Hello all, peace be upon you.

As a Christian who deeply wishes to love and understand all of my Muslim brothers and sisters (along with Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and people of all religions, or no religion at all) to the best of my ability, I am very interested in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding. But unfortunately, I see a lot of barriers to this.

My belief is that the barriers coming from people of my background (Christian, American, white) is fear and ignorance mixed with racism and xenophobia. So many of us unfortunately get our impression of Islam or Muslims from the media and certain politicians who exploit horrible events like 9/11 or the wars and instability in the Middle East and other Muslim-majority regions and say that “radical Islamic terrorism” or even all of Islam itself is a massive threat to Americans/Christians/the West etc.

Additionally, there are as many conflicts and fundamental disagreements among Christians in the US alone (to say nothing of the situation globally) as there are among Muslims (or any other religion) that it often feels like a broad mutual respect and understanding between different religions is a utopian dream. And yes, a lot of the wars and power rivalries that are “religious” aren’t actually based primarily on religion; religion is used as the justification and mobilization of people against other people ie. giving religious legitimacy to the conflicts.

These are my views, anyway. What do you see as the greatest obstacles to peace and respect for one another?

Thank you, and may God’s blessing be upon you.

I created this post in response to yesterdays discussions about the opinions of other monotheists (christian and muslims) on Judaism.

A great many jewish redditors have commented that the way christians expressed their beliefs was offensive and very inappropriate. That surprised me as I did not get the impression that this was the intention of most of my coreligionists.

I would like to ask jewish redditors if they could elaborate on what specifically they found objectionable/offensive and perhaps for suggestions on how christians can engage with them in a manner that is respectful to them without either side having to compromise their religious beliefs.

Thank you.

Introduction: A Little History About the Development of Humanity

• Two hundred thousand years ago, in central Africa, humanity, homo sapiens**, first appeared.**
• For the next 199,700 years, 99+% of us lived within a day’s walk from where we were born.
• Writing was invented 4,500 years ago in Sumer, but until
• Only 250 years ago, merely 01% of us could read.
• Now billions can read, and
• Millions of us travel all around the world, and
• The entire world comes to us instantaneously via our TVs and smartphones.
• In the past, 99+% of us basically knew only people who thought and acted like us, whereas today *All the strangers of the whole world come into our classrooms, our living rooms—our hands!
• Our old wisdom when we lived on a tiny plot of the vast Earth is no longer adequate to deal with *The tsunami of experiences and deluge of knowledge that is flooding over us today!
• We are increasingly aware that our understanding of the world is not limited and static….

When Sir Isaac Newton, in the latter part of the 17th century, produced his stunning description of all the physical laws, seemly embracing the totality of nature and the cosmos—Principia Mathematica—we presumed that we knew 99+% of what there was to know about the world and the cosmos. But then, in 1905, Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity. Soon thereafter, Max Planck developed Quantum Mechanics. All of which turned our knowledge of both the macro and micro worlds topsy-turvy and showed us that the more we learned, the more we learned what we did not know. As Socrates, millennia ago, when asked who is the wise person, said: “The wise person is the one who knows that he does not know.”

Hence, I have tried to distill something of this wisdom in the following two mantras. I would ask you, Dear Reader, to memorize these mantras and repeat at least once a day! Well, at least repeat them whenever you are about to have a serious conversation. Remember, “Repetitio est mater studiorum!” which means, “Repetition Is the Mother of Studies!”

1. A) Nobody knows Everything about Anything—Therefore Dialogue!
2. B) All Knowledge is Interpreted Knowledge—Therefore Dialogue!

Mantra A: Nobody knows Everything about Anything—therefore Dialogue!

**What chemist, for example, would get up in the morning and

Meet Harold Kasimow...

“…in the hope that our Earth would never again be so soaked with blood,” author Harold Kasimow has dedicated his life to spreading hope and goodwill through Interreligious Dialogue. As a four-year-old, Kasimow, with his family, experienced and survived the most horrific episode of our lifetime, the Holocaust, by hiding in a ‘grave’ under a cowshed for nineteen months and five days.

https://preview.redd.it/dldhfzjecip71.jpg?width=1413&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f1376c94afa8006d084a30acadf319e2e916141

https://preview.redd.it/4b4jrpjecip71.jpg?width=714&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12822532d2749877dace462c376f419eca7d8814

Coming in October...

In his latest book, Love or Perish: A Holocaust Survivor’s Vision for Interfaith Relations, Kasimow leads with a heart-wrenching personal sharing, followed by his tributes to his mentor, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and others. Through the hearts of Heschel and Kasimow, we explore and expand our knowledge of the power of interfaith dialogue and of the people who made it their life’s work.

https://preview.redd.it/4zrlagepdip71.jpg?width=1020&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1238299a2f695777d62c09da05f3c4af4a3974a

What is a Christian view on Interfaith dialogue? A form of communication between different faiths and religions coming together to promote peaceful coexistence with each human other.

Is it possible to obtain true world and personal inner peace without having to leave one‘s original faith and convert to another, but instead work together out of mutual respect for one another?

In the primary visit to Iraq, Pope Francis plans to emphasize the difficulty of Iraq’s Christian populace and advance interfaith dialogue.

On Monday, the Vatican issued the itinerary of Pope Francis’ March visit to Iraq. The timetable, loaded with meetings and events with political and religious figures the nation, aimed at two missions, talks on the nation’s decreasing Christian populace and promoting interfaith discourse.

