Are the major religions really incompatible with each other? Lapsed Catholic Joe Humphreys goes on a personal quest
Morality is an awkward subject to raise. Mentioning it in conversation is a bit like discussing an embarrassing medical condition. But we can't avoid it. We all make moral judgments, even if we do so unintentionally. And we all have values, even if those values reject "morality" as it is commonly understood.
Lately, I've been trying to face up to this fact, and figure out just what it is exactly I care about. The temptation, of course, is to care about nothing but my own personal welfare. In any age, that temptation is strong, but right now it is perhaps stronger than ever, especially in a country such as the Republic where materialism is so celebrated.
A comfortable contemporary default mode is to be non-committal, exploit ambiguities surrounding ethical thought and treat morality as an accessory worn only when it is fashionable to do so. In its most brutal form, this philosophy amounts to a dismissive shrug and the declaration: "Yeah, I'm a money-grabbing, self-centred egotist but I don't pretend to be anything else."
As a way of thought, it is, I fear, reinforced by a perception within my own profession of journalism that there is no worse crime than hypocrisy. However, being consistently and deliberately evil is, in fact, a much greater offence than trying to uphold certain expressed values and failing to do so because of one's personal foibles.
But why is all this bothering me now? In part, no doubt, because I have ceased to practise the religion of my upbringing, Catholicism. With no ready-made value system to fall back on, I'm left asking myself: Where do I turn to for guidance on how to live?
Ironically, in trying to answer this question, I have been drawn back to religion. You see, I never set out to be a "lapsed Catholic". But the fact is - and I'm sorry if this hurts some people close to me - I am simply unable to accept that Jesus Christ is literally the Son of God, or indeed that there is such a thing as God, as understood by Christianity.
At the same time, I have always had an affection for much that is Christian. I can't help but admire the good works of Christian family members and friends. I can't help but notice that those who show moral and spiritual leadership in society are often Christian (people such as Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, Fr Peter McVerry, and the many dedicated members of religious orders working in the developing world). It strikes me then that Christianity has much to teach me even though I'm unable to accept the "supernatural" elements of the faith.
But I suspect also that Christianity is not the only religion with something to offer in terms of moral, or spiritual, guidance. In fact, I'm convinced of it, having spent the last two years studying the teachings of the world's major religions.
Why did I embark on such a course of study, given my own irreligiousness? There was both a personal and a political motivation. While I and many others no longer belong to a specific organised religion, the same cannot be said for at least four billion Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews. From Drumcondra to Dallas, and Dubai to New Delhi, religious belief is flourishing, and that poses a challenge both to me and to humanity as a whole. Can we all get along?
Increasingly, voices - both religious and secular - can be heard shouting, "No". A clash of civilisations has been predicted as ancient rivalries take centre stage in the post-Cold War era. Islam is accused of terrorism, Christianity imperialism, and Judaism an aggressive crusade of its own. Preachers of extremism are gaining strength in different faiths, fuelling distrust and hostility. At the heart of their battle-cry is an assumption that mankind's best-loved religions are incompatible with one another.
But are they right? Must religions be in conflict?
I set about answering this question for myself, focusing principally on the world's six most followed religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.
What surprised and alarmed me was how much these faiths shared in common. Each, for instance, has a roughly-equivalent "Golden Rule" of behaviour, a rule also known in ethics as the "Rule of Reciprocity", which commonly translates as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (see panel below).
I was surprised because so many religious leaders have failed to build on these grounds to explore the potential for a universal human ethic, and alarmed for the very same reason. Indeed, the more I read of how each faith calls upon its members to do good in broadly similar ways, the more evident it became to me that religious leaders, scholars and "spokesmen" (and they do tend to be men) have in the main become an obstacle to inter-religious harmony through campaigns of obfuscation, misinformation and sometimes violence.
One widely-peddled claim, for example, is that Christianity and Islam are diametrically opposed in their teaching on conflict resolution. While the former advocates "turning the other cheek", the latter demands violent retribution for apparent wrongdoing. Correct? Think again. Jesus Christ may have been a pacifist but his followers have rarely if ever been, either in practice or in theory. St Augustine's "just war" continues to be endorsed by official churches today. As the martyred German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: "To make non-resistance a principle for secular life is to deny God by undermining his gracious ordinance for the preservation of the world."
As for Islam, the Koran makes clear that justice need not always be pursued to the bitter end, describing as "the best of stories" the legend of Yusuf (Joseph) who forgave his brothers for sinning against him. According to the Koran, Muhammad himself drew inspiration from Yusuf when the prophet forbade punishment of those he defeated in battle, declaring: "He is the Most Merciful of those who show mercy."
That is not to deny differences between religious traditions. But it prompts the question: How significant are those differences? And can they be overcome? What is clear is that the overlap between faiths is greatest in the field of personal morality. In particular, one can identify within the world's major religions a collective appeal to men and women to cultivate certain human qualities - call them "virtues" if you will - such as compassion, honesty, wisdom, tolerance, industriousness and, indeed, mercy - virtues which can also be admired from a secular perspective.
