All religions propagate the same message

[SecularMotion]

Fortunately, we don’t have any serious religious fundamentalism to deal with in Sri Lanka, except a nascent form of it being introduced to the country by a handful of marginal, foreign funded Christian and Muslim zealots who enjoy no popularity among the mainstream believers of the two respective faiths. Though a few similarly isolated, apparently misguided Buddhist monks seem to have started a violent, aberrational reaction against attempted fundamentalist inroads into the local Buddhist fold, while being censured by the average Buddhists themselves, have only succeeded in having the fundamentalist cap thrust on their own heads. These may be set aside as temporary misadventures.

But whatever religious faith we belong to, or whether or not we profess any such faith, we are all being imperilled by a virulent kind of global religious fundamentalism that is undermining the very foundations of human civilization. Neuroscientist Dr Sam Harris’s slim volume, New York Times bestseller, “Letter to a Christian nation” (2006) deals with what he describes as “a moral and intellectual emergency” facing his nation (America) in the form of a potentially self-destructive and violent religious fanaticism resulting from blind faith in religious dogma. He is careful to tell us that though the book is addressed to Christians in the United States, it is intended for people of all faiths. It presents a well argued case against all forms of doctrinaire religion. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, well known for his active involvement in an educational moral campaign against irrational religious faith, writes a persuasive foreword to the book.

Harris identifies “the respect we accord religious faith” as an impediment to any intellectually honest, rational discourse on morals, spirituality, and the problem of human suffering. These can be addressed through a rational scientific approach with relative ease, but religion stands in its way. We like to believe that all religions propagate the same message to humanity without contradiction: love your neighbour, avoid violence, live a moral life, etc. But the truth is that strict adherence to the articles of faith found in one religion often alienates individuals and whole groups from fellow human beings who happen to profess a different religion. It is traditionally claimed that ‘religious tolerance’ is an antidote to communal disharmony based on religion. The problem is that tolerance could be incompatible with being faithful to one’s own religion if it insists on being “fundamentalist” (in the sense in which the word was originally used in America around the beginning of the twentieth century). This once innocuous concept shed its original harmless associations of scriptural authenticity, purity, etc at least some forty or fifty years ago, and has now acquired very negative connotations. Today ‘fundamentalism’ is a heavily loaded word in both religious and secular contexts. Any movement that is prone to violent ideologies and practices tends to be dubbed ‘fundamentalist’.

Yet religions are not usually accused of deliberately preaching violence even by the faithful of rival (i.e. other) religions. Silence is always maintained on this point as demanded by mutual awareness of vulnerability to the same charge and the need for feigned religious tolerance. Sectarianism in the interpretation of the dogmas of the same faith often divides its adherents, and this leads to internecine conflicts.

http://www.nation.lk/edition/lens/item/31880-all-religions-propagate-the-same-message.html