Exclusivity and Acceptance Between Religions

Religions tend to be exclusive in nature: if you believe in one of them, then that belief tends to reject the validity of others. Now I acknowledge that there are sects like the Baha’is, the Unitarian Universalists, and Unity, who tend to promote the idea of a more universal legitimacy for religions. There are also more liberal forms of the traditional religions that tend to promote a more ecumenical acceptance of other religions. The predominant aspect of religions, however, is their intolerance of divergent beliefs, at least as far as doctrine is concerned. It doesn’t matter whether one is referring to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism , or the multitude of other faiths: if you’re a “true believer” within a particular group, then to you, all of those outside the group are "in error", “astray”, “lost”, or, worse, “pagans”, “heathens”, or “infidels” (with all of the negative connotations).

But that’s not the entire picture. Within each group, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, there is a splintering off into subgroups (sects, denominations), which often regard the other groups with scorn and rejection, even when they are supposedly under the same religion’s “umbrella”. Thus you see conflicting doctrinal claims of legitimacy between Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox (Christianity), Reformed, Conservative, and Orthodox (Judaism), and Sunni and Shiite (Islam), to mention a few of the more prominent faiths.

Keeping in mind that statistically, the most reliable predictors of an individual’s adherence to a particular faith are his or her family background and geographical location, making knee-jerk judgments about followers of “outside” religions doesn’t make very much sense, at least to me. It’s one thing to believe strongly in a doctrine and that other doctrines have serious flaws in contrast to one's own: it’s another thing to divide the human race into good and evil based on which side of the religious fence one sees another as being on. So, I see no problem with missionaries of any religion going to any other part of the world to peacefully promote their faith and doctrine. To me, that kind of activity is part of one’s free and legitimate practice of his or her own religion. But I do have a problem with groups insisting that their worldview be imposed on everyone, or else they are somehow being made the target of religious persecution.


Since burgeoning global trade, as well as increasing international travel and almost instantaneous worldwide communication through the Internet and satellites is “shrinking” our world and bringing more and more people from different backgrounds and different “exclusive” religious beliefs in contact with one another, it appears obvious (at least to me) that there exists a dire need for a new creed of “social maturity” whereby people, either as individuals or in the groups of their own choosing, may believe and promote their own belief systems, but at the same time show the utmost respect for those “outside” of their own spheres of faith. Which sometimes includes both hearing doctrines different from their own as well as seeing some of their own religious taboos unknowingly broken by “outsiders” without going ballistic!