Religious Tolerance? Why not try to understand?
For the past 2 weeks, instead of enjoying a peaceful Saturday morning. I've been alerted by the shrieking intercom, to jump out of bed or the bathroom... and only to find someone politely "inviting" me to join them in "commemorate the death of..." (at this point I was quite alerted by this statement, thinking who died?!) "... JESUS". At this point my thought was: I jumped out of bed and rushed over to get this??
I must admit, I'm not much of a religious person. In fact, I've never been devoted to any religion at all. My family is Buddhist, I went to a "Christian" school, I have friends who practice Muslim, and friends who are Hindu. I've come to believe that Tolerance is the best religion. Because from my understanding of all the religions I've come across, at the end of the day, all religions promote love and peace. So the events of the past 2 weeks got me thinking: can we really tolerate religious differences or maybe we ought to try to understand religious differences?
Now you may ask what is the difference between Religious tolerance and Religious understanding. By definition "tolerance" meant "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own" or "the act or capacity of enduring". By this definition, it suggests that when one is Religious tolerance, he/she doesn't necessary share the same ideas, they can "put up" with your practice of religion. It's like me saying, I can't stand my neighbour playing their music so loud at night, but I would "tolerate" them to keep good faith between neighbours. And what's so wrong with that?! After all, it's difficult to ask everyone to have the same ideas, if that is possible we wouldn't have all the religious conflicts in the world. But is tolerance really enough? Yes, I may be able to tolerate the loud music, but I would be thinking the whole time: "These annoying people! Why can't they put the *#@$*(@ music off?!". Same with religion, it's easy to tolerate one another's religion on the surface, but things are never surface deep.
In the small, close-knit global village (yes, we are close-knit and a global village) that we live in today, we need to go one step further to reach Religious understanding. Being able to tolerate differences is only the first step. To resolve conflicts, we need to understand the differences: why do they have certain practices? Why do some people believe in Jesus, while others believe in Allah, Jehovah, Shiva, etc (Note: strictly speaking, Buddhism is not a religion, instead it's a spiritual teaching). Once we understand our differences, then we can start appreciating these differences. Why do we need to appreciate differences and how can we appreciate them, you aks? When we are able and start to appreciate differences, only then we can realise that we are really not that different. Maybe the ways we worship our Gods are different, but the core values of all religion boils down to Peace and Love. Once we can understand that we may not be so against why the neighbour play their music so loud, and perhaps the neighbour would also realise they should turn the volume down.
By this point, you are probably thinking: "yeah! In your dreams". But is it really so difficult? Understanding stems from education. So while schools have "Religious instruction" (I don't know about now, but used to only speak about Christianity in these classes), we should really be having "Religious education", giving pupils the opportunities to learn and understand different religions. More importantly, politicans should stop using religion to inctie hatred between different religious groups. Instead, they should lead by example, by taking every opportunity available to them to educate their voters.
So, yes we may not see the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Indo-Pakistani conflict, or Islamism vs. Christianity conflict, overnight. But we need to take conscious decisions to stop waging wars or starting conflicts "in the name of God". This all start with small steps, and constant reminder that we should all believe in Peace and Love...
I must admit, I'm not much of a religious person. In fact, I've never been devoted to any religion at all. My family is Buddhist, I went to a "Christian" school, I have friends who practice Muslim, and friends who are Hindu. I've come to believe that Tolerance is the best religion. Because from my understanding of all the religions I've come across, at the end of the day, all religions promote love and peace. So the events of the past 2 weeks got me thinking: can we really tolerate religious differences or maybe we ought to try to understand religious differences?
Now you may ask what is the difference between Religious tolerance and Religious understanding. By definition "tolerance" meant "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own" or "the act or capacity of enduring". By this definition, it suggests that when one is Religious tolerance, he/she doesn't necessary share the same ideas, they can "put up" with your practice of religion. It's like me saying, I can't stand my neighbour playing their music so loud at night, but I would "tolerate" them to keep good faith between neighbours. And what's so wrong with that?! After all, it's difficult to ask everyone to have the same ideas, if that is possible we wouldn't have all the religious conflicts in the world. But is tolerance really enough? Yes, I may be able to tolerate the loud music, but I would be thinking the whole time: "These annoying people! Why can't they put the *#@$*(@ music off?!". Same with religion, it's easy to tolerate one another's religion on the surface, but things are never surface deep.
In the small, close-knit global village (yes, we are close-knit and a global village) that we live in today, we need to go one step further to reach Religious understanding. Being able to tolerate differences is only the first step. To resolve conflicts, we need to understand the differences: why do they have certain practices? Why do some people believe in Jesus, while others believe in Allah, Jehovah, Shiva, etc (Note: strictly speaking, Buddhism is not a religion, instead it's a spiritual teaching). Once we understand our differences, then we can start appreciating these differences. Why do we need to appreciate differences and how can we appreciate them, you aks? When we are able and start to appreciate differences, only then we can realise that we are really not that different. Maybe the ways we worship our Gods are different, but the core values of all religion boils down to Peace and Love. Once we can understand that we may not be so against why the neighbour play their music so loud, and perhaps the neighbour would also realise they should turn the volume down.
By this point, you are probably thinking: "yeah! In your dreams". But is it really so difficult? Understanding stems from education. So while schools have "Religious instruction" (I don't know about now, but used to only speak about Christianity in these classes), we should really be having "Religious education", giving pupils the opportunities to learn and understand different religions. More importantly, politicans should stop using religion to inctie hatred between different religious groups. Instead, they should lead by example, by taking every opportunity available to them to educate their voters.
So, yes we may not see the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Indo-Pakistani conflict, or Islamism vs. Christianity conflict, overnight. But we need to take conscious decisions to stop waging wars or starting conflicts "in the name of God". This all start with small steps, and constant reminder that we should all believe in Peace and Love...
posted by jule at
7:28 AM
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