From: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: Islam and other religions
Date: 19 Nov 1992 14:42:37 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: curie.systemsy.cs.yale.edu


In article <2506@grivel.une.edu.au>, dwright@metz.une.edu.au (Denis Wright) writes:

> >Clearly, if Indian nationalism is some form of prerequisite for
> >Hinduism, then this constitutes a rather exclusive view of things.  A
> >non-exclusive view on religion automatically results in paradoxes of
> >the nature I mention above.
> 
>          Your logic is correct, but as mentioned above, your
>          premise is not.  Nationalism is not a pre-requisite of
>          Hinduism *as a philosophy.*

I think I showed in another article (a followup to Supratic Gupta) why
any attempt at constructing a religion which accepts *all* religions
as the truth leads to an inevitable paradox.  Casting aside the
specific context we were talking about above, I still maintain that
this paradox exists.

>          You are right when you say that the Qur'an allows
>          others to practise their own beliefs freely, and I
>          know that you personally stand for this enlightened
>          principle.  But look at your statement above: that a
>          Muslim believes that he/she follows the truth but that
>          everyone else can follow whatever they want.  The
>          logic suggests that they follow untruth, because they
>          are not Muslims.  (I may be slandering you here!)
>          This implies superiority at the very least, which you
>          may well be claiming on the grounds that the holy
>          Qur'an says that it is so.  Others who are not Muslims

But isn't every religion founded on that principle?  I may respect
what others believe, I may tolerate it, but I can still think they're
wrong?  Clearly, you and I disagree on a lot of things.  Hence, you
may think you are right and I am *wrong* about certain things.  Yet we
respect the right of each other to have such an opinion.  Does that
mean you conceal an air of superiority within?  I would hope not... ;-)
The human mind works in ways which allow individuals to have opinions
and beliefs which are his/her own.  Inevitably, the individual will
consider his/her set of opinions to be more right than anyone else's.
This does not necessarily translate into violent claims of
superiority.  As long as the respect and tolerance is there, it should
not be a problem.  Islam has this tolerance requirement hardwired into
its laws, and that is why I disagree with your "superiority" argument.

>          obviously will measure truth using a different
>          yardstick.  (I haven't the slightest interest in
>          arguing about that yardstick, because when it comes to
>          a question of faith, there can be no argument.)

And such yardsticks apply to any kind of opinions, not just religious.
That is human nature.  I don't think any religion is exempt from that,
no matter how tolerant its rules may be (and I have shown how Islam
advocates religious tolerance).

>          The paradoxes you mention are nothing more than the
>          result of the limitations and imperfections of human
>          intellect.

So are you implying that the paradoxes would vanish if human intellect
made remarkable improvements in the near future?  How can you know that?


-- Shakil Ahmed
=======================================================================
Dept. of Computer Science     INTERNET: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu
P.O. Box 2158, Yale Station   BITNET  : ahmed-shakil@yalecs.bitnet
New Haven, CT 06520-2158      UUCP    : {ucbvax,harvard,...}!yale!ahmed
=======================================================================



Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh