The message is spreading fast. You've probably seen it several times on numerous car bumpers, t-shirts, billboards, and other kinds of displays. "Coexist," is all it says, with symbols of the crescent moon of Islam, the Jewish star of David, and the Christian cross designed into the word. Undeniably, it is a nice and romantic sentiment, encouraging us all to put aside our differences and live together in peace. It's a dream echoed by many who have ditched strongly held convictions in favor of religious relativism - my path to God is right for me, but your path to God may be right too. It certainly does make coexisting easier, yet there are a few problems with it.

I. All Paths Lead to One?

Many liberals today espouse the notion that, 'all paths lead to one' or 'all paths lead to God'. To a lot of people, this viewpoint is regarded as the most tolerant and open-minded stance to take on the truth claims of the various religions. However, all religious beliefs cannot be true, because many of them contradict each other. In the Christian bible, Jesus states that:

The Qur'an instructs Muslims about other faiths in Sura 5:57...

Judaism teaches that there is one true God in the Hebrew scriptures...

Even Buddhism, the supposed religious beacon of peace and tolerance, stresses its own exclusivity:

For countless Christians, acknowledging Islam or Judaism as equally true would mean that they would be agreeing with those faiths about Jesus being a simple man who was not divine and did not die to save us all from our sins. Clearly that violates the central premise of Christianity. Likewise, for a Muslim to acknowledge Judaism or Christianity as equally true would mean that they consent to alternate beliefs which reject the message of Allah's final prophet. Clearly that would violate the central premise of Islam, that "there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet". Lastly, if a Jew were to acknowledge Christianity or Islam as equally true, they would be stating that a messiah and prophet they do not believe in were both just as much of a way to God as their own belief is. If all paths truly lead to God, why pick any single religion? Why not just make up your own? And what about atheism? Does the atheist path lead to God and salvation too?

All these beliefs make factual statements about alleged historical figures. For example, it cannot be true for you that Jesus Christ was God incarnate who died and rose again to save humanity, and yet somehow also be simultaneously untrue for someone else. Either Jesus was God in the flesh and our saviour, or he was not, but you can't have it both ways. If each religion did not stress its individual importance, there really would be no point in identifying oneself as a member of that specific faith, and religions with few adherents often do not fare well.

II. How It Came to This

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim proposed that,

Drawing a distinction between the sacred and the profane will inevitably mean that there must be some things or views that are contrary to the religion and deserving of opposition/exclusion. This is not necessarily unique to religion though, for it may be more deeply rooted in our apparent human tendency to marginalize one another. In our quest to feel significant, we must declare others to be insignificant, because if everyone is special and privileged, no one really is. Religion is not the sole source of these issues, but it does incorporate both. It states that there are profane things which are to be excluded, and those who lack certain beliefs or characteristics are less significant.

Obviously, when monotheism and the belief in 'one true God' sprang up, exclusivity and intolerance came with it. After a while, factions split off from the individual faiths, as their leaders began to teach wrongfully about the one true God, and these groups became the countless denominations we find today. Even among the religious relativists, you may find disagreement over worship of God, and what the divine purpose is for mankind. It seems exclusivity is something religion will never get rid of. Why is this?

Faith is at the center of every religion, and is itself an irrational concept. Religion encourages belief, even in spite of evidence, and praises deeply held convictions over skepticism and critical thought. To believe in an unseen supreme being who supposedly has a plan for each of us does require a leap of faith. Every religion seeks to foster this relationship, to help the convert grow stronger in faith and stronger in conviction. If a person is esteemed among his or her peers for embracing irrational dogmas, or if they are trained to rely on their feelings more than evidence or reason, it may naturally follow that they begin to consider their belief as the only valid one. Since most religious texts teach exclusivity, believers who learn to prize blind faith will invest it in their scriptures, left to conclude that their religion is the only true religion.

III. Exclusion or Relativism

While there is certainly a strong and favorable argument to be made for religious relativism and the "coexist" philosophy, part of me feels that it really just abandons conviction to reach for an unrealistic ideal. There is nothing wrong with having firm belief or strength of conviction, and I do think every person ought to be entitled to hold whatever views they want with as much sincerity and devotion as they desire. It is only when convictions are invested into something irrational or dangerous that things may spin out of hand, but even then our duty should be to inform and hopefully persuade people not to toss out their critical thinking, and we should never unjustly oppress or ban such firmly held beliefs.

It would be nice if we could all get along, but asking people to give up their convictions for the sake of your own comfort is both unfair and unrealistic. Tolerance does not mean that you consider all alternative views to be just as true as your own. All it means is that you will respect other views and not molest them. Working toward peace and tolerance will not be effective if we do it by encouraging others to have less sincerity and devotion to their beliefs, it will only spark a negative reaction.

Peace and tolerance have been idealized, and while it is important and commendable to strive for both of them, it is also a good idea to keep ourselves grounded in reality instead of lofty visions of Utopia. Religion is one of the forces preventing coexistence, and there is little question that it is an extremely divisive component to humanity. I do not believe that religions are capable of peaceful coexistence, but I do believe that individuals can coexist without compromising our views or demanding that others fall in line with our particular version of paradise. We don't even need to like each other, just recognize that each one of us has a right to believe and live however we see fit.

1. Durkheim, E. (1912) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. p.34.