Thoughts on Interfaith Dialogue

Before I became a Buddhist, I made a systematic attempt to thoroughly investigate the major world religions (and a host of minor ones), to the degree that my time and abilities allowed. I read many religious scriptures, and the books and essays of both religious believers and skeptics throughout history. I also had many discussions about religion and other interesting topics with many people of different backgrounds and differing degrees of commitment to and training in their religion, as well as those who are not religious and those who are hostile to religion. The view of religion which I have developed as a result of my investigation is quite different from most of the views of the people whose writings I read or with whom I had discussions, and I was very much enriched by the experience.

I think that everyone would benefit greatly from having serious discussions about religion with others who hold a variety of views, especially those which are diametrically opposed to one's own. I think that anyone who did this would very likely end up with very different opinions and religious beliefs than the ones that they started with, which is why many religions forbid or try to prevent their followers from learning about other religions or discussing religion with people who have different views and beliefs. Many religions teach that it is a sin to question that religion's dogma, with dire punishments in the afterlife (or even in this life).

I learned from my experience many things about how people approach questions about religion. The first is that most people begin with their beliefs (or at least a vague idea about what their beliefs ought to be), and then try to find evidence to justify them, in the process ignoring or dismissing facts that do not fit their preconceived notions. When a nominal Christian, for example, becomes religious, he does not typically ask, "Now, why should I believe that Christianity is true?", a question that ought to lead him to consider both the arguments for Christianity and the arguments against it. Instead, he will read books written by Christian apologists and discuss Christianity only with other Christians. In other words, the question that he has asked himself is, "How can I justify my belief in Christianity?", and he finds his answer in the purported evidence of the apologists. In all likelihood he is not even aware that there are well-considered counterarguments against his beliefs.

This leads me to the second thing that I learned, which is that most religious believers are overly confident that their own religious beliefs are based on reason and evidence while religious beliefs that differ from theirs are irrational and baseless. Monotheists are unable to see how anyone can disbelieve in God or believe in multiple gods. Christians cannot imagine how anyone can think that Jesus isn't the greatest human being who has ever lived. Muslims criticize the Christian concept of Trinity for being illogical, but fail to recognize the illogic of belief in an omnipotent deity who requires his followers to wage war on his behalf against unbelievers. One could go on and on with examples. The majority of people have the religious beliefs that they have only because they were taught these beliefs at a young age, and have never thought to question them.

In societies without a high degree of mobility and decent level of education (which describes pretty much every society in human history up until relatively recently), the majority of people simply adopted the beliefs of their parents and the community around them. Throughout most of history, literacy was limited to the elite (although a larger fraction of the populace may have been literate in a restricted sense, for example when it came to terminology needed for their professions or the recitation and memorization of religious or culturally important texts). Of the elite, only a fraction would have been trained in philosophy and possess the kind of reasoning skills needed to distinguish good arguments from bad ones. It follows that most of the religious conversions in history were not due to a carefully considered evaluation of the evidence. Instead, the majority would have been due to social, political, and economic incentives. People converted to the religions of their rulers and conquerors, or of mighty foreign powers, because doing so brought material benefits: advancement in social status, access to education, acquisition of superior technology. This is largely true even today, outside of the most developed (i.e., "First World") countries.

Thus, upon a little contemplation, anyone can see that the religious beliefs that he is brought up with have no necessary correlation with reality. If anything, they are likely to be false, since there are many more ways to be wrong than there are to be right (and hence false beliefs must surely greatly outnumber true ones). The thoughtful and conscientious person must, therefore, come to the conclusion that, far from being a sin, it is a virtue and a moral obligation to question one's religious beliefs as well as those of one's society. If a person maintains his religious beliefs without critically examining them, he will surely be in error. But if he makes a deliberate effort to distinguish between claims which are not substantiated by the evidence or which are based on faulty reasoning and those which are supported by the evidence and sound reasoning, he will move closer and closer towards the truth. Or as Sir Francis Bacon, one of the foremost pioneers of the scientific method, put it:

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

I am very interested in interfaith dialogue (also known as multifaith dialogue or interreligious dialogue) for the above reason. I'm curious to know what people believe and why, and how it affects their behaviour and choices in life. However, while I have learned much from personal discussions with individuals, I have also found "official" interfaith occasions very disappointing. What I've observed is that, while many individual participants are genuinely interested in learning and sharing, people often end up hiding their true convictions for a variety of reasons. A large part of it is innocuous, a desire to be cordial and polite and to avoid possible misunderstanding or offense. But this cordiality has been exploited and subverted by religious organizations who wish to shield their followers from exposure to what might be legitimate criticisms of their religion, which could plant the seed of doubt in their minds and thus loosen their leaders' control over them. These leaders incite their followers to cry "bigotry" and accuse their critics of ignorance or malice whenever anyone says anything not to their liking about their religion.

But while falsehood must be offensive to those whose beliefs actually correspond to the truth, the truth is also offensive to those whose beliefs are false. We cannot judge the veracity of a statement by its (perceived) offensiveness. If a party is genuinely interested in dialogue, it must expect to encounter statements with which it disagrees from other parties. Otherwise – if everyone already agreed in everything – there would be no point to having a dialogue.

In the book "Land of No Buddha" by Richard P. Hayes, there is an essay titled "Christianity and Buddhism: Dialogue or Debate?" in which he asks why today's Christians and Buddhists engage in interfaith dialogue when they did not do so at any other time in history. He answers the question as follows:

At the risk of offending anyone's intelligence with an oversimplified answer, I would suggest that dialogue has become possible because both Christians and Buddhists have almost entirely lost their way in the epistemological wilderness and the moral wasteland of modern life. Christians and Buddhists alike have long since lost the courage to take a firm stand against the silliness and shallowness of the childish populism that has come to replace civilization. We no longer have the stomach to be elitist, to preach the obligation of wisdom to provide firm leadership for the morally feeble and intellectually immature. Christians and Buddhists have both lost the heart to take the unfashionable stand that there is a vast difference between truth and falsity, and between moral right and moral wrong.

I very much like the essay, which points out that in a genuine dialogue, each party must be honest and open about its beliefs as well as its opinions, however critical, of the other's beliefs. Just because two parties disagree does not mean that there need be any animosity between them, if they come together in a true spirit of wanting to learn from and share with each other. I hope that those who are engaged in interfaith dialogue would act more courageously and take a stand for what they truly believe in, at the same time that they learn to become more receptive to what the other side has to say.

南無阿彌陀佛