This will be Pope Francis’s first trip after the Covid pandemic. He will be landing in Baghdad International Airport amid an uprise in new coronavirus cases that have been reported in the country, the developing impact of armed groups, and a couple of shellings in Baghdad have been declared by the Islamic State.

The Catholic head states that now is an ideal opportunity to visit the oldest Christian communities on the planet.

Two years back, Francis had announced his desire to visit Iraq by 2020; however, the plan was postponed due to a coronavirus outbreak.

So when Francis again declared to visit Iraq in 2021, groups were at first doubtful as the virus kept on the nation. The Iraqi Health Ministry announced 1,660 new cases on Saturday. However, the pope believes there is currently an open door to push forward with this visit.

On March 5, Pope Francis will land in Baghdad preceding he will head out to Nasiriya, Najaf, Mosul, Erbil to meet with the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali-Husaymi Al-Sistani in Najaf and the Iraqi President Barham Salih as well as local clerics and bishops. He will also be attending the mass at the Chaldean Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Baghdad.

Pope will be holding a prayer service especially for the individuals who have lost their lives when the radical extremists took control over the area.

I've had thousands of interfaith dialogues over the years, mostly on Omegle, and I've noticed a trend where Muslims are more likely to talk like... brick walls?

I don't want to sound mean, but I just had this experience again for the umpteenth time.

This is interesting to me because when I was in college I read a book co-written by scholars or various religions, and the Muslim scholar mentioned that lack of critical thinking about why Islam is good and how Muslims should communicate this fact is one of the problems he sees in the Muslim world.

It goes like this:

Me: I'm Buddhist. Nice to meet you.

Muslim: Oh that's very interesting, friend. Do you know that the Quran exists? You should read it and became Muslim.

Me: Yes I know it exists and I love learning about world religions, but I like being Buddhist. Thanks.

Muslim: Oh no friend, you see, here in the Quran it says how can you not believe when God split apart heaven and earth and made life from water. So you see, Islam is the most scientific religion and therefore you should be Muslim.

Me: Well, Islam isn't the only religion that says things like that.

Muslim: Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, not a God. Isn't that much more reasonable? Plus, in Christianity God has to kill his son for forgiveness, but Islam reveals that Jesus' death was an illusion and Jesus was never hurt. That's much better, don't you think?

Me: I'm a Buddhist. I don't follow Jesus, although I think he was a cool dude.

Muslim: Ah yes, but Islam also says that djinns trick people into believing false religions. So all you have to do is read the Quran and then you'll see that your old religion was false. Isn't that great, friend?

Me: Uh, I know you have good intentions but that was pretty rude.

Muslim: I'm only saying what God said, friend. Don't you think it's time to read the Quran? After you read it you'll see that Islam is the most logical, scientific, humane, philosophical religion. Why are you procrastinating?

I'm not exaggerating. That's the laconic version of the conversation I just had, and it's not the first time.

Does anyone have comments on this? Besides Muslims, the only person who has kind of talked to me like this was a Jehovah's Witness.

I've also noticed that this mode of dialogue is more common with Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslims. Muslims from Western countries have been much better at dialogue in my experience.

So the recent Doomsayer/Templar post got me thinking on faith in Deadlands and the backgrounds that use it. Sure, it's rather nebulous as far as skills go, outside of what it does for the Arcane Backgrounds that is, but it's still useful to even those without that divine connection. This is something of a rant and there will be spoilers, but it'll be a second before I get to that.

 

The Classic Weird West is relatively simple. Your faith is in one of a set list of religious sects, most of which are drawn from our own history. There ain't any Christians here, though - least, not technically speaking. Instead it's down to the nitty gritty. You're either a Catholic, Mormon, Lutheran, or any other flavor of Protestant or Orthodox that exists. Same holds for other faiths, but the setting really doesn't focus too terribly much on their schisms, if only because the religious makeup of North America circa 1877 is what it is.

 

Tribal faiths don't get quite the same rundown. Some of that has to do with the general lack of written holy texts and schisms and a greater emphasis on the acceptance or rejection of things like the Old Ways and Ghost Dance on a tribe by tribe basis.

 

As for holy men and women, you've got Blessed of any number of faiths, the not-really-a-matter-of-faith Voodooists, and the mestizo's Anahuac clergy. Technically, Shamans and Aztecs don't operate on faith, but then Ghost Dancers does go right out and say that a shaman can use ritual whenever they're asked for a faith roll. So chalk that little wrinkle up to pre-Revised Classic being unrefined. Plus, just like every Christian has access to the protection miracle, faithful non-shamans get to have their pick from a limited list of favors.

 

This leads me to my first rant: the books give a lot of "No, you can't ever do this" type of warnings only to then whittle away at those prohibitions. The core books, Fire & Brimstone, and Ghost Dancers all make a point about how Blessed and Shaman are mutually exclusive. But then Taoists and a couple of other faiths get to select Blessed or Shaman, and it's something of a wink and a nod to the reader that this is an exception to the "either/or" restriction previously stated. Sadly, how a Taoist shaman would operate, including what restrictions on things like shaman Edges, rituals, and favors, isn't ever detailed. Oh well, I ain't above homebrewing away a problem like that.

 

Worse i

Fact! In South Africa church members disguised themselves as religious leaders. They pretend to be Hindus, Muslims and Jews.

Opinion! They probably trained them to avoid as much contact as possible and just in case of making contact with other religious leaders in attendance trained them the basics of what they should say and do.

Fact! Because I know SCJ they always come prepared.

Is it the same anywhere else? If you pretended to be a religious leader I would like to know your experience?