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Accepting or permitting others’ religious beliefs and practices, that nice. And it impressive if you can accept other’s beliefs if they disagree with one’s own. And we do have a lot of religions in the world. So some tolerance would come in handy. Next to the established religions like Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism you’ll find small ‘weird’ groups with deviating believes. And some might argue that although religious tolerance is a fine thing. There are limits. And some of these people will give examples of sects with dramatic moments in history.
Most people still remember the tragedy in Waco, Texas. David Koresh and his Branch Davidians sect were on TV when on February 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) raided Mount Carmel. The raid resulted in the deaths of four agents and six Davidians.
On March 26, 1997, 39 followers of Heaven’s Gate died in a mass suicide. The members of this sect believed that through their suicides they were “exiting their human vehicles” so that their souls could go to a spaceship supposedly following the comet Hale-Bopp.
These examples often center around deviant beliefs which actually are harmful to the people involved or others. Others might argue that introspection and questioning your own believes is a good way of learning more about your own religion. But this doesn’t mean that you can starting to ignore established truths and the foundations of a believe. Heretics are generally not welcome. Hence the name. But if one looks at human history you’ll see that any give major religion started out as a small sect. Heavily prosecuted by the then major believes. Take the Romans and how they acted towards Christians until the 4th century.
The point being? The believe you have now, and in the warm knowledge it is the right one and spread around worldwide, it started out as a small deviating sect.
And then there is Ahmadiyah. In the Jakarta Post was an article about several organizations trying to get an Indonesian branch of Ahmadiyah banned. Reason: Ahmadiyah continues to undermine the real teachings of Islam by, among others, saying Mirza Gulam Ahmad, not Prophet Muhammad, is the last prophet. That’s why we are urging the government, especially President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to issue any regulation necessary to ban Ahmadiyah, including its organization, religious practices and literature in Indonesia. According to Al Khaththat, the forum’s secretary-general.
I am not really in a position to judge this. I do not know enough about Ahmadiyah to have a well balanced opinion about this. But from my point of view, I don’t see the point of banning a sect. Even one that clearly takes a totally other stance in their interpretation of their believe than the mainstream. It also seems to be contradictory to Pancasila. Part of which is about the unification of different religions in Indonesia. But it also seems to contradict with the very moderate approach in general of Indonesia.
Now, what have I missed?
Reading a piece of Jennie Bev on the needs of inter-religious literacy in a multicultural country such as Indonesia did strike me. It seems that Indonesia is still sitting in the area of tolerance, but has not yet reached the point of intellect-acceptance. Thinking back it is indeed hard to pose questions about comparing religions in Indonesia.
People often say that you don’t need to know much about their religion (as in: if you are not part of our religion, you are on the wrong side), but we will respect your choice. Respect here is actually just being tolerant, but not wanting mutual understanding or the reason why someone has made the choices as a (different) believer. Because when one actually enters an inter religion conversation, at least what I observed in Indonesia, most people immediately think it is a challenge or a test to their religion. Instead of just having an intellectual conversation. And those that actually are able to exercise this intellectual acceptance most of the time prefer to be silent, most of the time afraid to shake the balance. The harmony.
Perhaps it is time to formally start lessons in Comparative Religion studies at the elementary school or at junior high school. Instead of having students only learning about their own religion, without really being able to question the fact that there’s more than one religion in that very same classroom. To make a bridge to actually learn that people do have a right to make their own choices when it comes to religion. As long as it is not harmful to themselves or other people.
Interesting. Indeed, all of these main religions have started out small. And I would like to agree with Jennie S Bev and you on wish of mutual intellectual understanding/acceptance.
However. Isn’t tolerance the best we can hope for? Are the different spiritual answers people made up over the last five thousand years, really worth the intellectual effort for each and every one – apart from the mere academic forums?
I can’t blame believers ( believers in one of the monotheistic religions that is) who consider that kind of a debate as a test to their own faith. From the moment on one is willing to accept the quality of other spiritual truths – a precondition to this kind of comparative studies – you can not evade to ask yourself the question whether the exclusive truths you always believed in. really are absolute exclusive truths. As a seasoned non-believer I have some experience in being questioned and questioning on spiritual matters. No bloodshed so far, but usually we suffered from a defensive reflex on both sides. With this obviously I don’t mean that it would not be worthwhile to teach schoolchildren that other religions do the trick for other people/in other times/at other places. And tell them about the main characteristics.
Btw: you will not blame me for hoping such a curriculum of this courses will also address, in a tolerant way, agnostics and atheists ( ever tried that kind of spiritual answer – you will love it).
