorism. Juergensmeyer sees the “drama of religion” as “especially appropriate to the theater of terror.” Terrorists act out of religious and symbolic images: they play the martyrs, and their targets are the demons.
Edward O. Wilson, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning biologist – the father of biodiversity and sociobiology – makes a similar point, contrasting religious thinking to the thinking that emanated from the Enlightenment. Wilson sees reason and ethics offering a more direct path toward moral behaviour and away from violence than does religion: “Religion divides, science unites. In particular, religious dogma amplifies global conflict, and humanism based on science offers the only sure way to ameliorate this malign effect.” Wilson posits that, although the epic of scientific discovery tends to bring people together, the human brain is hard-wired through evolutionary forces in a way that induces humans to engage in myth-making and religious passion. He grants that religion has contributed to culture and to the ideals of altruism and public service, but that these gains are more than offset by the dark side of religion:
The essentially tribal origin of religions renders them forever and dangerously divisive, a fundamental and intractable flaw that has persisted into our own time. Our gods, the true believer asserts, stand against your false idols; our purity of soul against your corruption; our true knowledge against your error. This discordance, whether expressed as hate or mere humanitarian forbearance, continues in spite of the manifest absurdity of the mythologies that underlie traditional religion.
Wilson regards this as a cause for optimism. Arguing that “the more fantastical mythic beliefs are growing harder to swallow by all but the ignorant” and that educated people have a natural evolutionary advantage, he predicts that the naturalistic perspective, based on science, is likely to spread and “will secularize the foundations of moral reasoning: tragic conflicts make it clear that religious dogmas are no longer adequate guides”.
In a similar vein, theologian Peter Berger sees religion tipping the balance toward more violence, not less:
It would be nice to be able to say that religion is everywhere a force for peace. Unfortunately, it is not. Very probably religion in the modern world more often fosters war, both between and within nations. Religious institutions and movements are fanning wars and civil wars on the Indian subcontinent, in the Balkans, in the Middle East, and in Africa, to mention only the most obvious cases.
Sam Harris takes this view a few steps further. He argues, first, that most of the major religions tacitly encourage violence by diminishing their followers’ appreciation for the value of life in the here and now, elevating the status of life in the hereafter and thus discrediting what is ordinarily regarded as rational thinking to preserve life. Preference for heavenly immortality over a mundane mortal life becomes particularly harmful to society when the believer perceives that the path to eternal life is enhanced by righteous intolerance of nonbelievers and the courage to act out against infidels. Harris goes on to argue that this link between religion and violence is exacerbated by taboos, especially in the West, on criticizing either religion generally or the religion of a particular person:
On this subject, liberals and conservatives have reached a rare consensus: religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse. Criticizing a person’s ideas about God and the afterlife is thought to be impolitic in a way that criticizing his ideas about physics or history is not. And so it is that when a Muslim suicide bomber obliterates himself along with a score of innocents on a Jerusalem street, the role that faith played in his actions is invariably discounted. His motives must have been political, economic, or entirely personal. Without faith, desperate people would still do terrible things. Faith itself is always, and everywhere, exonerated.
Harris concludes: “For anyone with eyes to see, there can be no doubt that religious faith remains a perpetual source of human conflict. Religion persuades otherwise intelligent men and women to not think, or to think badly, about questions of civilizational importance”. As for the relationship between religion and terrorism in particular, a few scholars see the connection as largely illusory. Robert Pape, for one, after a careful analysis of 462 suicide terrorist cases from 1980 to 2004, concludes that more than 95 percent of the cases were motivated by a secular rather than a religious goal: to compel democracies to withdraw their military forces from the land the terrorists regard as their homeland. It is, moreover, all too easy for people with strong political agendas to attempt to legitimize their acts under the cloak of religion. As the lines between the eligious and the secular thus remain largely muddled, distinctions among religious, political, and megalomaniacal motives for acts of terror will continue to be difficult to assess.
Religion as a Source of Moral Behavior. Religion is also widely seen as a source – and for many the ultimate source – of moral behavior. Devout practitioners of all the major faiths tend to see their beliefs and practices as a source of moral strength. Sacred texts of all the major religions include sets of prescriptions for good behavior: tolerance and restraint, love and charity, forgiveness and redemption, humility and kindness, faithfulness and fidelity, discipline and restraint, reflection and reverence, the ability to listen and attend to human distress, and so on. Accounts of sinners discovering the truth are often stories of people discovering moral lessons in passages from the sacred texts. They discover the value of reforming themselves through faith in a transcendent power – sometimes to go to heaven and avoid an afterlife in hell, sometimes to discover the richness available in the here and now, but always to experience a more profound meaning in their lives than is otherwise apparent or available.
