Does all the worth of your religion consist in the negative?

Submitted by Concerned European (Lithuania), Sep 11, 2007 at 18:50

There is a big problem with your response, Keith. Because almost everything what you say could be said by most of islamists and islamic fundamentalist groups. After all, not all islamic fundamentalist groups preach violence. Maybe only a minority do. The rest try "to appeal by grace and kindness" or at least make such an image. Take as example Tariq Ramadan, Abul Fadl and many others. Yet it does not mean that in the long term they are less dangerous than "hot" jihadists.

Another thing that surprises me, is your conviction that denying the exlusive claims of religions make them worthless. Does all the worth of your religion consist in the negative? Does your religion is strong only by denying claims of other religions? The problem with islamic extremism is exactly that - they have driven the religious nihilism to the most absurd dimensions.

You should concentrate on the positive side of your religion. I guess you may be a Christian(excuse me if my guess is wrong). Well, a Christian could say " I am sinner and I am saved by Christ's grace". While I wholeheartedly agree with this, I do not accept everyone to be a sinner neither I believe Christ to be the only savior. A person could be saved not only by Christ's grace, he could be saved by Buddha Amida grace as well. Or else person could be saved by firmly believing that one has essential Buddha nature and one only needs to cxtualize this Buddha nature by meditation. All these paths do not exclude each other - they are just suitable for different groups or categories of people. So concentrate on your own salvation by Christ's grace and do not bother about those who do not accept Christ as savior. Do not try to outreach them neither "by grace or kindness" nor otherwise.

Now you will ask me - whether I will accept as valid the claim of these who think that the salvation could be obtained only by chopping heads of "disbelievers". I would answer that I do not consider such beliefs "metaphysically evil" neither "wrong". I would simply say that such "believers" are simply very serious nuisance to us and that because of that we have to combat them with all possible means as one should combat some pesky pests; but let us not imagine that we are the "warriors of light and truth" and that they are "metaphysical evildoers". Bin Laden perhaps also thinks about himself as the "warrior of truth" and about us as "evildoers"; let not become the mirror image of bin Laden.

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