In Indonesia people often exchange the meaning of ‘faith/beliefs’ and ‘religion’ while they are actually two different things. I think one of the reasons of this kind of mixed up is because: in our KTP (id card), religious identity must be included. So if in someone’s KTP the religious affiliation is Islam, then he/she is straight away stamped as a believer. While it’s almost always not true. Thus the nickname: Islam KTP… hehehe..
I think we can bring this into a broader context that Indonesians badly need proper education in respecting other people’s beliefs/faith (not only in respecting other people’s religion). I also think that government shouldn’t interfere with people’s beliefs. People should be given the freedom to choose what they believe (and this doesn’t necessarily mean they have to choose a religion, because they can choose to become agnostics or atheists), as long as it didn’t cause a universally condemned crime (such as that mass suicide you wrote above). Lastly, I think mass preaching (like on TV) on religion should be avoided and people should try to find their own ways without interference from anybody.
So, if I start a sect that believes that money is God, will that be wrong?
ps: Pelopor, were you tired when writing this? Plenty of spelling mistakes laaah
Proper education is something any country can use. And I suppose Indonesia is no exception. For one thing, in the Netherlands we are in desperate need of some good education about our colonial past, the Age of Enlightenment/Reason and philosophy.
I guess it must have been late, both me and me spouse didn’t see anything wrong hehehe, spelling or otherwise
Months ago, I came across an open forum on Yahoo where people were sending hate messages about religion. Whose religion is stronger, whose the more ridiculous. I was shocked and scared to my very core. No wonder these people are killing each other! They are using the worse possible languages to each other.
There are three points to be stressed according to you. Tolerance, understand and respect.
Tolerance is the easiest, we just need to live with the fact that our religion or believe is not the only one existed.
Understanding is more of a technical term in my point of view. To gain deeper understanding on roots of different faiths and religions not only testing the intellectual nature of somebody, but definitely requires logic and unconditional-unbiased-straightly objective views.
Respect is to do both things above together. Harder than it sounds, but it is the ultimate goal for all countries which is a melting pot of different faith and religions. Indonesia, sadly to say, is still struggling at step one – tolerance.
Okay. I am making a LOT of grammatical error. Apologies to all readers. My eyes were watering, but there were no excuse for the mistakes ….
“They are using the worst possible words”
“The fact that our religion or belief is not the only one existed”
“Objective view”
“Which act as melting pots for different faith and religions”
@zushi: hehehe if yor god is the money..count me in :p
learning from my positive hubbie…i think positively that indonesia still have time to push to second and third stage of interaction. I remembered my childhood in Maluku, that’s the only place where I celebrated Idul Filtri and Christmas at their full glory! Magnificent. And now it won’t be restored to the way it used to be. As much as there’s another cause to the war in Maluku from social and politic perspective, still it is a very saddening to see great pela culture gone within a blink of the eye. That’s should be a good lesson for all of us to go for understanding and respect. So we are not going to have the second maluku, or second poso, or any other second on the name of Religion. Oh…by the way…anybody know what is actually the main objective to have Department of Religion ????
@andie: love your stages of inter-religious interaction
[...] There Yet? Published January 16, 2008 daily stuff Tags: blog 365, religion, thoughts Pelopor wrote an interesting post on religious beliefs and practices, which raised a couple of issues [...]
Another perspective here on Ahmadiyya – we’re actually fine with them, as long as they name their religion something else.
Yes, Ahmadiyya is fundamentally different than Islam. So it’s misleading to say that it’s Islam.
So just say that they’re Ahmadiyya, and there’d be no problem. And basically this is what MUI said too, they’re just stating that Ahmadiyya is Ahmadiyya. Not Islam.
But they insisted on hijacking Islam.
Imagine if we, muslim, named our religion The True Christian
I wouldn’t be surprised if people are suddenly angry with us, since we’re hijacking their religion.
I really hope that this brouhaha can be solved amicably. But so far their leaders are playing a slick game. He’s playing a nice kid with the media, while still continuing on their hijacking mission.
As long as they’re insisting on doing this, they’d continue to offend the masses. Which, in Indonesia, can be very violent & emotional
But that’s what the media love isn’t it ? It will sell the papers more.
You gotta love this media circus thingy.
then perhaps going through a trial would be good way, instead of rampant beating and killing Ahmadiyah people.
what I don’t understand, Ahmaddiyah already there in Java at least for very long time. Why suddenly now with all violent action toward them?