The Concord Project

I am in talks with a very kind benefactor who is willing to fund and build a sim to promote tolerance between different religious/spiritual viewpoints. It is also intended to provide audio/visual information and experiences of each tradition.

The word 'concord' means 'harmony' and the project is meant to be the starting point for a bringing together of people from different religious backgrounds to inform and educate others with a view to greater understanding. It is likely that the sim will hold talks by teachers from each tradition for interested parties.

I am looking to put together a committee of representatives from all major traditions (as well as representation for the aethistic and agnostic viewpoints). If you are interested in being involved please IM me in-world (preferable dropping me a notecard with why you think you would be a good representative)

I have already made contact with some friends in the Buddhist and Christian communities and am especially keen to hear from people from the following communities seem to have have in-world groups:

(in no particular order)

Islam
Judaism
Hinduism
Aethism/Agnositicsm/Non-religious
Other religions*

*Other religions will have a shared area to express themselves

These have chosen by their ranking in terms of population sharing that belief.

Please IM me if you have questions or require further information.

Zafu

Interesting project. Cultural and religious differences potentially makes using SL a problem. I hope that turns out to not be the case. I look forward to visiting when it opens.

I wonder how many Muslims we have in SL. Doesn't their religion forbid figural representation, of which our avatars are a fine example?

Sounds like an interesting project.

I'm assuming you're putting New Age beliefs in the 'other' catagory?

-Ghoti

I think this is a great idea on many levels. However, I think you have a long and difficult road ahead of you, and wish you the best of luck.

The problem is - your proposed sim is intolerant by it's very design. If you aren't in one of the major (and popular) religions, you get lumped into a 'shared' area.

Worse yet, it continues the conflation of Aethism/Agnositicsm/Non-religious into the same thing - when they aren't. (You can't even be bothered to spell them correctly.)

I live in a population with a decent mix of islam, christianity, buddhism, hinduism and sikhism. While many of the tenets or virtues of the religions do overlap, there are too many others that don't. We have grown to tolerate and not step on each others toes.

We have found, the best way to live together, is to downplay religion and concentrate on other things we have in common, as it is something you do personally and not put it right up against another religion for discourse and comparison.

Holding talks for interested parties is kind of a paradox. Those interested in their own brand of religion, already know enough about it. The other 'interested' parties would be those there to mock and ridicule with the pretense of being interested.

At best, you'd end up with a sim looking like a religion yard sale. But I do wish you luck mixing onions and chocolate ice cream together.

Misread the post so my comment made no sense. Ignore the Dizzy behind the curtain!

Not exactly.

Representation of Mohammed (pbuh) is forbidden, in order to prevent worshipping the messenger, not the messenge. As an extreme version of this, all representational art was forbidden in some Islamic countries, but (to my knowledge) this is not universal today, so long as the intent is not to draw worship from God.

So, for example, photographs are acceptable, and SL avatars are clearly meant to stand in for the people behind them.

Why does SL have any special place or role in such a task?

SL demands broadband internet access, which eliminates a large amount of the worlds population.

People can communicate over the internet in vastly more efficient means than through SL.

Any decent chat program like AOLIM or Yahoo Mesenger, or protocols like IRC, would enable far more people to connect, with lots better features than SL has to offer.

Video chat, Skype - forums like this one - there are tons of better approaches to communicating with people than Second Life.

There is communication between atheists and theists here in SL - it's so productive and useful and adult and mature the atheists are calling the theists retards in the forums.

I wish you luck but to me SL does not seem to be a very sensible place for people wishing to bridge the gap between fundamental beliefs to invest their time and money.

Not to pick nits, but it's Atheism, not "Aethism"

My God does not tolerate other gods. I wish your project well though.

Interesting! Thanks for the explanation!

-Ghoti

We have limited space Ghoti so I fear that many wonderful views and beliefs may have to 'share' an area. As each area will be about an 1/8 of a sim there is still much space for each view to be represented. I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who feels their beliefs should be represented so we can complile a list and work out a 'floorplan'.



Thank you Ketra - the dangers are clear but the potential value to people immense.



Elde, Thank you for pointing out my typo(s). It's a sad fact that we do not have unlimited space. I would like to expand the project if successful to have more sims to allow more space for those beliefs that are less 'popular'. The 'shared' area will still have individual sub-areas for each religion/belief , they will just be smaller than those for the 'major' religions.

I appreciate that agnosticism and atheism are very different and they will have half of a full area each. I'd love to hear suggestions from people of which teachers should represent the agnostic and atheistic views.





I agree that there might be people whose motivation is negative but equally there are many others who have a thirst to understand their brothers and sisters who hold diffferent views. Conflicts in the Middle East have created a great need for the truth about Islam, Christianity and Judaim to be expressed to offset many of the media created stereotypes about people that hold these beliefs.




