Dr. Sulekh Jain explored on the idea of Anekantavad, different views must be valued, and indeed part of the definition of Pluralism has origins in it.
Dr. Asha Sharma summed up the essence of Hinduism in the phrase Vasudaiva Kutumbukum, meaning the whole world is one family.
Rabbi Jonathan Siger shared a story on Humility, the reason we all originated from one couple was to bring humility to mankind, so we do not claim that our tribe is a superior one. That was a great thought. Indeed, Quraan is clear on the topic as well, consider no prophet over the other, all are God’s messengers including Prophet Muhammad, had God said, Muhammad is the elevated one among the prophets, Muslims would have become arrogant. Thank God for that. Humility builds bridges and arrogance kills it.
Rev Butch Green – Jesus was boundless he reached out to every segment of the society, indeed that is being God like, to have no barrier between him and his creation, the same idea is called Brahman in Hinduism. He mentioned that the word peace is mentioned over 100 times in the bible. Indeed Quraan also has the word peace about the same number of times.
Prophet Muhammad’s last sermon was about equality between races, ethnicities and sexes. Love thy neighbor is matched by know each other.
Gyani Gurmit Singh Bhatia – He spoke about speaking out against injustice and live the life that Baba Nanak taught, he shared the ideals and one of them was if you don’t see god in all, you don’t see god at all.
Indeed, Sikhism started out as an interfaith movement and its holy book, the Guru Granth Saheb is composed by three different religious people.
This paragraph was not a part of my talk: Amazingly the average Ahmadi and Ismaili knows about the essence of his/her version of the faith much more than an average Muslim of other denominations knows about his or her version of the faith. The fact that the communities are smaller makes it easy for everyone to study their tradition compared to the larger communities. I wrote an article in Dallas Morning News backed with Pew Survey which said, the people of majoritarian religion know less about their faith, let alone others than people who belong to minority faiths. The highest knowledgeable ones about religions were among Atheist, Agnostics and others. That is an understandable fact.
This particular paragraph was not a part of my talk either. Imam Mahdi rightfully talked about Mullah Exploitation. However, I need to take it up with him about his statement that the other Muslim Mullahs believe that all Jews and Christians will go to hell and they (Ahmadiyya) instead believe in Quraan which says, whether you are a Jew, Christian or a Sabean (others), if you do the right thing like taking care of your neighbors, God will reward you and you need not worry. This is the belief of all Muslims, it is from Quraan. His statement is not completely in line with what is out there, and amounts to stereotyping other Muslims. We are all Muslims to the general public regardless of our denomination.
Indeed every speaker talked about the need for intra-faith dialogue, the Rabbi shared that no two Jews agree, the orthodox don’t consider reformed Jews to be Jews as they allow women Rabbis, the Christians do not consider Mormons to be Christians… and the issue is similar among Muslims, a substantial number of Muslims consider Ahmadiyya as non-Muslims. It is a sheer arrogance on the part of majorities in all religions and societies. This has got to be deliberated; it is more of politics of division than religion.
Interfaith Scriptures: There is a beautiful book in the market to review different scriptures on a given topic, its called World Scripture, a comparative anthology of sacred texts by inter religious foundation, an initiative of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
To be a Muslim is to mitigate conflicts and nurture goodwill. God wants all of us to get along and the best among us is one who knows each other and who does the most to keep his creation intact and in harmony.
Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America, where no Americans has to live in apprehension or fear of the other. He is a speaker, thinker and a writer and offers pluralistic solutions on current issues. His work is listed at www.MikeGhouse.net