At Peace with Religious Beliefs?

Indeed, fanaticism prospers when rigidity gets organised and the metaphysical core of a religion erodes. This ultimately hurts peace and order in the society, writes Dr. Taradatt, IAS (R)

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It is difficult to imagine a peaceful Middle-East even though it has a strong common thread of ancestry and ethnicity as descendants of Abraham, whose march to the Land of Canaan presaged the emergence of three doctrines - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But from the start, divisions rooted in religious identity have relentlessly crept in. Today, we face a paradox of its evolution to a region of continuing religious conflicts spanning nearly two millennia, a veritable clash of civilisations.

Conventional wisdom is quite clear. Religion intertwined with ethics are the moral architecture to promote peaceful human existence. Hinduism, the most ancient among all, defines our world as a microcosm — ‘bird’s nest’ — in a vast creation, supported by universal unity and enfolds within itself every sectoral division and differentiation. In Judaism and Christianity, Ten Commandments specify the norms for ethical conduct. Islamic ethics envisage good character, honesty, social justice, virtual life, etc. Thus, compassion, fairness, justice, tolerance, love, peace, harmony, etc. are integral to every religion.

Abraham — patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — bound them in their mutual, albeit differentiated, monotheistic veneration of One God. Yet, history is replete with devastating wars fought by adherents for expanding their own religion and domination over the others, even as benign cultural exchanges of al-Andalus and violence-ridden Crusades helped expand political empires.