Suzanne, Apart from meetings (where indeed SL chat is not the greatest of media), we will be looking at having streaming music, artwork and on-demand teachings for each of these beliefs. It will be a cultural centre as well as a religious one and it will be a place of great beauty for anyone who wants to come and share in it.

Thanks to Aliasi for the explanation of the Islamic view on pictorial representation.

Thanks to all for the input, keep it coming If we can help just one person find the path they were meant to walk then the project will have been worthwhile.

May we all be happy and well.

Zafu

The problem is that most people with a faith of some description by their nature do not tolerate others.

I am a Christian. I make no secret of that fact. Yet to put my faith on the same level as another is, frankly, offensive to me - and I am sure the same would be for many others too.

The only people who would be happy in such an environment would be the 'multifaith' types, who don't really follow any faith at all but pick and choose whichever bits they like from all the options available to them. Whilst they may be happy in their own sweet way, anyone who is true to their religion - whatever it may be - would have a problem with that point of view.

Everyone believes they have 'the answer' - and one day we'll find out if we were right or not.

Having said that, I wish you well in your project to show people the differences between all the various faiths - but I fear that many will use it as a platform for evangelism and to try and get people to join whichever faith they happen to belong to.

Lewis

Lewis,

Personally I have found only a small minority of people are intolerant, usually those that see other religions as a 'threat'. Even if a person has firm beliefs then there is often a keen interest in what others believe from my experience. As long as people are prepared to listen deeply without trying to score points or convert the other person then much progress in understanding can be achieved.



I am a Buddhist who has absolute faith in his beliefs and have absolutely no doubt about the value of this project. We mix all the time with people who do not share our beliefs. They are still our brothers and sisters and deserve our love and respect and we deserve theirs. I don't have a 'problem' with anyone's beliefs - we all have the right to believe as we choose and anything that enables us to understand why people make their choices and to help those that are undecided choose their path (even if it is the path to reject all beliefs) is ,I believe , of immense value. Information provided by the respected elders of each religion will hopefully counter the media disinformation we receive about our brothers and sisters daily.




Many thanks for your kind wishes and your valuable thoughts. It is only natural that people want others to share their belief and formal talks will be allowed to be made for that purpose for those interested in attending. However no 'canvassing' will be allowed in the sim by people approaching people on an unsolicited basis and we will provide staff to make sure this does not happen.

All true religions, in my opinion, have compassion at their very heart.


Kindest wishes

Zafu

I think this sounds like a cool project, Zafu. I'd like to make a suggestion concering atheism/agnosticism/non-believers. Those stances in themselves don't represent an analogue to the other belief systems (deistic or otherwise) so you might want to consider using the space you'd planned for that to represent Secular Humanism instead. While many atheists (myself included) don't specifically label themselves as such, the Secular Humanist philosophy is very representative of the philosophical underpinnings of many (if not most) who fit into those catagories, and it does offer a better analogue to the other included beliefs since it's an actual philsophy rather than simple non-theism, which in itself is not.

I haven't noticed Judaism in SL, but maybe I just missed it. Based on the philosophies I've run into in my random travels, I'd leave that out but add Gorean, Wiccan, Humanist, Satanist, and Scientology. There are subgroups, but if you can lump all of 'Christian' together then you can certainly lump those subgroups together too. There are quite a few Cthulhu followers around, apparently, but they needn't be taken seriously.

Chip - Are there any Humanist groups that meet in SL? If so I'd like to come to one and find out more about the views and maybe see if we could find an appropriate representative to help us with the project.


Adrian - Thanks for your comments. Judaism will certainly have a place as it is one of the major world religions regardless of it's representation in SL.

I am already working on a revised layout with my benefactor/designer which will give a more equitable approach to the less popular religions/views.


Zafu

On the contrary, some of the most deeply faithful people I've known don't try to pretend they have a monopoly on the truth, and your claim would be most surprising to a Ba'hai, or a Hindu who followed Ramakrishna's teachings.

Surprising perhaps but it is the Biblical viewpoint.

Lewis

Good for you, but what do we care? Gene Ray of Timecube.com fame claims to be the smartest human, but I don't listen to him, either.

Nobody said you had to listen, your personal faith (or lack of) is your concern, not mine.

I'm not here to 'convert' anyone, I was just adding what I thought to be a relevant comment to the discussion.

I look forward to seeing how this project pans out.

Lewis

Nobody said YOU had to make a smarmy comment implying anyone who seeks to find common points between faiths is a deluded fool, either. Naturally, I took a little offense at this, as it's a subject near and dear to my own personal heart.

If you did not intend such implication, then I retract my offense.

Someone posted in General a couple of months ago about starting an in-world Humanist group. I'm not sure if it ever got off the ground or not.

Indeed. A good friend of mine is Ba'hai and his deeply-held faith has, indirectly, taught me a whole lot about tolerance, respect and understanding for different beliefs.