She sat next to me, working under my supervision on a project on the correlation between spirituality and mental health. I had been touched by her inquisitive mind and investigative stance on every subject, but today she surprised with prudent intellect.
She asked about my perspective on the fundamental tenets of religion. About the controversial verses and interpretation of a holy Book. Then she raised some arguments and challenged me. In my inability to answer her, I felt a rush of blood flow around my cheeks and ears for few seconds out of anger, but then becoming mindful about this state of rage, I tried to contain the feeling and took a deep breath.
I smiled and gulped my saliva down; faked interest in listening to her. I was partly successful in pretending, as she continued on her tirade of questions and arguments on religion’s essential elements. She left me with feedback that unlike other people, I have been quite tolerant in listening to these radical and agnostic concepts.
After she left, thousands of questions poured into my mind, which I had to answer to satisfy the satiety of reason and to quell the noise of judgment inside.
We always seek corners of deep-seated faith and keep them intense by different measures throughout such as joining religious meditation, spiritual contemplation, recitals, prayers, fasting, giving alms and through pilgrimage. We do it so that we stay mindful of our God all the time. Is this life-long strength not sufficient to introduce the layers of tolerance to listen or evaluate the idea of difference? Are the tenets of religion so weak that by listening to these opinions of radicalism, the damage to these dogmas can be anticipated? Or have we failed to acquire the higher levels of belief in attaining faith and tranquility through religious resources, which can be sufficient to fathom the approach of doubt or variance by other? This inadequate trust on a religion may be stemming from our ambivalent alliance with the Higher Being or due to our inaccurate attitude towards a religion.
Whatever the case, by no means does it reflects the fragile state of any organized religion; but rather the failure of its bearer to understand the conflicting ends of a religion in the contextual aspects of relevant history. To comprehend the psychology of intolerance, one can surely look into the origins of insecurity one has on his or her belief. The hard work which is required to appreciate others’ views is simply a call towards better theological understanding of any creed, the work which sounds quite laborious, effortful task, which is why most people prefer to take the easier way out – they rebuff and deny this opportunity, and reject the chance to gain an insight into others’ cognition and reasoning. This leaves no ground for debate, discussion, negotiation and consideration. It is because of the fact that entertaining the thought of others disables them and is a direct reflection of their own ignorance on the subject, which is completely undesirable for their conscious acceptance.
In this way, the Intolerant chooses his path and gets engaged in trying to make it approvable, definite and holistic for the inquirer and on the other hand, it becomes easier for an inquirer to confirm the said argument out of repugnance to an extreme response. Here, the essence of intelligence and tolerance dissolves in the anguish of ego and obliviousness.
The existing culture of stereotypy reinforces the tradition of following the established norms rather than facilitating the out-of-box, radical, deviant or novel ideas in any form. This culture further introduces the polarization and extremism in opinions and approaches by avoiding the hard work of speculation, because further speculation would uncover the unknown facts and facets of the truth. Most people are not ready to question long-held beliefs. Their inability to look beyond what they already know alienates them from the search for deeper meaning and unusual, different answers.
Hena Jawaid 