Interfaith

There is a word in common use today that many people should be ashamed to use:

Interfaith

We hear a lot about interfaith councils, about interfaith charities, and interfaith movements.

It is is possible the most intolerant word I think I have ever heard.


I have to be clear I am NOT attacking the good that interfaith groups do in the world - a great deal of very good charity and cross cultural communication gets done under their auspices, but the approach is flawed and in many ways biased.


I first realised this while talking to a methodist minister in the UK. We had spoken for an hour or so on issues of faith, I had interviewed him about his faith, where it began, how it had developed, it's values etc, and had consented to answer the same questions from him about my beliefs.

Near the end we were discussing other faiths and he mentioned that he was on the local interfaith council but that he thought it was a bit of a sham, I was surprised and asked him why...

"Because everyone on that council with the possible exception of the Buddhist monk thinks everyone else is going to hell."

I'll be honest his reply shocked me a little.

Over the past few years I've thought about what he said a great deal an while I think many members on interfaith councils are of more moderate views and probably expect the other members to get pretty good judgment because they were at least acting from good intentions, I do think that any movement, action or body labelled interfaith is a concern.

The reason is simple by identifying themselves as Interfaith they are citing the only or at least in their mind most important thing they have in common... their faith.

If I started a charity to feed starving children I would think a fundamental belief that children need to be fed would be more important than faith in a creator.

If I started a council to help different cultures integrate and get along I would think a respect for, and understanding of individual rights and heritages would be more important than faith in a creator.

But thats not what interfaith implies. Interfaith says "yes we want to work together to save the child, but only with other people who also believe in god"

Interfaith is NOT an inclusive term, it is an exclusive term. Like "Mens Tennis Club" is not considered inclusive because it means all men, it's considered exclusive because it specifically discounts those who are not men.

Anything that is interfaith by definition does not include nearly 1 in 5 Australians (18.7% as of 2006).

What I find most disconcerting is that interfaith groups hold contradictory views, they disagree on fundamental issues of human rights, laws, even separation of church and state. However, they are more willing to meet and seek common ground with someone who may have diametrically opposed political and civil ideas than they are to sit down with an atheist.

A secular movement by definition is one "separate to" any issues of faith. Anyone including people of faith can support a secular charity or join a secular debate on morals, laws, and rights. Because secular just means leave the dogma at the door it does not mean you must abandon your principles.

To use the example of a tennis club from above, a secular movement is the equivalent of a "Mixed Tennis Club" where gender is not checked, or filtered when you go onto the court. No-one thinks that you stop being boys and girls, you just dont assume that it is either a requirement or disqualification from playing tennis...

At this point some of you feel I am being unkind, you will be pointing out that interfaith councils are most often set up to help people of different faiths understand each other.

You're right thats the reason most interfaith councils are established.

And that the problem - Christians and Muslims are happy to meet and find out what other group believes and discover that they many many of the same values, but their understanding and tolerance often stops at other faiths.

Cultural inclusion as long as your culture meets our criteria.

Atheism itself is not a belief system, in the same way "off" is not a tv channel, but it does not mean that atheists or people of "no-faith" do not hold to one or more of the many non-faith philosophical systems; humanism, objectivism, altruism, confucianism, etc, etc. Definitely not faiths but philosophies excluded by words like "interfaith".

I have lost count of the times I have heard someone of faith claim that Atheists have no morals, or that we dont believe any anything at all. Claims actually perpetuated through their religion.

I think if christians want to learn and find out that Buddhists dont worship Buddha, and that Muslims done worship Mohammad (both claims I have heard made) they should also learn that scientists dont worship Darwin or Hawking and that Atheists dont worship satan (another claim I heave heard too often to be funny).

I believe in lots of things like family, love, shared human values, charity, human dignity and even religious freedom. I personally believe that I am responsible in this life for anything I do wrong and have only this life to make up for it.

But you wont here Atheist morality being discussed at an interfaith council.

Like holding a mens forum to discuss human rights... something/someone would be missing and the debates on abortion and body rights might not be as balanced as they could be.

Again I probably come across as a bit strident, but I have read the Qur'an (three translations of it anyway), I have read the bible (King James and new international), I have read a separate translation of the Torah, I have also read books on Buddhism and several Hindi faiths. I make a conscious effort to understand the way other people think and what is important to them.

But while "no-religion" is a larger slice of the demographic pie in this country than, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism combined (or any of the individual sects of christianity outside the catholics and Anglicans)... I dont see a proportional attempt to understand the values that make "no-religion" work.

Again I need to stress that I am NOT attacking any specific interfaith organisation, indeed most of the ones I know deal with cross cultural issues and strive to understand that not everyone is a person of faith, but they are - their world view is inherently biased towards values of faith and despite the best intentions in the world they cannot claim to be truly cross cultural as long as they do not represent a sizeable portion of the cultures in question.

