[Reader-list] "Stand up to the mullahs" - Vir Sanghvi

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear all, dear Rakesh,

I am substantially in agreement with what Rakesh has written in  
response to my posting, and I think the distinction that he makes  
between 'faith' and 'religion' is an important and nuanced one.  
However, in my view, both 'faith' and 'religion' can be tolerant, or  
not, depending on practice, and the reception of practice, by  
individuals and communities. The trouble with ascribing an attribute  
such as openness or tolerance to this or that faith is that the  
exercise is usually unanchored in time, space or historicity.  
Whenever, anyone says anything (positive, or negative) about Islam or  
Hinduism or Christianity, (or any X system of beliefs) my immediate  
response is to ask, which Islam (or X), who's Islam, and what  
historical period we are talking about. Islam as practiced in  
Andalusia or in the Ottoman Empire or in the Deccan or in

Faith, even if it is personal, can give rise to personal closure and  
denial, just as much as it can give rise to openness and acceptance,  
at a personal level. Religion (which I ultimately take to be  an  
expression of the boundedness of being - religio comes from the latin  
root for 'binding') can give rise to affirmation and denial, openness  
and closure in different, though related ways to faith. So while I  
appreciate Rakesh Iyer's nuanced attempt to separate faith from  
religion, I still think that the broad argument that I was making  
holds, in different, and connected ways, for both faith, and religion

regards

Shuddha
On 26-Feb-09, at 3:33 PM, Rakesh Iyer wrote:

> Dear all
>
> I think one also should make a basic distinction between faith and  
> religion here. This is very important especially in today's times,  
> when a kind of 'religious homogenity' is being constructed across  
> different religions, among people who have lived in diverse  
> regions, practiced different ways of life, belong to different  
> strata of society socially and economically, and also differ in  
> many other ways.
>
> Faith is basically complete trust or belief in something, be it  
> religion or something else. A religion is an organized approach to  
> human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives,  
> symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or  
> transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's  
> experiences of life through reference to a higher power or  
> truth.These are definitions and meanings I got from different  
> sources online, which can better explain these words.
>
> What they don't specify explicitly, but is understood implicitly,  
> is that faith is quite a personal thing. Religion on the other  
> hand, is a political thing. By political, I mean that more than one  
> individual is involved in the process; in fact, religion is a field  
> where there are hundreds and thousands of people who are involved  
> in debating and discussing about various aspects, customs and  
> beliefs, their validity, their manner of observation and so on.
>
> I am somewhat confused by Shuddha jee's views regarding faith, when  
> he says: ' Every faith has been intolerant, and at the same time  
> the adherents of every faith have been open and understanding and  
> tolerant.'. The point is that faith is a personal thing, so whether  
> it is tolerant or not is a personal question. And if you mean that  
> religion is intolerant or tolerant, then the point is that every  
> religion has different followers, and how they combine their own  
> faith with the 'true' religion (whichever they feel is true), as  
> well as their personal nature, determines the kind of path they  
> follow.
>
> So, if religions like Islam are perceived to be intolerant, it's  
> because of the politics associated with them, whereby a group  
> connecting itself to the religion has propagated it's own path to  
> be the true one, and it's projection by others in the way that even  
> others start taking that to be the truth. After all, it has to be  
> an organized projection of all customs and beliefs mentioned in  
> religious texts, not with the kind of practices typical of local  
> regions, to gain 'legitimacy'.
>
> So, for me, faith can be tolerant or intolerant depending upon the  
> nature of the person.
>
> Religion can be tolerant or intolerant depending on one's reading  
> of the religious texts, one's own faith and nature, as well as the  
> kind of arguments one gets to hear generally, for propaganda does  
> fullfill it's role to a certain extent. In other words, which side  
> you wish to believe.
>
> Regards
>
> Rakesh
>
>
>

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net