Religious Conflicts

August 22, 2007.
Religious Conflicts
By T.S.Khanna

Ever since primal times, religion has been a powerful motivating force for the best and the worst of human behavior. It inspires some people to transcend self interest in pursuit of perceived higher truth and values. Yet, for some others, religion is the justification for the worst of human behavior.

The roots of religious conflicts seem to be interned in the theologies of various religions based on perceived or intuitive truths of their respective prophets. Varying interpretations of those perceived truths by successive religious leaders keep adding fuel to the fire. The main interest of religious leaders has been to enhance their political power by increasing their following and income, not in research to correct any errors or advance the truth. They reject the modern logic and prefer to stick to the traditions established when human logic was not well developed and the prevailing intellectual indolence perpetuated ignorance of the times.

The perceived or intuitive truths have been sanctified and protected from any questioning or challenge. Superstructures of ideologies, doctrines, and morality have been erected on the foundations of those untested or unchallenged truths. Commitment of the faithful to the religious fundamentals has always been the cause of endless religious conflicts.

Regardless of one’s personal views or interests, it is crucial to visualize the destructive potential of the present or future religious conflicts. Now we need to take a fresh judicious look at religions in light of their original intent and think through clearly and collectively ways to resolve religious conflicts for good. In this effort, our greatest opponents could be the religious leaders with vested interests and political leaders using religion as the power base.

For a closer look, I have visited various religious institutions in the past and attended their services. Regardless of the institutional denomination, I equally enjoyed my spiritual connection with God at each place of worship. Further, I discovered that there is a great bonding force in all religions through common theological virtues or spiritual graces like faith, hope, self confidence, self discipline, sense of duty, fairness for others, gratefulness, charity, helping the less fortunate, significance of non-violence and peace in human relations, courtesy, humility, love, compassion, contemplation, personal honesty and integrity, pursuit of a purpose bigger than life, and other similar values.

Yet, this great bonding force of common higher values is ignored mainly for two reasons: vested interest of those using religion as a political power base and lack of familiarity with high values of religions other than one’s own.

To overcome the obstacles in resolving religious conflicts and nuanced understanding of human religiosity, we need to
1. Include comparative study of all religions in the high school curriculum as a mandatory course;
2. Establish a secular religious institution for worship to propagate the bonding force of all religions by emphasizing the common high values; and,
3. Establish a secular research institute to
a) make a study of esoterica of all religions;
b) identify the conflict causing differences rooted in scriptures, perceived truths, theologies, or other practices;
c) run reliability and validity tests on conflict causing perceived or intuitive truths and theologies (every premise must be justified by some evidence besides mere sanctity);
d) classify the non-verifiable perceived truths and the dependent parts of theology as “felt truths” so that the followers would visualize the weaknesses in the roots of conflicts;
e) explore and identify the means to harmonize the religious differences.