We have noted that eminent scientists such as E. O. Wilson hold dissenting opinions on this point, but other scholars, including some physical scientists, see religion as a net stimulus for morality. Physicist Freeman Dyson, for example, puts it as follows:
In church or in synagogue, people from different walks of life work together in youth groups or adult education groups, making music or teaching children, collecting money for charitable causes, and taking care of each other when sickness or disaster strikes. Without religion, the life of the country would be greatly impoverished.
Dyson concludes, “My own prejudice, looking at religion from the inside, leads me to conclude that the good vastly outweighs the evil.”
Jonathan Sacks sees this good as long-lasting and indelible. He regards the long-term survival of the great faiths – the fact that they have outlived nation-states for centuries – as indirect evidence that they speak to something enduring in the human character. He observes that it was religion that first taught human beings to look beyond the city-state, the tribe, and the nation to see instead humanity as a whole. Holy texts, including the Bible and the Qur_an, advise followers to treat others as they would wish others to treat them. Rabbi Sacks reports meeting religious leaders from all the major faiths who embrace the tradition of unity worshiped in diversity, a spirit he calls “the dignity of difference.” We may be more alike than we are different, and we could use a universal “theology of commonality”; but to the extent that we are different, we can acknowledge the dignity of this too and can respect both the commonalities and the differences. For Rabbi Sacks, this is a deeply held religious belief, one that leaves little room for clashing civilizations: “Religion binds.” Difference is not to be merely tolerated; it is to be celebrated. It enlarges the sphere of human possibilities. The test is to see the divine presence in the face of a stranger – a capacity that builds trust and civility and may, in the process, inoculate societies against terrorism.
Given this prospect, how can religion possibly be invoked to justify violence? One answer is that it is done typically by people for whom political or genocidal goals underlie avowed spiritual expressions. The Ku Klux Klan’s justification of its savage racist acts in the name of Christianity is a case in point. Sacks sees Saddam Hussein as another such case: “Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is a good example – religion is invoked by essentially secular leaders as a way of mobilizing and directing popular passions. There are some combinations that are incendiary, and the mixture of religion and power is one”. He elaborates as follows:
The great tragedies of the twentieth century came when politics was turned into a religion, when the nation (in the case of fascism) or system (communism) was absolutized and turned into a god. The single greatest risk of the twentyfirst century is that the opposite may occur: not when politics is religionized but when religion is politicized.
We noted in the previous section a complementary explanation by Sam Harris: in giving people hope for salvation in an eternal hereafter, religion diminishes their appreciation for the value of living fully here on earth. This creates an opportunity for religious moderates and leaders to step up and control their extremist brethren and to distinguish in a public way those who use religion to legitimize political motives from those who are true first to their faith. Moderates are better positioned than others to constrain the most radical members of their own faiths. Therefore, Rabbi Sacks sees that moderates have an essential responsibility to maintain moral integrity and legitimacy: “Religious believers cannot stand aside when people are murdered in the name of God or a sacred cause. . . . If religion is not part of a solution, it will certainly be part of the problem” (emphasis in the original).
Along a similar line, Daniel Dennett likens religion to a swimming pool: those who derive the benefits of ownership must also be responsible for the harms that result when people are lured into causes that can kill others. Dennett sees it increasingly difficult to exercise this responsibility in an age of information and communication technology in which religious intolerance can spread and mutate like a pandemic virus.
How to exercise this responsibility raises a deep, ancient philosophical dilemma. Under what circumstances, if any, should religious intolerance be met with intolerance? Tolerance does have a downside. Knowledgeable observers attribute the establishment of Britain as a hotbed of radical Islamic violence to its tradition of tolerance, especially during the 1980s and ’90s, when it became a major refuge for political outcasts and expelled preachers of hatred from around the world. The large influx of Pakistani and other Muslim immigrants into London over this period resulted eventually in people referring to the city snidely as “Londonistan.” Then, after a series of terrorist attacks originating from these populations in the years following the 9/11 attack, Britain began a difficult process of deporting some of the most radical of these immigrants. Under such circumstances, the commonsense interests of self-preservation can outweigh the exercise of tolerance.
Another answer to the moral component of the dilemma – whether it is right to be intolerant of intolerance – may be suggested by a Christian teaching from the book of Matthew: turn the other cheek. One historical anecdote suggests that, when used skillfully, such a strategy can be not only moral but also effective. Walter Isaacson writes about how Benjamin Franklin dealt with the intolerance of Puritans in New England: he reacted not with intolerance, but with an ingenious mixture of tolerance and humor. Franklin put his capacity for tolerance to good use at the Constitutional Convention, displaying a willingness to compromise some of his core beliefs to help produce a near-perfect document. Isaacson observes, “It could not have been accomplished if the hall had contained only crusaders who stood on unwavering principle.”7 Franklin’s idea of confronting violent intolerance with humor was echoed a century later by the journalist Ambrose Bierce:
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
In the end, whether religion, on balance, produces more or less moral behavior remains an open question. Freeman Dyson sees “no way to draw up a balance sheet, to weigh the good done by religion against the evil and decide which is greater by some impartial process.”