The fact that many religious people believe they have a monopoly on truth is what makes conversations like these -- often ruled out in the past as impolite or impossible -- so necessary.
What we need to ask in such conversations is how, historically speaking, each tradition began, and what pressures generated such claims to monopoly. We might ask, for example, against whom such claims were made, and for what reasons? What is at stake in making them?
Second, apart from convictions about the divine that some regard as non-negotiable, what are the issues—especially practical ones-- within each religious community on which members take different stands?
Third, how do such stands compare with those taken by people in different religious communities (and, for that matter, by people outside religious communities)?
Finally, what actions inspired by religious convictions deserve our immediate attention and energy? How can people of different communities collaborate on them?
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