August 29, 2006
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Socrates Cafe's discussing religious conflicts this week
Can Religious conflicts be resolved? How?
Religion is a central institution of any culture and as such is a fundimental part of the belief system which holds the culture together. Most cultures use this institution to declare and preserve the moral structure of the society and most cultures accept a single religious sect as being the only “true” or “correct” one and often tend to condemn other sects.
When you have a society with a number of religious subcultures, as America has always been, there is inevitable tension and misunderstanding among the different groups.
The founders of the United States were certainly well aware of the problems of conflicting religious ideas and values - after all, the country was founded in part by settlers fleeing such conflicts - and expressed much concern over the problem of religious incursion into politics. At least two of the original thirteen states had been founded by dissenters from the religious politics of Puritan Massachusetts.
Their solution was to severely limit the evolvement of religion in government and they did it in such a way as to protect religious diversity - which they thought admirable - by making it fundimental to our laws that the government was prohibited from “making any laws respecting religion or the free exercise thereof”. This prohibition had (and has) the effect of removing religion from direct political action (except symbolic) and has done remarkably well in encouraging the growth and diversity of religious movements in the U.S.
Keeping religion totally out of politics has proved impossible, but because of our constitution, religious sects have (mostly) found it very difficult to impose their agenda on “nonbelievers”.
One reason for this is the moral belief in the importance of individual rights which is also fundimental to our society. This has traditionally be in applied to religious beliefs also, which makes it hard for us to deal with other cultures which have neither religious diversity or any respect for the individual.
Our attempts to impose our values on such cultures in the name of Democracy, have led to disasterous results in some cases.
The conclusion I have reached, is that fundimental religious differences are just that, too fundimental to be bridged, and are best handled by understanding the differences and withdrawing from the conflict.
Personally, I try to be tolerant of other’s religious beliefs, no matter how personally objectionable I find them, but I understand how hard it is for many to understand or accept beliefs which their religion preaches as wrong, abhorrent, or sometimes evil.
Comments (20)
Do you think the intention of the first amendment and the colonists' concern about mixing in religion and state were to protect the government's autonomy or religious freedom? It sounds like you might have reversed the motivation for such principles.
Do you think it easier for us (people in a multicultural, multivocal religious context) to be tolerant of differences because of our socioeconomic luxury? If we felt oppressed by those we disagreed with, rather than equal or superior to them, would we still be so tolerant?
to pick your religion, holy book, and god is all fine and good but in the end people make up thier own minds anyway so why not just start there?
I think the idea of the early colonists was to keep the government from interfering into religious practices. Remember they came from England where the monarchs were responsible for setting up the bishops over the churches.
I believe you have stated the problem well and I agree that the solution is for tolerance and respect for other people's beliefs. While this country does not have a clean record of respecting other's cultures, which must include their religion, we seem to have done better than most other countries in the world. I believe that is because we have had separation of church and state as part of our constitutional law. I don't understand, however, why those who are most vocal about bringing God and Christianity into the political arena can't see that the reason they can try to do this is because of the freedoms of this country that protect their right to push their beliefs on others. If we had a state religion and it was different from theirs, they would be in serious trouble with the law about now.
I find it interesting that when President Kennedy was running for President, many people were afraid we'd be turned into a Catholic country, or, at the very least, the President would take his orders from the Vatican. Which, of course, didn't happen. But now we have a home-grown Southern Baptist as President and no one seems worried that he's trying to set up a state religion. Interesting.
Peace
The First Ten Amendments to the Constitution were proposed in order to assure its primary ratification - there were actually twelve of them, but two didn't make it. The wording of the first amendment is really very clever - short, blunt, and double-edged. Not only were different sects protected from government interference, but the sects could not propose or impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us unless those beliefs were part of our basic value system as interpretated at the time. So, in the 19th and early 20th century , states could have laws requiring the Lord's Prayer and bible reading in all school classrooms -Until the value intrepretation changed and we became more sensitive to individual rights in this area.
As a child, I grew up on Miami Beach and for seven (1935-42) years of schooling was just about the only gentile in my classes. Despite this the teachers had the kids (all Jewish except me) recite the Lord's Prayer (KJV) every day along with the pledge of allegiance. Even as a small child, I thought this a little strange. In those days of discrimmination and prejudice, the kids parents - having seen what was happening in Europe - were not about to object.
Some of the fundimentalists would have us return to this state - apparently not seeing how they might end up as the group forced to worship against their beliefs.
I think that the real intent of the founding fathers was to prevent the government from interferring with relition, not the other way around as you suggest. The wording allows a different interpretation today, but a reading of early documents clearly suggests that today's unterpretation is incorrect. Why? Because as you pointed out right up front, "Religion is a central institution of any culture." Reinterpretation has removed religion from this lofty p[osition. The result can be seen in the torn fabric of our society.
A cohesive post about why religion isnt totally removed from the US government, even if only in references to good and evil, symbolism, which I too beleive are to influence the formation of a republican, Christian national government as the ruling majority of the America. Do you think religion can be removed from any government through the formation of an effective international law organization? Sort of like the UN that works. If so would the world be a better place without the distinct lines that religion draws in the sand?
In my world, the word Religion does not mean "The Christian Religion" or indeed any other particular sect or belief. It is the FRAMEWORK every culture uses to interpret certain of its basic values - currently in America, moral values. Until few centuries ago it assumed the right to explain exotic phenomena and prime causes, but in our culture it has lost that responsibility to the SCIENCE part of the Educational/philosophic Institutional framework - not, I might add, without a nasty fight or two - the latest round being in Dover, PA.
America's institution of religion never was and currently is not, exclusively Christian, much less Fundamentalist Christian. Indeed two of the first states (CT & RI) were founded just to get away from such horrors.
I heard a speech by Ray Suarez the other day where he blamed the theocratic government of Massachusetts Colony on the poor old Pilgrims. They were not responsible for that part of our history, that belongs to the Puritans (the Pilgrims were Brownist Dissenters - actually fleeing from Puritan England). The Puritans weren't fleeing anything - they were winning in England and saw the possibility of founding the pure "City on a Hill" with their version of religion being absolutely unchallenged. They never quite got there but they certainly gave their neighbors a hard time for the century or so after their well-funded fleet arrived at Boston a few miles up the coast from Plymouth in 1630. Oliver Cromwell actually had his "ticket to Boston" before he decided he'd rather stay in England, kill a few Catholics in Ireland, lop off a king's head , and become the dictator .
Many of our nation's "founding fathers" were Deists or Unitarians, there were always a good many Catholics, and Touro synagog was founded in 1759, not to mention the beliefs of the black slaves (they got here even before the Pilgrims) and the Indians - even though they counted as "3/5ths" of a person at best.
Our nation was a very diverse culture even before the Revolution and has remained one ever since. Calling it a "Christian Nation" shows a woeful lack of knowledge about our social history. Those "Christian values" were actually the emerging universal basic values of Europeans, many of which dated back to Classical times. Jefferson didn't read many sermons, but he did read an awful lot of Greek and was fascinated by the French philosophes - a notably non-religious bunch.
RYC: I volunteered last year. But the cirriculum they had was so far below what the kids we had in our class needed. they were bored, my wife and i tried to soup it up but we were limited by what they said we could do. we've tried to give comments and help. my wife was able to get for free curriculum from our old church which is outstanding, but the board at this church is afraid to change. they asked my wife to take over one of the kids programs then the next day said sorry the deacon board wants to keep it the same basically. so its frustrating, we have tons of ideas and for the most part the leaders of the kids and even the senion pastor are behind what we've suggested trying, but the deacon board keeps shutting it down. i don't understand.
To Tycheat,
No Good and Evil (the universal concepts) are not man-made. I went to great efforts to show that in my post, preference is man made.
"As we grow and develop we learn 'morals' of society (not quite the same as universal morals that rely on an unchanging universal form). Morals of society are based upon the changing whims and wishes of the common masses. Such as women holding jobs outside of the home (considered wrong a few centuries ago) to Rock n Roll (considered the music of the devil only a few decades ago) to Homosexuality (considered immoral today). These are based on prefrence not Truth, Beauty, or Goodness."
The problem when discussing Metaphysics (Truth), Aesthetics (Beauty), and Ethics (Goodness) is that humans let their own personal preference get in the way clouding our vision.
You say,
"Immorality is, in my opinion, the deliberate rejection or denial of some moral concept YOU believe in."
Therefore if immorality is this then logically morality must be the same. So holding to that system of thought, if I go out tomorrow and shoot a man and think it is okay then I am morally alright. But if you ask the mans family they will say no I was not morally in the right. Therefore we have two totally opposite points. It is moral, it is not moral.
In philosophy this violates the principle of excluded middle (something cannot be one thing, and another at the same time) and therefore does not hold up.
There is no way to sustain a society based on dogmatic pluralism. I believe in tolerance because it is condusive to peace, and genuine personhood. These are are goods which are valuated as the ends in view of the virtuous person. It is unfortunate that neo-cons, and evangelicals want all citizens forced to support and participate in religious practice without consent. But it is also unfortunate that other views are espoused as "non religious" and "objective facts" that are also supported by tax-payers of various backgrounds and beliefs.
Therefore we should merely ignore and tolerate differences? When do you think (if ever) people should step in and resolve a religious conflict? People being government, individuals, and religious leaders.
Mostly we seem to try to resolve religious conflicts by overpowering the "Wrong " side.
Tychecat,
How do you account for martyrdom and religion. That's hardly an example of religion acting as a psychological comfort. Or the fixation of the Puritans with condemning one another to hellfire week after week? Where's the comfort? Clearly religion is not a psyche-blanket.
Mormonism does not share the same view of CHrist's divinity. For them Christ is man who became God through moral fervor. In fact they believe that God the Father also acheived this state and in fact that God the Father still has a physical body. In Mormonism all creatures can attain to the state of owning their own planet and being their own god. There is a scale of being to be climbed, in contrast orthodox christianity has always defended that God's nature is immutable and eternal. He cannot change, he cannot be-come. And we cannot attain to that essence.
Who is 'we' and what is the 'wrong side'?
Brief comments about some of the questions raised
1a. Morality and immorality: One man's morality is another's immorality -case in point: Iraq. Murder is wrong, unless you are fighting a. terrorist insurgents, or b.Invading crusaders.
1b. Philosophers, especially religious ones never seem much bothered by logical inconsistancy.
2.Should "the people" step in and try to resolve Religious conflict. Not in our Society, they shouldn't. Now stepping in to curb violence or apprehend law-breakers is another matter. If the cause of the riot is religious, our policy is generally separation of the groups.
3. The martyr gets the absolute psychological comfort: he is assured paradise and his family is assured of his salvation. The Puritans didn't condemn each other to hellfire, just those who were not members of the elect. Deciding who was a member of the elect was a bit of a problem.
4. My comment about "overpowering the wrong side" was a cynical comment on the Iraqi War.
The comments attached to this post are both interesting and encouraging.
Next Step: What can we, as individuals, do to reduce the religious conflicts we are now experiencing? At Home? Abroad?
Actually one mans morality is not anothers immorality. Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. all were explicit in that all violence was immoral. It did not matter if it were in Iraq, America, Calvary Hill, Vietnam, or India. They claimed pacifism was a moral absolute.
Now some would argue that Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were wrong and that violence is necessary and moral for the survival of a civilization. Here we have two opposing viewpoints- murder is immoral, murder is moral. This inconsistency does not mean that both are right however, it just means one is wrong and the other is right. This is not rude or arrogant (okay maybe it is) but it is the Truth, two seperate things cannot be the same thing at the same time.
True, most philosophers (relativist as well as religious) are not bothered by inconsistancy. This is like a mechanic not bothered by the fact that he hasn't put tires on a car that he just fixed. It may sound and look great but its not going to go anywhere.
I believethat if we turn it over to the individual to resolve religious conflicts I believe that the answer is going to be different for everyone. Since it is now left to the individuals each one is going to find their own place (like a team) to end religious conflicts.
RYC I don't know what the Universal Good and Truth, and Beauty are. I just believe that with all the evidence points to their existence.
3. The martyr gets the absolute psychological comfort: he is assured paradise and his family is assured of his salvation. The Puritans didn't condemn each other to hellfire, just those who were not members of the elect. Deciding who was a member of the elect was a bit of a problem.
You're right about martyrs I concede that they have a kind of comfort.
But the Puritans? No certainty of paradise = no comfort.
One of my ancestors, a rather nasty Boston Puritan preacher named Cotton Mather, boasted about one of his flock who was so alarmed by her uncertainty and sinfulness that "She spent hours in a dark closet crying and praying for the state of her soul". She was five yerars old and he was proud of her. There aren't many Puritans around any more, but Mather's attitude lives on.
He, incidentally, was sure of his place in the elect.
The trouble with identifying Universal Good, Truth, and Beauty, is that they - as the trite saying goes - Seem to lie in the eye of the beholder.