Massive Mumblings from Malaysia

I'm Right and You're Wrong

I'm attending the 31st International Conference on Social Welfare this week, which is meeting a block from my apartment, conveniently. I'd forgotten how...boring conferences can be. So many words are wasted at the beginning of each speech addressing The Distinguished Chair, Fellow Panelists, Colleagues, Friends, blah blah blah. And now I've gone and done it! I find it difficult to pay attention sometimes, which makes me seriously question if I'm ready for graduate school! (And I've skipped out on a few sessions already, finding that if the people were just going to be reading a paper provided verbatim, I'd rather just read it on my own.) Oh and it drives me crazy when people get up and start blathering in the Q&A without asking a question or making any sense.

In any case, I made it to the plenary session this morning and wanted to share with you some thoughts of one of the speakers. John Coutts is a Brit in the Salvation Army (I had never thought there was much to the Salvation Army other than thrift stores, Santa Claus ringing a bell at Christmas time for donations, and anti-gay hiring policies--turns out it also supports other social projects and missionaries).

Here's what Mr. Coutts said/wrote in a panel on Relgion, Culture, and Social Cohesion:

"The faiths that inspire are also the faiths that can divide. Some say that the great religions all add up to the same thing -- maybe they are equally right or maybe they are all equally wrong. But this glib conculsion gets us nowhere. It is obvious that the great world religions do not all teach the same thing, and they cannot all be right about everything. I give just one example among many: For us Christians, the supreme proof of God's goodness is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Once of our classic hymns declares, 'Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God.' And yet, according to the Holy Koran, Jesus, son of Mary, was never crucified at all."

Now, I'm one of those people who glibbly say, eh, all the religions basically teach the same thing. Don't kill, steal, cheat, etc. I don't need to pick one. I was just telling an African friend at the International Islamic University this yesterday, when she encouraged me to read about Islam. I feel so uncompelled to pick a religion. I think there is a general, underlying common sense shared by humanity about what is moral and what is not. Her response, was, yeah, those are the big things; but what about the small things.

Here's how I operate: There is a God, but details of all else are fuzzy. I don't know much, I don't think I will ever know in this life about the next, and so I'm not gonna worry about it. I'll worry about my actions and attitudes and intentions, not if I am aligned with a specific religion. It comes down to a lack of faith, but also a fundamental belief that the God I believe exists isn't so petty as to be concerned with labels. And He certainly doesn't appreciate all that happens in the name of religion.

Mr. Coutts continued:

"And the question of truth leads us to the question of toleration. If you and I believe that we have the right idea, surely we have a duty to suppress or at least discourage those who are trying to spread the wrong idea...Even in the most 'liberal' socieiets certain ideas--such as racism--are thought to be beyond the pale. Surely, 'error has no rights?'"

Ah, now this is where problem/violence/conflict erupts: when religion takes up the childhood taunt of "I'm right and you're wrong, na na na na na." And you're gonna burn in hell. I may have mentioned before how an Eritrean Christian I met in Egypt told me that I would go to hell if I didn't believe Jesus was the savior and had opened the gates of Heaven for us--but that he'd pray for me to begin to believe. I get a lot of Muslims also encouraging me, of varying degrees/insistence, to accept Islam. I hate preaching and attempts at conversion, but I can also recognize that these people, regardless of which religion, believe that they are on the Righteous Path and only want to bring me along. Thanks, but I'll go it alone.

I have been very interested in what makes people believe though. Within my own family, my sister would still define herself as Christian, where I would not (and think my brother is similarly a 'heathen'). We were raised in the same house, yet different outcomes. I know it's something internal, but what/where/how does faith function?!


I leave you with two final quotes:

• Pascal used the following logic: God either exists or he does not. If we believe in God and he exists, we will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven. If we believe in God and he does not exist then at worst all we have forgone is a few sinful pleasures. If we do not believe in God and he does exist we may enjoy a few sinful pleasures, but we may face eternal damnation. If we do not believe in God and he does not exist then our sins will not be punished.

• Renan was more concerned with earthly appearances and cautious in his positioning: "There are many chances that the world may be nothing but a fairy pantomime of which no God has care. We must therefore arrange ourselves so that on neither hypothesis we shall be completely wrong. We must listen to the superior voices, but in such a way that if the second hypothesis [no God] were true we should not have been too completely duped. If in effect the world be not a serious thing, it is the dogmatic people who will be the shallow ones, and the worldly minded whom the theologians now call frivolous will be those who are really wise" (taken from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James).