Toward the end of my interiew with Sue Ryan yesterday, I mentioned that I had begun to dwell more and more on the question of lack of interest among believers when it comes to finding out about other religions. I used the image of the valley community to make the point that many folks are satisfied with where they are in their valley, and aren't all that curious about what might be going on in the next valley over.
This may be one reason why connections between and among religious communities tend to be incestuous: Zennists know other Buddhists, but might not have ties with the local Sikhs; the Sikhs are well networked with other Sikhs, but might not have connections with local Catholic churches, and so on.
The issue of incuriousness (if that's even a word) is worth exploring, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I should replace one of my Ten Questions with one about this phenomenon. Perhaps the answer to the question lies in simple human psychology: people tend to settle, and tend to think only in terms of their own needs. But while that may be true, there has to be more to the issue, especially given the open-heartedness that religions supposedly preach.
More on this later; right now, I'm about to hit the 'brary again.
(By the way, the Hood River News article is slated to appear on Saturday.)
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Marathon
11 years ago
5 comments:
Let me turn the question around: why should anyone be interested in religions other than her own? It seems to me that very few people would say that they're interested in "religion" in the abstract: people are interested in the Gospel, the dharma, etc.
As for the "open-heartedness" that religions teach: Does open-heartedness mean toleration, or does it mean curiosity? And can you name a religion that has tolerance for other traditions as a central, as opposed to a secondary, ethical teaching?
Alan,
I think there are plenty of reasons to be interested in religions other than one's own, starting with the fact that we live in an increasingly crowded world where those valleys are filled to the brim, making some sort of encounter and/or interaction with the Other inevitable. I also tend to think that religions are at their best when they promote not merely awe and reverence but also curiosity about the world; too often, though, religion in general acts as a force to stifle curiosity, questioning, etc. But if religion acts this way, it does so for a reason that probably goes deeper than religion, per se; what's that reason? That's what I'm asking, and I think the final question in your comment is another way of asking that very question: why isn't tolerance (or at least awareness) of other traditions a central teaching? These are questions that aim at some basic fact of human nature.
I suppose some might argue that tolerance/awareness is a central teaching to the extent that universal love and compassion are central teachings in most religious traditions. But that's a pretty hairy discussion in itself.
One reason I find myself dwelling on the question of incuriousness is that both religious liberals and religious conservatives often manifest a certain degree of incuriousness about other religions, but equally often have opinions about those religions as opposed to merely saying "I don't know." I've come to realize that the "What's your visual metaphor for describing religious diversity?" is something of a trap, because it asks the interlocutor to say something about other religions, whether they know anything about those religions or not. So a pluralist like me will say, "No religion contains the whole truth," but have I tested this claim? Of course not. I'm relying on some sort of intuition based on partial knowledge of my own and one or two other traditions.
Why should people be curious about other religions? People are primates, and primates are naturally curious about a lot of things. But we're also the products of our respective cultures, which often come laced with various curiosity-killing taboos, injunctions, etc. We're prey to two urges: the urge to establish boundaries, and the urge to violate or otherwise transcend them-- order and chaos.
Ask me about this again tomorrow; my answer will have changed, I'm sure.
Kevin
I'd agree with all that. But one could lament in the same way the widespread lack of curiosity about all sorts of things: other cultures, history, the discoveries of science. Is there anything peculiarly bad about lack of curiosity about other religions? Conversely, is there any reason why devoutly religious folks in should be especially interested in other religions?
BTW: this may seem like a pretty abstract discussion, but I think it actually has very concrete consequences. To wit: Why should a religious community, or a member of the clergy, want to play host to Kevin's Walk? A couple of the responses I've received to query e-mails suggest that this is a question in the minds of some, and I'd guess it's also a question among some of the much larger number of nonrespondents.
Something to think about in re planning our future publicity efforts.
yeah.. alan got it in his response. Religion is just one contentious aspect of it. What appalls me is the general level of "incuriousity" of people I've met. This is particularly true in the US and Korea. I saw a bit more curiosity in the UK, but still not enough.
Then, give these people a nice thing like that innarwebs on which they can build their own personal echo-chambers? You just might be developing something that sucks...
One foot in front of the other Kevin.
Repeat.
JK
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