[Vision2020] Religious Diversity Education

[Ted Moffett]

Luke et. al.

Your analogy of religion being like basketball degenerating into chaos with 
no rules to play the game when you take a view that having rules is so 
intolerant of other ways of playing basketball, demonstrates the extreme 
thinking you have adopted.  We are to assume from this analogy that if we do 
not agree that one religion must be the correct and true religion, and 
reject the "relativistic" view that accepts that many religions may have 
truth with no one can knowing with absolute certainty what view of God or 
religion is the one true view, that we will be in the fix of trying to play 
the game of life with no rules, like a basketball game played without even a 
rule that the ball must go through the hoop.

However, look at how basketball is really played.  The NBA has changed the 
rules in recent years, bringing the three point line closer to the basket, 
and altering the rules on how much an offensive player may be impeded in 
progress to the basket without a foul call.  Chaos did not result from these 
rule changes.  People still enjoy basketball and follow rules of the game.  
NCAA rules are different than NBA rules, but does this result in the chaos 
you imply?  Of course no one is going to abandon the rule about the ball 
going in the hoop.  That would be absurd.

Likewise, look at how religions really operate.  Rules have changed.  Some 
branches of Christianity allow women in positions of spiritual power that 
previously they did not.  Some churches have stopped persecuting gays.  But 
certain core beliefs in these religions have not changed.  Murder and theft 
and fraud are still regarded as sins.  Your insistence that if we all do not 
follow exactly one view of religion, and declare the others false, that 
ethical chaos results, does not hold up to the evidence of how people live 
their lives.

You and I can disagree on many issues, yet we can live together in peace.  
In fact, I can be an atheist, and you can follow the Bible, and if we agree 
that murder, theft, fraud and violence are not good for society, we can get 
along just fine, unless one of us starts insisting that the other one must 
follow their beliefs down to the last detail, or they are doomed to hell, 
from the bible believer's point of view, or doomed to dogmatic superstitious 
nonsense, from the atheist's point of view.

Acceptance of differing religious points of view, coupled with the humility 
derived from realizing that the ultimate truth may be beyond anyone's 
understanding, is not what creates evil in our world.  Much of the evil 
comes from people who think they have the ultimate truth which gives them 
the right to violently impose this on other people, and kill or imprison 
them if they do not agree.

I asked you in a previous vision2020 post if the men who carried out the 
9/11 attacks had been given a diverse religious education when they grew up, 
that taught them to respect other religious points of view, and to be humble 
about asserting that their religion had to be the only true religion, would 
they have been as likely to carry out the 9/11 attacks?

Well?

Ted

>From: "Donovan Arnold" <donovanarnold@hotmail.com>
>To: lukenieuwsma@softhome.net, thansen@moscow.com
>CC: vision2020@moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Religious Diversity Education
>Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 20:28:54 -0700
>

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus