The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : Need to maintain pluralistic approach emphasised

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Friday, Mar 11, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Need to maintain pluralistic approach emphasised

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, MARCH 10 . Both India and the US, countries with a high degree of religious and ethnic diversity, have embraced aspects of secularism to achieve peaceful coexistence.

In the case of the former, Jainism and aspects of the Hinduism embody longstanding doctrines of acceptance and non-violence promoting healthy acceptance of the other. And this seemed to be rooted in ancient and historic doctrines of broad based tolerance. Certain forms of relativism appeared to be associated with contemporary developments emerging from post-modern Western culture and philosophy, Roderic L. Owen, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia, USA, has said.

Speaking at a one-day seminar on `Religious and worldview pluralism' organised by the Gandhi Memorial Museum and Lady Doak College here recently, Dr. Roderic underscored the importance of maintaining a pluralistic approach towards religion and the world.

He said the challenges to pluralistic views on religions and world were many as a large number of people around the globe embraced a set of values, beliefs and attitudes, which excluded the validity of all other beliefs and sometimes denigrated the people associated with those beliefs.

Those operating out of an exclusivist perspective believed that their worldview was the sole and absolute standard for judgement and all other views were fundamentally incorrect or even harmful.

Exclusivism, when rooted in religion, could be intolerant of other's traditions, beliefs or practices. Those who worked with an exclusivist set of assumptions or stated beliefs were typically unreceptive to the possibility of a deep level of cross-cultural exchange, he said.

Exclusivist belief systems led to absolute truth claims and there was a psychological and epistemological linkage. Absolute truth claims provided a static, fixed definition of what was right and created an environment of `us `(those who are right) and `them' (those who are wrong or opposed) leading to elimination of those who did not accept and endorse their version of the truth.

Apart from breeding violence this attitude towards truth fed a cultural and religious superiority complex and arrogance leading to the belief that they were beyond the scope of consequences and were prone to exhibit aggression in the name of God or truth or doctrine, he said.

Pluralistic belief, however, provided an opportunity to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the divine and the sacred. It was an occasion for truth seeking dialogue, deepening intellectual understanding and for developing compassion.

The aim of religious pluralists and other pluralist approaches was not to find the lowest common denominator or the most neutral language and methods. Rather, it was to locate those particular places within each tradition, which provided openness.

The Collector, D. Raajendiran, presided. The secretary of GMM, S. Pandian, and the Vice-Principal of Lady Doak College, Kalaneethi Christopher, spoke.

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