The sad thing is that many people reading this article will think it just a semantic question and they would be right, so why are they not called "inter-cultural", "inter-society", "cross-philosophy", or "shared-value" councils instead?

Because they are formed by religious organisations within a religious perspective and operate from within a religious context, valuing religion and faith more than any other tenant of society. They can try to be understanding, they can try to think outside the book as it were, but until they actively try to include those people with really differing views they will be truly representative or any culture including their own.

Protecting Religious Rights

My friends disagree with me.

Not that religious rights need to be defended, we agree on that.

We disagree on how much protection they should have. Because as anyone who read my rant about the "Campaign for civility" could tell, I think that while people should be allowed to believe what they want, those beliefs should be as open to scoff, and ridicule as any other.

My premis was (is) that faiths make claims that are extremely offensive. I used the example of unbelievers deserving to be burned in hell, but I could just have easily gone with the claim that a woman is exactly one half the value of a man.

Someone very close to me after hearing my arguments from that blog post could not understand how someones faith could be offensive to someone else who did not share it...

RF [Respected Friend]: But if you dont believe in the qur'an or bible then why would it's claims about burning in hell bother you?

Me: Because people who accept the doctrine, accept the judgment it contains: that people without faith deserve eternal punishment.

RF: But thats just their belief, it doesn't mean anything... You dont have to take it seriously so why be offended.

Me: Because it can and does impact me. Our values create the laws and policies that we live by.

RF: But even if you feel that way you cant allow something as insulting as that video. People find it personally offensive...

...Aaaaaaand thats were I feel a point needs to be made.

An insult to a faith is not the same as a personal insult, an insult to a belief system, or a politics, or philosophy, or school of science, or model of thought, or even an economic system...  is not the same as a personal insult.

But faith is often given a special protected status in our culture, people will claim that anything that insults a faith can be taken as a personal insult without justification beyond the claim of faith.

For the vast majority of the faithful, this is because religion is the one belief people hold that they claim absolute knowledge.

Religious people dont think god exists they know he does, and they know what god is and what he wants of his creation. Many of my religious friends actually refuse to use words like "belief" because they are too ambiguous. Yet we know different religious systems contradict each other, they cannot all be right... But they could all be wrong.

So at least some of these people who claim an insult to their faith is a personal insult are taking offense about a false belief, a mistake, an error, or a self delusion.

And we let them do it.

As a society, we let religion make outlandish and contradictory claims. We let them make these claims with no evidence. We let them hold to practices and morals that are centuries out of date. We even let them discriminate on race, gender, and sexual orientation.

These values are reflected in society, they are used to justify laws and public policy.

I'll use the example of Islam because it was a muslim protest that prompted my original post:

People have tried to pass anti-blasphemy resolutions to the UN that would essentially make it illegal to say there was no historical evidence for Muhammad (or even to say he was just a normal man)

In the UK there are current attempts to get the courts to recognise sharia law, and multiple sharia councils are cropping up around England to enact sharia without waiting. Where this is really disturbing is that these councils are handing down rulings on legal matters like inheritance, and they are doing so according to quranic tradition - Sons get a full share and daughters get a half share.

These councils are run by people who also hold the belief that woman may be beaten if they dont obey their husbands.

Similar movements exist in the US and parts of Europe.

Personally I think any father who would rise their daughter as if she was worth less than a son is a fool at best. To tell a person they are worth less than another because of their gender is more than wrong it's a breach of basic human rights.

I think therefore that religion must be ready to get as good as it gives.

And its not just doctrine... People have used irrational and emotive attacks for as long as there has been debate, and people of faith are not exempt.

Claims of civility did not stop religionists drawing Charles Darwin with the body of a chimp, in fact it became a visual cliche of the age:

Perhaps more disturbing is that it continues to this day as a practice of those whose faith demands they do not accept any creation story but their own, and find themselves attacking the man to undermine the concept.

And the attacks do not stop at illustrations. Godwin's law remains a common go-to argument for many (but not all) people of faith who use "Reductio Ad Hitlerum" when they find themselves losing an argument on ration grounds.

I've experienced this myself, and have, in perfectly reasonable and quiet discussions been told that without faith to guide me I am no better than Hitler, and only the promise of salvation stops people from stealing raping and killing every day.

It's a claim made in a hundred youtube videos.

As my friend said

"You dont have to take it seriously"

And she was right, I dont have to and for the most part I dont.

I can live with views like that being expressed about me, and I demand only that god develops skin as thick as mine.

If we start limiting speech based on what may offend someone, redacting content from public sources on grounds of potential insult, then many religious works will have to become censored and radical/fundamentalist sermons will be blocked from youtube. In short "religious" freedoms would be the first ones to go...