Once in a while, someone leaves such an intellectual comment on a thread that I am forced to share with you all. This one was by Mercury Terminal فرخ: Whether one is an atheist or a believer in any faith or religious tradition does not matter. What matters is whether one can tolerate and empathize with others points of view, and try to engage in meaningful and respectful dialogue. As human beings, we have the capacity, and indeed obligation, to not just tolerate but understand one another so that we can mutually construct and preserve humanity. Bigots on the other hand are defined by their inability to tolerate those holding different opinions from them. Religious fundamentalists and anti-theists (known these days as neo-atheists) are often bigots who refuse to engage in meaningful dialogue. Their purpose is to malign those who hold opposing views to them. Neo-atheists and religious fundamentalists dont want to listen, nor understand, the nuanced complexities of the others perspective. While the former only legitimize those who hijack Islam (according to the vast majority of Muslims) in order to prove Islam as being a terrorist or evil religion and disregard the rest of us; the latter legitimize those who hijack Islam by claiming theirs is the only valid interpretation despite there being authenticated and vast traditions of scholarship and discussion within Muslim theologians and intellectuals. Both groups engage in hateful conversation, reliant on illogical and simplified binary approaches to religion and religious observance. To put it simply, theres a three-fold responsibility here for each group: Muslims continue to reclaim their religion and refuse to let fundamentalists be their voice (which they continue to do regardless of whether anyone is listening or broadcasting their perspectives or not); AND they educate their people in their own traditions and weed out intolerance; AND engage with atheists who (despite their opposing perspective) share a common purpose of eradicating hatred. Atheists reclaim their moral high ground by refusing to let neo-atheists obfuscate their philosophy; AND educate their own people in their philosophies and weed out intolerance; AND engage with Muslims and other religionists for the purpose of eradicating hatred.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 03:10:17 +0000
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