Religious Differences, and how to deal with them
Someone said to me, a little while ago, that God created the world in six days (with a day off on the seventh to chill). Though I knew this had been accepted for centuries as literally true, I thought that such views had mostly passed the way of the dodo. I was tempted to argue the point with him but then I thought some more about it. It is obviously crazy to say that God created the world in six DAYS, but perhaps it was perfectly plausible to say that creation, generally speaking, takes six STEPS.
He meant DAYS, I meant STEPS. He meant God, I meant acts of creation. Were we really disagreeing? No, I thought. We are saying very similar things, just from different levels of interpretation. Of course, if I were on a TV or radio debate show, or on Twitter I could have manufactured some friction out of thin air, but what is the point of that? We were using different language, interpreting things on different levels but we were broadly saying the same thing. God created the world in six days pretty much equals acts of creation proceed in six steps. I was happy that we were roughly on the same page and that enabled a very fruitful conversation to develop.
Here is another example of the same phenomena. In the Islamic Hadith (the collection of sayings attributed to Muhammad, kind of like an accompaniment to the main dish of the Koran) there is a saying “All souls shall have a taste of death.” Now, to a disaffected twenty-something jihadi who can’t get a girlfriend these words can be taken as an instruction to kill the unbeliever. To an anti-Muslim hardcore atheist they are confirmation that Islam is a religion of barbarism and hate. And a Sufi mystic may take them as evidence of the deep spiritual connection that their religion provides. Those are just three interpretations of the exact same words, and I can add a fourth, that the Soul (your essence or real self) shall taste death when the body that it inhabits expires, but it will only taste death and never experience it because the Soul lives forever. Out of these four which is the true meaning? Well, despite what maniacs like Tony Blair say, jihadis do not “pervert the true faith of Islam” because there is no ‘true faith’ to pervert. There are only levels of interpretation, where each individual will gravitate to the meaning that suits their level of spiritual maturity. Bad Souls turn good words sour, while Good Souls find beauty and wisdom in a fortune cookie.
This means that all arguments about Islam or Christianity being religions of peace and love are meaningless because Islam and Christianity are only religions of peace and love if you yourself are peaceful and loving. If you are not there is plenty in both faiths to make you an even worse person than when you started. It is all a matter of spiritual maturity, whether you can spot gems in the ground or can only see the dirt that they are buried in.
All religions have their good points and bad points, and most people – outside of devout fundamentalists – know this. This is why people take the bits of religion that suit them and look past the rest. Within Islam there are plenty of little-toe-Muslims and within Christianity there are plenty of people who attend service but have never thought twice that scripture could have layers of meaning.
When talking about religion – and religious people – goodwill matters. People believe what they believe due to the level of interpretation they give things. If I wish to destroy, denigrate, or criticise I could say that only bigoted yokels believe that God created the world in six days. But if I had goodwill I might make an effort to see that their position is not so far from mine. Maybe I would succeed, maybe I would fail, but the real issue is whether I try.
Hebrew Kabbalah is good at this, suggesting that all words may be interpreted on four levels. First there is the simple, literal interpretation. Then the exact same words offer a deeper level of understanding, hinting toward a higher truth. Then there is the level where the words may be examined more closely, and the truth revealed by deep searching. Then finally there are the mystical secrets contained within the words. Though this four-fold breakdown was intended to refer to ways of learning the lessons of the Torah it can be a useful model when trying to identify the real meaning of all words, written and spoken, spiritual and mundane. Naturally, the ability to penetrate the subtle levels of meaning is developed only by practice and experience, but all of us should take great care around those who insist on interpreting words literally. It is always the mark of someone who has power and is prepared to go to any lengths to keep it.
The real conflict, if there is one, is not between religions but with those who insist on taking words literally, as well as those who cannot bear to hear opposing points of view. Religions (organised and disorganised) are full of inconsistencies and contradictions and were never meant to be taken literally. Engaging with religious or spiritual texts takes on a whole new dimension when the words are treated as fuel for inspiration, rather than dogmatic code or law. If Christianity and Islam – the two dominant religions on Earth - reframed their offering away from rigid, literal instruction toward becoming more interpretative and inspirational they would find themselves much more popular, and the world would find itself much more peaceful.
