Overview of RELIGION Crises
Inevitably-escalating instabilities within some world faiths are generating Religion backlashes that further destabilize the religions as well as whole economies and require Mirrored Tolerance as a counter-measure
Rigidity is deeply-embedded into the structure of successful world religions – making them both resilient and very hard to change
Social changes, scientific discoveries, failings in faith leadership, and access to conflicting insights are rapidly destabilizing religions
- Well-communicated social changes across the globe increasingly are raising alternatives that people previously were never exposed to
- Exponentially-growing scientific revelation has now encroached on every area (including morals) that previously was the province of religions
- Proliferating communication media have enabled fundamental critiquing of how religious leaders behave and of the advice they give
- Well-educated believers with unprecedented informal access to historical and other academic evaluations of religion are increasingly confused
Actions by some sects to bolster rigidity through intolerance and dogmatism are polarizing – and so further destabilizing – their religions
Growing polarization in (especially) Islam and Christianity is now causing extreme reactions that threaten the economic stability of many states
- Some Moslem authority figures are revolted by ‘Western-style depravity’ that they view as an attack on Islam that must be repulsed
- Well-organized and well-financed fundamentalist Christians are attempting to realign foreign and domestic policies around only their beliefs
- Roman Catholicism risks internal schisms that could escalate into widespread social disruption comparable to the Reformation
- The cumulative impact of a wide range of increasingly-desperate religious conflicts deeply threatens the world economy
Religion crises need MIRRORED TOLERANCE – members of a community can expect only as much tolerance as they grant others
- Rather than all-or-nothing approaches (tolerating any religious interpretations that are within a threshold of acceptability) use graduated responses to dampen growing extremism far earlier
- Above all other groups embolden moderate members of faith communities to apply Mirrored Tolerance in standing up to more-extreme members of their own faith
- Ensure governments are proactive in countering religiously-fuelled intolerance – such as adopting policies to integrate self-isolating communities into broader society
- Refine legislation so that it is flexible enough to distinguish between attacks on religious-freedom and society protecting itself from dangerous religious politicization
- Encourage the scientific establishment to use Mirrored Tolerance when dealing with religiously-based attacks against facts-based evidence or potentially-vital research
- Pay extreme attention to potential conflicts of interest within key nations of those more powerful members of the Establishment who hold fundamentalist religious beliefs