Religions are incredibly important cultural and philosophical frameworks that ground human longing for greater meaning and act as stabilizing factors in societies. Reflective of the internal feelings of faith, religion provides appropriate institutions, rituals, and scriptures that enrich the religious beliefs and aid in its manifestation. For each believer, their religion is sacred, deeply personal, and, frequently, the only possible choice. The said choice is informed by their cultural background and is often, but not always, linked to the country of origin. Hence it is reasonable to say that the religious beliefs of a person are most often singular and perceived as the truest possible worldview.
Consecutively, any strong religious belief has the potential of becoming exclusionary and intolerant towards the members of other religions. Across different religious traditions, the core values tend to remain similar, but other parts of canon differ drastically. Scriptures of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other religions have different origin stories for their respective Gods and the creations of said Gods. And when one begins researching beyond monotheistic faiths, the differences grow exponentially.
I think that any believer, independently of their religion and cultural background, would benefit massively from exploring and studying the beliefs of other religious groups. The more you learn about different perspectives on the divine forces, the more understanding you are of the ways other people perceive the world around them. This would tangibly improve our quality of life by making society more tolerant and accepting. Becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of others’ worldviews would make us not only more informed but better people in general.
Due to the complicated and bloody history of the relationships between major religions, the popular perception of the role of faith and religious practices in history is severely misplaced. To truly serve its role as a facilitator of peace and mutual understanding, any major religion should enrich and update its knowledge of the ones it has to co-exist with. This awareness is crucial for building respectful and lasting relationships with members of other cultures. The more one knows about doctrines and scriptures of the other religious traditions; the deeper is the understanding of the traits those religions share with one’s own. It arms the well-informed person with cultural competence and enables them to have an open and mutually respectful dialogue that is beneficial in all areas of life.
Due to Christianity’s close, historical ties to colonial oppression, the believers of the Christian religious tradition might in particular benefit from said cultural competence. As the European colonizers of the past identified with the Christian faith, they brought their religious practices with them. Due to the unfairly superior perception of themselves in comparison to the colonized nations, Europeans not only disregarded local faiths but often engaged in cruel acts of extermination. Needless to say, none of these inhuman acts are actually in the nature of Christian core values. Yet, the dark legacy might live on in ways several scholars of the Christian faith believe themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to those of the other traditions.
In practice, these harmful views often transform into laws, regulations, and codes of conduct designed solely around Christianity, often on the highest levels of authority. Such rules ignore the cultural and spiritual heritage of the non-Christian countries, making them inapplicable to the residents and nationals of said countries. Therefore, they are objectively barely usable in the modern global world and should be replaced with more inclusive and better-informed alternatives.