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