How
a religious culture can encourage extremism
You
cannot separate religious extremism from the culture in which it emerges.
You cannot remove extremism without changing the culture.
By Kim Michaels
Let us look
at some of the factors that cause people to develop an extremist approach
to religion:
Only one true religion
Many religious people believe there is only one God. Therefore, they
reason that one God would not give us many different religions and consequently
there can be only one true religion—their own. This exclusivist
approach to religion will inevitably encourage extremism because you
automatically come to see all other religions as false. If a religion
is false, it must be of the Devil, so it is your duty to fight that
religion. This must be God’s will, and it is only for the salvation
of non-believers.
Religion gives absolute truth
Many religious people believe that if a religion is given by God, its
teachings and doctrines must be absolute and infallible. After all,
how could an almighty God give forth a religious doctrine that was anything
less than the absolute truth. Again, it follows that all different beliefs
must be partly or wholly erroneous. The inevitable result is that you
see yourself in opposition to people who belong to other religions.
Religion gives complete truth
Many religious people believe their religion provides not only an infallible
description of God, they also believe it is complete. They believe that
God is perfect and thus a doctrine given by God must be perfect. They
also believe that something which is perfect could not possibly change.
Therefore, their religion could never evolve or change over time. There
is no need to adapt a religion to changing times—instead the times
should adapt to the complete and infallible doctrine. In other words,
they believe they must resist all changes in their religion. Again this
creates tension and conflict.
Black-and-white thinking
Many religious people believe that religion must be defined in terms
of black and white. Their religion is completely right, while all conflicting
religions are completely wrong. They believe there is no possibility
of a compromise, because if you give the Devil one finger, he will take
the whole hand. They are not open to the idea that there could be an
approach to religion which was not based on this black-and-white thinking.
Only one possible interpretation
Many religious people believe there is only one way to interpret their
religious scriptures. Obviously, it is the interpretation chosen by
their current church leaders. They believe all other interpretations
are wrong and come from the Devil. Therefore, it is their duty to eradicate
such false interpretations and possibly even the people who promote
them.
Church leaders represent God
Many religious people believe the leaders of their religion are God’s
representatives on Earth. The leaders speak for God and therefore they
should never be questioned or gain said. Such people demand blind obedience
and thus anyone who does not respect this absolute authority is seen
as an enemy.
The epic battle
Many religious people believe that the world is a battleground between
good (God) and evil forces. Obviously, it would be naive to ignore that
there seems to be evil forces working in the world. Yet many religious
people define good and evil by saying that their religion represents
good while all others or certain others represent evil. Such a definition
of good and evil can only promote conflict and extremism.
Scapegoating
Human beings have always had a tendency to avoid taking personal responsibility
for their situation. One example is the belief that your problems are
caused by other people. In the religious field, this leads to the belief
that all of the problems in the world are caused by people who belong
to false religions. Non-believers then become the scapegoats. In other
words, anyone who disagrees with or opposes your beliefs is deceived
by the Devil or working for the Devil.
The ultimate cause
Many religious people believe their religion represents the ultimate
cause. They are fighting for a just cause, backed by the ultimate authority,
namely God. Therefore, everything they believe or do is right in an
ultimate sense. This then makes it possible for these people to justify
almost anything as being necessary in order to win the ultimate victory.
The end justifies the means
The sense of ultimate justification easily leads to the sense that the
ends can justify the means—any means. Some people believe that
because they are working for God’s purposes, it is acceptable
to violate the laws of God defined by their religion. In other words,
it becomes acceptable to kill other people in the name of God even though
virtually every religion defines killing as wrong.
Conclusion
The obvious, the inescapable, conclusion is that as long as most of
the world’s religious cultures are influenced by some or all of
these confrontational factors, there is no way to reduce religious conflicts.
These factors not only encourage conflict, they breed conflict. And
in allowing such conflict and tension to continue, it is almost inevitable,
and certainly predictable, that some people will take this general culture
into extremism and fanaticism.
So if we are to have any chance of reducing conflict, then we must find
a different approach to religion, an approach that is not dominated
by these confrontational elements. We must find an approach that promotes
understanding, tolerance and even unity among religious people.
In that respect, it is extremely important to recognize that most religious
cultures are influenced by at least some of these elements. Obviously,
not everyone is willing to take these elements into the extreme. Yet
everyone who tolerates these conflict-breeding elements is contributing
to maintaining the general culture. And it is precisely this culture
that leads to extremism.
How not to combat religious conflict
The idea of overcoming religious conflict is not new. In fact, throughout
history many people have attempted to remove all religious conflict.
The problem is that they have attempted to do this by establishing their
religion as the only religion, seeking to wipe out all other religions
in the process.
It is not difficult to observe that in today's world there are more
religions than ever on this planet. Therefore, we must conclude that
any attempt to force religious unity will be doomed to fail. Seeking
to force or persuade everyone to espouse your religion simply will not
reduce religious conflict. So we must find a different approach, and
it is not that difficult to see a possible solution.
Let us now consider how to
define a universal approach
to religion.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
