All Comments (5)

Did Jesus Christ rush up to hypocrites and attempt to hug them back to spiritual health?

Did Jesus Christ rush up to sinners and commend them for their unclean thinking?

Did Jesus Christ rush up to human beings and yell out to them that Paganism is profitable?

Did Jesus Christ rush up to human beings and mumble to them that belief in the Sky God and the God Mother is the way to go or rather did He say that He was the Way and the truth and the life?

The only way for man to increase in understanding is to be taught by the Author of understanding. A consequence of increased understanding is better behaviour.

God's will for us is to come before Him as willing students. When we do this He will teach us and we will have the opportunity to put His teachings into practise and grow in understanding.

I can see that some of you are thinking about rushing with great eagerness to the holy Bible to learn more about the one true God, Triune God; so I'll make a quick get away.

May God bless your every small step toward the holy Bible and if you open it allow your fingers to turn at least one page (hopefully more) before you run away in a rush to some other far less worthy book.

It's a great achievement for Islamic leaders and scholars as well as Newsweek and the Washington post to present this imperative opportunity for inter cultural and global philosophical dialogue. What's important is that by exchanging our ideas and comments regarding inter religious relations and world events that affect our views of each other as fellow human beings. Since the advent of humanity, We strove to make sense of the world we live in and the lives we've experienced. Worldwide curiosities to learn the true nature of life and our universe is an exceptionally rare virtue upon life on Earth. In other words, we're the only known species on the planet who've pursued to unravel these great mysteries and developed written philosophies based upon our understanding of the world around us.
One such philosophy that lasted throughout the ages of humanity is commonly known as religion and spirituality. Ever since our early belief in the Sky God and the God Mother from ancient Pagan times, we vigorously pursued to unravel the truth about our most profound questions. As any educated person would know that religion and their core beliefs or faith have evolved over time. Paganism, Monotheism and Polytheism have been influenced by humanity as these great philosophies have influenced our perceptions and decisions in life over the ages. Over time humanity has embraced diverse religious faiths and spiritual convictions that continue to influence our behavior in our times and most likely beyond.
What's vital for humanity's progress and even survival is to know the true nature of faith itself. To understand the true origins of faith. But most of all, is to accept the truth for whatever it may be. Each one of us will learn the absolute truth once we die. But until that time comes for anyone of us to depart this world, we really don't know the answer to God's existence nor do we have the absolute truth in regards to the true nature of God. Besides if we did possess the truth, there would've been only one religion on Earth with no diversification of any way, shape of form. There would only be one holy scripture written throughout human history.
Considering one's religious faith to be absolute, while considering others to be false would be ethnocentric at best. While collectively searching to unravel the mysteries on nature, life and the universe through sincere reasoning and serious research would be enlightening at its worst. Most importantly, we must accept the fact is that none of us have conclusive evidence to confirm our core beliefs and there's always an immanent change that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong. Our greatest challenge would be to tolerate the truth no matter what it may ultimately be. With such an open mind, we would be able to overcome any future discovery that would contradict our faith regarding the true nature of life, spirituality and divinity.
Humanity does have the ability to achieve such a social achievement. However, it's solely up to humanity and not any other entity or groups of entities to decide our destinies. Each one of us has a choice to make; either hopelessly engaging into meaningless inter cultural conflicts or combine our scientific and cultural gifts to thrive into an enlightened global civilization that could ultimately expand beyond our solar system. The choice is yours, and the time to make it is now!

Dialogue presumes a willingness to listen. It also presumes detailed knowledge of a persons own faith that they are willing to share.

Neither circumstance appears forthcoming.

It seems that most "religious" individuals go about life and believe what they are told by their minister. When asked to defend anything from their Holy books, they can't. I suspect it's the same in every major faith.

So my question is, what is the body or forum who can take action to 'fix' the intolerance?

What good can come from these 'discussions' when Muslim children are being taught to take up arms at 7 years of age? How do you press reset on cultures (some thousands of years old) embedded with their horific beliefs and biases?

I'm afraid that as long as people believe in holy books that flatly contradict other holy books, there will always be fundamental differences between religions that cannot be compromised.

The world's religions will only stop fighting when people stop believing in them so strongly. Muslims, for example, seem to have the world's strongest faith, and they fight with everyone they come in contact with (Jews in Isreal, Christians in Europe and America, blacks in Sudan, Buddhists in Thailand, Hindus in India/Kashmir, Russians in Chechnya). Simply put, tolerance and open-mindedness do not come from the world's main holy books; they come from experience in the real world. The only solution to religious intolerance is the erosion of religion and increased exposure to reality.

I'm pretty sure the author lifted this from one of the papers submitted by his freshman students.

What on earth does this mean exactly? Clearly this panelist does not take the position seriously.