Here’s a tricky topic – to what extent should we allow religion to influence decision-making? Who has the moral high-ground when it comes to this? Which religion is ‘right’, and how should society be concerned? Should it even have a view – after all, over much of the world, one is free to choose one religion, or another, or to opt out altogether.
Of course, the truth is that we in the UK have a legal framework that is based upon both the experience of history and the influence of our monarchy and the Christian church. If I’m right (and I accept that I may well not be), then our laws seem to be established for the good of society as a whole, rather than that of, for example, a particular family, clan, group or religious (or non-secular) group. We bend over backwards in the interests of ‘fairness’ and ideas of non-discrimination are woven into the fabric of our laws. We also (I think) obey international laws concerning human rights and other ‘whole-world’ interests. We’re not alone, but we are aware that there are countries in the world where these things aren’t taken so seriously.
There are, according to the Internet today, over 10,000 religions worldwide, with most falling under the ‘twelve’ ‘classical religions of Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. But I suppose that if you take any group, it’s probably possible to see inconsistencies. Taking the obvious (for this Englishman, at least) example of Christianity, the various ‘flavours’ of Catholicism, Anglicanism and of the Baptists seem worlds apart. There are ‘bible-believing’ factions and others that seem to regard the Christian scriptures as non- essential. Then, we have related religions such as Islam and Judaism – who is right and who isn’t? Naturally, some nations seek sometimes to distance themselves from religions and others pin their colours firmly to the masthead of some religion or other. History tells us of great evils perpetrated by those purporting to be religious – and during wars it seems fairly common for opposing factions to hold similar religious beliefs. But I hold to one view – that these things are not the results of religion, but that religion provides an excuse or a prop, which can be cited in support of irreligious ends.
Are the various religions ‘same mountain, different view’ as seems to be fairly commonly claimed? I suspect not, since the world religions aren’t all monotheistic.