Monday, December 28, 2020

THE VALIDITY OF THE FAITH OF OTHER RELIGIONS

 


 

A Christian had asked:
 
·       Hindus and Muslims claim that their faith is just as real and empowering as ours. How do I answer them?
 
I answered:
 
What evidence do they have that their faith has a reasonable basis or foundation? The Hindu cannot even appeal to the material world for support, since they believe that this world is just illusion.
 
The Muslim believes in apologetics - the evidential reasons for their faith. However, their appeal to the “evidence” entirely fails. According to the Quran, Muhammad had admitted, when asked for a miracle, that he had none. Besides, their case that the OT prophesies of Muhammad entirely fails.
 
Yet faith, even erroneously faith, can empower. However, if it is not a true reality-based faith, it will eventually bear bad fruit, as we can quickly observe in both religions:
 
·       “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:13-18)
 
The fruits of these religions are mixed, at best, because they do not partake of the wisdom that comes from God.
 
About his native India, Vishal Mangalwadi had often observed the truth of the adage – “the way we believe is the way we live.” Our philosophies and worldviews are the foundations upon which we build our houses, whether of caring, chaos, or confusion.
 
Accordingly, Mangalwadi pointed out that India had pioneered several ancient medical advances including cataract surgery and plastic surgery. However, the study and practice of medicine enjoyed only a brief duration in India. Mangalwadi explained that medicine and even compassion lacked an adequate rationale in his India. This is partially because India’s doctors were also regarded as “gurus” who could not be questioned:
 
·       This attitude toward knowledge could not create and sustain an academic culture where peers and students could challenge, reject, and improve the medical techniques they had received. Thus, India had intellectual giants but our religious tradition failed to build academic communities. Individual genius, knowledge, and excellence in technology are insufficient to build a medical center. (The Book that Made Your World, 311)
 
Mangalwadi also claims that Indian religions could not provide an adequate rationale for compassion – a necessary pre-condition for the practice of medicine:
 
·       A person’s suffering was believed to be a result of her or his karma (deeds) in a previous life. In other words, suffering was cosmic justice. To interfere with cosmic justice is like breaking into a jail and setting a prisoner free. If you cut short someone’s suffering, you would actually add to his suffering because he would need to come back to complete his due quota of suffering. (312)
 
In How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity, historian Rodney Stark showed that the success of the West can be summed up by one Word - Christianity. Stark also argued against the notion that Islam had produced an advanced society, and that Moorish Spain had been “a shining example of civilized enlightenment.” After lengthy descriptions of the horrors that Jews and Christians had experienced at the hands of Muslims, Stark concluded:
 
·       By the end of the fourteenth century only tiny remnants of Christianity and Judaism remained scattered in the Middle East and North Africa, having been almost completely destroyed by Muslim persecution. And as the dhimmis disappeared, they took the “advanced” Muslim culture with them. What they left behind was a culture so backward that it couldn’t even copy Western technology but had to buy it and often even had to hire Westerners to use it. So much, then, for the “mystery” of how Muslim culture was somehow lost or left behind. The notion that in the medieval era Islamic culture was advanced well beyond Europe is as much an illusion as recent ones about an “Arab Spring.” The Islamic world was backward then, and so it remains.
 
While this material can be especially useful for debates, if relating one-on-one with a Muslim or Hindu friend, I would suggest more peaceful and patient dialogues.
 

No comments: