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This evening I had the great pleasure of attending a lecture on religion and tolerance featuring Lord Parekh (Hull, LSE), with responses from Dr. Amira Bennison (Cambridge, speaking on Islam),\u00a0Professor John Coffey (Leicester, discussing Christianity), and Professor Peter Harvey (Sunderland, retired, for Buddhism).<\/p>\n
Lord Parekh provided his philosophical examination of the issue, defining, as best he could and as philosophers do, the terms of the discussion<\/strong>. Tolerance, he suggested, can be exercised in three different realms:<\/p>\n And, as a philosopher, he had to pin down the meaning of tolerance itself, giving it five crucial conditions:<\/p>\n So, many of the casual ways we use the term are not at play for Lord Parekh. (skipping over much essential material) Lord Parekh then discussed tolerance in three major religions: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.<\/p>\n To give just a highlight or snipit of each:<\/p>\n Before getting to the responses, I\u2019d like to just say a thing or two about this. Islam<\/strong>, of course, has a very bad name in general in the West, so the more dispelling of rumors that can be done, the better. Hinduism<\/strong>, he didn\u2019t mention, also has an unfortunate capacity to\u00a0re-appropriate\u00a0anything and everything in India for itself, thus swallowing up religious sites of other religions. This has led to some conflict<\/a> (I was in India in the fall of 2010 when the judgment was given, news video here<\/a>;\u00a0luckily all was calm, even after the Supreme Court\u2019s decision). Buddhism<\/strong>, I could speak ad nausium about. Peter Harvey luckily covered some (most?) of the intolerance committed in its name. Tibet, even with Buddhism, was a very violent country right up to the invasion of the Chinese.\u00a0Japanese\u00a0Buddhists were often complicit with that nation\u2019s expansionist wars, including WWII. Sri Lankan Buddhists supported the ethnic majority Sinhalese in their decades-long war against the minority Muslim Tamils. Thais support the ongoing fighting in their southernmost province against an ethnic majority (in the area) Malay Muslim population. Those are just a couple examples that suggest that Buddhists have historically not been the super-nice-guys (and gals) that they are often portrayed to be.<\/p>\n The responses I\u2019ll actually skip, mostly. I\u2019ve discussed some of what Prof. Harvey said. A couple of his main points were that while the Buddha warned of a narrow attachment to views, he also did give specific teachings that he held to be both true and helpful for his listeners. So belief is important<\/em>, but not nearly as much as action or practice, in Buddhism<\/strong>. Peter suggested, and I will emphasize, that Buddhists have pretty much always debated each other, sometimes pretty fiercely. Theravadins (often) really don\u2019t care for Mahayana monastics who eat \u201cat the inappropriate time\u201d \u2013 after noon. Mahayanins likewise often frown upon Theravadin meat-eating. In practice, of course, all of this is complex, but these are some of the stereotypes that arise within the tradition. Most traditions also teach a sort of hierarchy of \u201cviews\u201d or understandings of reality, culminating (no surprise) in their own.<\/p>\n And without giving a\u00a0definitive\u00a0view (which would be a bit contradictory, wouldn\u2019t it?) on Buddhist notions of tolerance, I thought I would share some videos:<\/p>\n First is a young monk giving a good explanation of tolerance in Theravadin Buddhism:<\/p>\n\n
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