Dynamics of Religious Faith and Hostilities

September 3, 2007.

Dynamics of Religious Faith and Hostilities
By T.S. Khanna
Background

Since the primal times, conflicting concepts of God and faith have been perceived or designed by various religions generating hostilities among the faithful. Dynamics of religious faith and hostilities may be better understood by viewing history not as chronological occurrences of incidents or events but as movement of human mind. Up until the end of the nineteenth century, movement of the human mind had been extremely slow, almost at a standstill. Due to the strong religious hold, same old stock of ideas was available.

The humanity suffered repeatedly from the conflicts arising out of the conflicting perceived or intuitive “religious truths” over which the superstructures of piety and morality codes were erected but their foundations never questioned. Successive religious leaders and historians, with their biased interpretations of scriptures and events, kept adding fuel to the fire of religious conflicts. This is true even today.

Intellectual indolence kept strengthening religious faiths without questioning the reliability, validity, or sources of the “truths” over which the faiths were founded. Religion became an all powerful source to control and command the lives of the followers. Religions acted as governments for the followers.

Religious leaders projected their image as the agents of almighty God. As God’s agents, they became almighty themselves and heavily punished anyone who challenged their belief system as the source of power. For example, to name a few; Socrates, Galileo, Copernicus, and many others could not break through the then prevailing religious paradigms.

Human mind is slow in accepting change. Religious stronghold is still continuing but to a lesser extent. However, due to the inherited baggage and social pressure, most followers, without being true to the religion, support their respective religions as political parties.

Ever since the inception, no religion has done any research to authenticate the foundations of its belief system or made any effort to advance the knowledge in search of truth. On the contrary, intellectual development is still discouraged by emphasizing non-questioning blind faith. People of either low intellectual levels or low emotional threshold are more prone to blind faith.

To satisfy sadistic desire, the religious leaders (monopoly of the male gender) always treated women as second class human beings. By sanctified religious moral codes, the female mind was programmed into accepting the sex/slave position as the norm.

Religious leaders thrive today, not because of their intellectual appeal or superiority but because of politicization of the religious institutes. They are constantly threatening the wall of Church/State separation under democratic governments. They like to reestablish their control of the followers.

Hidden Agenda

The hidden agenda of most religious leaders has been and continues to enhance their political power using the name of God. They call for sacrifice of the blind followers and a guilt trip for those who do not give blind support. The innate need of people to be in touch and stay engaged with the Creator is exploited by the religious leaders. Under the blind faith mindset, oppression and killing of others is not only condoned but commended, encouraged, and rewarded.

Intellectualism or rationalism, the highest faculties of the human mind, are suppressed and spurned by religious leaders. Their varying sanctified concepts of God are insulated from any challenge, not allowing to develop a common concept of God that may be acceptable to all and refutable by none. That seems to be the basic reason that religious conflicts are not resolved. Religious leaders keep the conflicts alive to serve their vested interests, running counter to the interests of the followers.

Discussions and Meetings

Normally, most human conflicts can be resolved by rational discussions, interchange of ideas, and compromises for mutual benefit. In religious conflicts, however, the experience proves otherwise, mainly because rationalism is not applicable in religious discussions.

In inter-religious group meetings, participants mostly tend to emphasize their own beliefs, not reexamine them in light of others’ views, nor in light of the art-of-the-state in human knowledge, or the current conflicts.

At other opportunities, most religious leaders tend to present their respective religions, not judiciously, but polemically. They seek to promote their version of “truth” as the infallible truth without the burden of proof. They use the arts of advocacy pushing their “truth”, abandoning the search for the truth, acceptable to all and refutable by none. Under this mode of effort, the perceived “goodness” of their cause enhances the problem it seeks or pretends to resolve.