Certain virtues are more closely associated with particular religions than others: love with Christianity, justice with Islam, self-discipline with Buddhism, audacity with Judaism, and so on. That said, however, no tradition has a monopoly on any particular virtue, and nor does any tradition advocate practising a certain virtue to the detriment of all others. Even faith, a virtue which can be read as "loyalty to religious belief", should itself yield on occasion to other virtues - virtues such as compassion and justice. So says Christianity and Islam, among other religions. Without exception, all faiths declare that belief in God without good works is worthless.
In fact, any objective analysis of the teachings of "rival" traditions makes clear that the main fault lines in belief are not between Christians and Muslims, or Hindus and Buddhists, and so on, but between "extremists" and "moderates". The same fault lines exist in "secular" philosophy between anti-religionists and those, such as myself, who believe there are questions unanswered by science, or "secular" philosophy, upon which religion may be able to shine some light. Significantly, both religious and secular fundamentalists have the same vision for the world: a "winner-takes-all" scenario in which one faith prevails: be it belief in a perverted form of Islam, for example, or belief in a Godless Mecca erroneously called "the West".
For both religious and secular "moderates", thechoice is clear: Try to create alliances based on what we share in common, or cede more ground to the extremists. We could start by taking note of Gandhi's words when he said: "It is no business of mine to criticise the scriptures of other faiths, or to point out their defects. It is and should be, however, my privilege to proclaim and practise the truths that there may be in them."
By trying to see the good in other people, and in other people's beliefs, we may help one another not only to coexist more peacefully but to learn how to live better lives. Personally, I have found much in the teachings of faiths previously unknown to me to suggest that I should resist the temptation to be self-obsessed.
More than that, I can't help feeling that the world's great religious traditions are as one in calling on me to develop certain virtues, and that their plea is inherently endorsed by right-thinking "secular" philosophers, such as Arthur Schopenhauer, for example, who celebrated the virtue of compassion. Or John Rawls, the human rights theorist, who called on us to empathise with one another, specifically by placing ourselves behind a "veil of ignorance" - thereby making us unaware of our status in society - when we came to choosing our laws and redistributing our resources.
Taking the best of both religious and secular philosophy will, of course, be seen by fundamentalists from each camp as a betrayal of either God or Godlessness. Less extreme objectors may characterise it as either "a la carte" religion, or "unscientific" moral philosophy.
I would prefer to call it open-mindedness, and would argue, moreover, that it is an integral part of any faith (religious or secular) worth its salt. (Catholics should recall Pope John Paul II's description of philosophy "as one of the noblest of human tasks" in his 1998 encyclical on faith and reason. Benedict XVI's recent description of interfaith dialogue as "a vital necessity" for Catholics, rather than "an optional extra", is also noteworthy.)
I say all this with a certain amount of trepidation, not least because I fear how this may come across. The last thing I wish to do is cause offence, which is easily done when discussing people's most sacred beliefs.
Just as unsettling, however, is that I can't plead ignorance on the subject of morality anymore. Each faith is quick to remind me of how I should live. The lessons flow particularly freely from core morality tales, from the Christian Parable of the Good Samaritan to the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, an epic celebration of selflessness; and from the wisdom tales of Chinese lore to the stories of charity associated in Islam with the prophet Muhammad's family.
I know - and perhaps I've always known - what I have to do in order to live ethically. Now for the hard part: Doing it.
The Story of Virtue: Universal Lessons on How to Live by Joe Humphreys is published this week by The Liffey Press (€16.95)
Compassion
Christianity "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - Luke 6:31
Buddhism "Consider others as yourself" - Dhammapada 10.1
Judaism: "What is hateful to you do not do to your fellow" - Talmud, Shabbat 31a
Islam "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself" - Hadith al-Bukhari
Self-discipline
Confucianism "The man who is simple and slow to speak is near to humanity" - The Analects 13:27
Islam "Piety is nine-tenths silence and one-tenth fleeing from people" - Saying attributed to "Muslim" Jesus
Buddhism: "Do not lose yourself in distraction, inwardly or outwardly" - Thich Nhat Hanh
Hinduism "When one comes to think of it, one cannot help feeling that nearly half the misery of the world would disappear if we, fretting mortals, knew the virtue of silence" - Mahatma Gandhi
Humility
Christianity "Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?" - Matthew 7:3
Judaism "A person should always carry two pieces of paper in his/her pockets. On one should be written, 'For me the world was created', and on the other, 'I am but dust and ashes'" - Rabbi Simcha Bunham of Pshis'cha
Confucianism "In archery we have something resembling the 'Way' of the superior man. When the archer misses the centre of the target, he turns around and seeks for the cause of failure within himself" - The Doctrine of the Mean, 14
Humanism/secularism "Just improve yourself; That is all you can do to improve the world" - Ludwig Wittgenstein