Universal religious moderation

Op-Ed by Haresh Daswani

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I am a firm believer of my faith, but have also welcomed friends and beliefs from everywhere. Belief, after all, is what we might have arrived to having our questions most satisfied by scriptures, experience, prescribed way of life, or to whichever have brought us to answer questions pertaining to our understanding of life. Our own experiences and logic would guide us to search until we become content, and then perform our duties as we would believe this will reach our goal, which would also be the goal that is being prescribed.

Universal religious moderation is a strong belief that end of the day, religious believers do believe that there is a creator, and the whole idea would be to return to our original abode.

The inspiration to write this article came about when a dear friend of mine showed another side of her, from being religiously tolerant, to informing me that there is only one God and you go through that God through the person being prescribed in the holy scriptures, and through no one else. It was not that I found this offensive, but who can find sense in debating with someone who will merely quote from the scriptures? It is imperative to read the quotations and look at its application in real life. Many archaeologists have done this, turning what we would perceive as fairy tales to having logic injected and dusting off the poetic exaggeration history would contain. In the end, it does make sense, even if it is downplayed. The vital point is, do not take each word from the scriptures as is. It is best to ask and discover, this can strengthen faith.

I wanted to reply by stating a quote from my religious scriptures as well, where God did reply that he is God, and that he is everything, and that those who pray to him will reach him. But to what benefit will I get in playing at that level? Given that all the core has been appreciated to be universal, there is no sense arguing over which right is right.

A wonderful analogy I would like to point would be me being in one city facing the Pacific Ocean, and another friend in another city also facing the pacific ocean. Our descriptions will have a lot of similarities and yet have so much variation an argument would arise over whose description of the Pacific Ocean is actually correct. End of the day, both are right, and the minor variations would depend on which circumstance, writing style, timeline, and culture is influencing the description. This would be exactly the same as practically anything we would ever argue about.

And this is where I would like to profess that regardless of our belief, everyone else’s should be respected and understood, perhaps we can learn a lot from theirs that would help us better understand ours. For the spiritual, wouldn’t God want all of us to be happy and peaceful? Isn’t the goal peace on earth and not killing others if they refuse to convert?

For those who are curious, I am a Hindu who did go to a Catholic high school in a Christian country. I have many Muslim friends who I also enjoy spending time with. And I do have Buddhist friends who do invite me to their temples as I do invite them to ours. I would be more than happy to meet others who share the same tolerance and purely enjoys friendship and universal philosophy.