The partisan mindset seeks to use multiple artifices and maneuvers in proportion to the zeal their perceived “sacred cause” inspires. The juxtaposed adversaries feel purified by such arguments by a feeling of greatness of their mission. The zealous missionary spirit, thus sharpened, further stimulates the bitterness promoting a more sensitive defensive attitude on part of the adversaries.

This process does not diminish but promotes religious hostilities. Further, full freedom of speech and expression without accountability under democracy provides nurturing compost for religious hostilities to flourish, at the cost of the religious followers. Talks, speeches, and training provided at religious institutions is polarizing. Unless a deliberate effort is directed in harmonizing the religions, the religious institutes will act as time bombs in democratic governments. Mere Church/State separation in the Constitution may not serve the intended purpose. The past is not a guarantee of the future security.

Types of Followers

There seem to be three types of followers in every religion: a) Moderates, with higher level of intellect, or education, or emotional threshold, with good faith in God, open for a dispassionate and rational discussion on religious issues; b) Fundamentalists, with lower level of education, or intellect, or emotional threshold, unquestioning blind faith, fixed ideas of the final knowledge of truth, non-compromising views on anything related to religion, and self righteousness; and, c) Extremists, same characteristics as the fundamentalists, with toxic faith, full of zeal to destroy those who differ in views as a pious cause.

Regimented religious training at young age without any other education tends to produce more fundamentalists and extremists. Although small in number, the fundamentalists and extremists seem to incite the moderates and control the religion as a political party. The moderates shift their position of opposition to support of the religious leaders with varying pressure from the fundamentalists/extremists. Religious leaders make the best of them to promote their own hidden agendas.

Silver Lining

In spite of the hopelessness projected from the past experience in the efforts of religious conflict resolution, there is a silver lining to the cloud. From the twentieth century, human intelligence seems to be on the rise, and more sharply so from the middle of the last century. The rate of rise seems to be considerably higher in the USA as compared to other parts of the world. Perhaps, it is related to the changing electromagnetic charge of the planet that feeds the IQ of the living beings.

Higher intelligence levels may not be mistaken as higher morality levels. On the contrary, the level of conventional morality is inversely proportional to the higher levels of intellect and emotional threshold. The intellectuals are, in fact, in search of new morality.

Increasing intelligence seems to be inducing more moderates in every religion who consider political aspects of the religion as inherited baggage. They do not, however, vent their views openly due to threats from the fundamentalists or social pressure. They get along well with the moderates of every religion; dispassionately discuss the belief systems, interchange ideas supported only by ethical and secular rationalism. Believing that God has gifted them with intelligence, they use rational logic to resolve their problems. They constitute a dominant but silent majority in every religion. They believe that the religions are high-jacked by the religious leaders with the help of the fundamentalists/extremists.

The moderates offer a great hope in resolving religious conflicts.

The bonding force among the moderates is the theological values and spiritual graces common to all religions:
Good faith in God; hope and optimism for sustained effort; self-confidence; self-discipline; sense of duty; sense of justice and fairness; gratefulness; helping the less fortunate; caring and sharing; charity; non-violence and peace; compassion; contemplation; personal honesty and integrity; humility; courtesy; pursuit of purpose bigger than life; pursuit of excellence; and, other similar values. The dividing burden of religious customs, symbols, appearance, or methods of prayer may be maintained as a private matter.

Recommendation

In democratic societies, to bring about coherence among religions and eventually resolve religious conflicts for good, we need some active and sustained mechanism in place to encourage and protect the moderates from the fundamentalists/extremists. The moderates may then emphatically speak up about the common values that unite the religions and re-examine the significance of customs and symbols that divide the religions. The weaknesses in the roots of conflicts may then become visible to the disadvantage of those who exploit religion for political purposes.
The functions of the institute may include but not limited to
• A study of the esoteric of the main stream religions of the nation;
• Identify the roots of conflicts among religions;
• Develop means for harmonizing the conflicts; and,
• Develop means to identify flash-points of conflicts and preventive measures to avert conflicts.