Update 23 October 2023:
Our weekly inter-faith zoom meeting has many interesting presentations. Subjects, speaker information and video links are collected at https://colindibdin.com/weekly-zoom-interfaith/ Recently Prof Halim Rane (Griffith University) spoke about “Covenants in Islam: What they mean for peaceful co-existence”. Prof. Rane’s 2023 article on the subject, published in the Journal of Religion, includes this important observation:
A reading of the Qur’an in light of covenantal passages shows that establishing peace and security among people is an overriding objective, while the use of force is restricted to self-defense in response to treaty violation for maintaining human security and peaceful co-existence.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/4/514
If we take the trouble to learn from historians and other scholars we can better appreciate Islam as a religion whose Book and Prophet established building blocks of peace.
Update 21 August 2022:
A friend drew my attention to this essay: The Pursuit of Social Justice by Michael Karlberg. I read it this morning was struck by several insights. Here is just one of those:
By persevering with a principled and constructive approach in the pursuit of social justice—and showing resilience in the face of violent repression—Bahá’ís are demonstrating the potential of a purely non-adversarial model of transformative social change. Moreover, when they encounter direct repression, Bahá’ís do not let their oppressors establish the terms of the encounter. They refuse to play the role of victim; refuse to be dehumanized; and refuse to forfeit their sense of constructive agency.
https://bahaiworld.bahai.org/library/the-pursuit-of-social-justice/
Update 18 March 2022:
Perhaps more important than our religious belief, is to be a well-wisher of humanity. Now, and for the next few weeks, well-wishers of humanity all around the planet are participating in “an unprecedented series of global conferences, exploring the inherent oneness of humanity and a universal call to work for the betterment of the world”. Here is the page where you can register for an Australian conference:
https://www.conferences.bahai.org.au/
Update 19 October 2021:
Approaching the Centenary of the Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, I have been reading the story of Thomas Breakwell. https://bahai-library.com/lakshiman-lepain_life_thomas_breakwell “Set afire with the love of God, his deep devotion exemplifies that profound mystical relationship which unites the lover with his Beloved.”
Update 27 September 2021:
Religion today cannot be exactly what it was in a previous era. Much of what is regarded as religion in the contemporary world must, Bahá’ís believe, be re-examined in light of the fundamental truths Bahá’u’lláh has posited: the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of the human family.
The short article “Religion Renewed” at the link below helps me to think about religion from several angles: https://bicentenary.bahai.org/the-bab/articles/religion-renewed/
Update 12 August 2021:
While exploring some of the links on this site I found this:
Religion, as we are all aware, reaches to the roots of motivation. When it has been faithful to the spirit and example of the transcendent Figures who gave the world its great belief systems, it has awakened in whole populations capacities to love, to forgive, to create, to dare greatly, to overcome prejudice, to sacrifice for the common good and to discipline the impulses of animal instinct.
“Letter to the World’s Religious Leaders”, 2002
Update 15 May 2021:
Encountering, and wanting to counter, religious prejudice is a real motivator. Two documents quoted below help me to do this in cordial dialogue.
the greater part of organized religion stands paralyzed at the threshold of the future, gripped in those very dogmas and claims of privileged access to truth that have been responsible for creating some of the most bitter conflicts dividing the earth’s inhabitants.
“Letter to the World’s Religious Leaders”, 2002
if the religious crisis is to be addressed as seriously as is occurring with respect to other prejudices afflicting humankind, organized religion must find within itself a comparable courage to rise above fixed conceptions inherited from a distant past.
“One Common Faith”, 2005
Update 29 April 2021:
As I learn more about each religion, on each page I try to provide links to:
- A sympathetic Baha’i view of the religion/belief
- A sympathetic adherent’s view of the religion/belief.
- Links that personally appeal to reason and a sense of beauty, and will help me in action (dialogue and collaboration)
- My personal studies, questions or contributions, if any, to understanding and dialogue about the religion/belief.
28 March 2021
This website is for sharing resources that I have found to be most fair and helpful in my personal effort to learn about other religions.
I greatly appreciate websites, articles, videos, music and books that appeal to mind and heart, and which help me to contribute in a unifying way to interfaith dialogue.
If you know of any such resources, about any religious belief (or non-belief), please let me know.
Colin
colin.dibdin at gmail.com