Can Different Religions Learn From Eachother?

World Religion class, we read an portion of a story by [insert name of some guy here, can't remember who]. It involved him going back in time (totally non-fictionally) and meeting Muhammed (pbuh*). The man was a Christian, but he wanted to know what Christians could learn from Muhammed (pbuh).

He 'responded' by talking about islam (not to be confused with Islam) and jihad. Islam means submission, which consists of living according to the way of 'God'. Now, Christianity seems to have lost it's way from that, as many Christians do things that go against what the Bible commends them to do. However, most Muslims (about 95%) do what the Qu'ran tells them, which is basically the same thing as many other religions.

Jihad means 'spiritual war', contrary to what many non-Muslims believe to be 'holy war'. Truth is, only 5% of Muslims believe that to be true, or act on that belief. A spiritual war is an inner conflict, to try to eliminate evil from one's body, making up for one's sins. Once again, Christians don't seem to worry about it as much. Even though both religions call them to it, Christians worry more about outer possesion, appearance, and value more than inner peace and devotion.

Simply, can a religion learn from a different religion? Actually, not learn, be reminded of the values that their religion calls them to have?

*pbuh: "Peace be unto him", a statement used when mentioning Muhammed (pbuh), used as a symbol of respect and honour.

Just like all people can learn things from eachother i'd say religions can learn from eachother aswell i can't pinpoint exact things they could/should teach eachother but im certain there are alot of things. I'm not religious myself but definitely not atheist, it's too bad most religions don't respect eachother and that's probably what's keeping them all apart. But as a hardcore non-religious person i'm not much for religions at all and think we'd all be better off without it, it would save alot of people from horrible things.

P.S I'm not trying to bash any religions or so, i respect all religions fully except for Jehovas. So sorry if anyone feels offended.

+rep for knowing what you 're talking about and being respectful (yes. no. some ppl don't have a bsic idea of islam/Islam/jihad etc. )

I took a really good World Religions class this year and one of our main topics of concentration was exactly the question you are asking. The answer is simply yes. How ever there are certain conditions to that 'yes'- ppl have to be willing to accept other and not be so fucking xenophobic all the time. Now that's just my overly simplified personal opinion. I can blab for hours... 'cept I'm too lazy so no.

I ever went to a kind of Christian school excursion...When the priest talks, he uses some other ideas from another religion to explain some good thing...and then mocks other religion in a few seconds later...

I was like...lol...

They can but if and only if they would approve on each others' beliefs.

I may be completely wrong, but I don't remember the last time jews tried to force their beliefs and morals on others through legislation (In the U.S.). Christfags should be more like that.

Indeed, we can learn from other religions, but I think the main problem is this "Converting others to our beliefs"-thingy.

I'm personally tired of these people converting other people to beliefs that, in reality, not their own. Ask most Christians trying to convert you on complicated religious shit, and the last lines he'll say in his defense after the religious debate/hate-word shit-storm will somewhere along "I haven't been taught about that yet" or "my pastor/priest/extremist recruiter had not briefed us about it yet" or basically "I don't know yet."

I learned from buddhists about looking for enlightenment (which I found in clouds, which are nice... =3), and I learned to respect other's food preferences through muslims. Hell, I even took in the regulations on sexual practices from satanists! (Hey, the LaVeyan satanists were pretty decent. I have read from them that any sexual relation is good, as long as all the participating parties agree with it)

Can they? yes. will they? probably not.

Yes. I'm not hindu and I have a Tibetan mantra tattoo on my back that I hold very dear in my life.

I've posted it a few times and talked about it, but for anyone who hasn't seen it:


Basically the lesson is to strive to be like the lotus flower - which is a flower that grows on top of muddy and murky water. At night it closes and sinks to the bottom, and by dawn it rises again and opens as beautiful as the day before.

The lesson falls into where no matter how hard, ugly, or unfair life can be - to never let it change you for who you are and to rise up above all the problems in the world as your true self, don't let the ugliness of life turn you just as ugly.

I figured if I was going to get a tattoo, I would get something I could always learn from, and whenever someone sees my tattoo they ask me about it and I can share the message from it and people are usually surprised by the meaning it holds.



I don't quite agree with that either. I believe religion was there to explain a lot of unexplained things in life when created, it was to set a standard on how people should behave so they were more 'civilized' - I don't believe anybody should be so follow to the T with their religion.

I'm not religious, but I don't think anybody should follow word for word in the Holy Bible either. It's to help set standards, and make you feel secure when you die (which is one unknown mankind doesn't know about).

I hope anybody doesn't find that insulting, but I sort of feel like it's Santa Claus. Don't do this or Santa won't come to bring you presents. Don't do this or you'll go to hell.

It's good to look at your scriptures and go 'that is a good lesson, I'm going to work harder towards that to become a better person' it's not good to look at it and go 'oh, uh - I better do this or else I'm going to be sent to hell'

Fear is dumb in religion, it's a strict Santa Claus - people should want to take those lessons in, not do it just to prevent being punished.

Maybe some people want to have sex before marriage, maybe some partners wish to be swingers because they don't associate sex with love. Doesn't mean they can't love thy neighbor, and it doesn't make them a bad person because they decide one lesson wasn't important to them while another one is very important to them.

I think thats a very large generalization to make. Were ever you go in this world, you will always find that people always have the same basic needs. They need to eat, they need a family, they need to pay the bills, they need to prove themselves, or any other multitude of desires that are all ultimately tied to material possessions. This life is, after all, material.

These needs and desires are natural, and religion tries to put a lid on them. It tries to tell you that some are more important than others, and thats true, but you cannot standardize a person's needs. What you are talking about primarily is not a shift in spiritual health for Christians, but a shift in the needs of those living in western culture. As ziggy said, religion originally came about at a time when government didn't do a very good job of protecting people. Religion is primarily a moral code to protect the needs of the culture practicing it, with some superstitiousness thrown in. Because of that superstitious element, religion endures while other moral codes come and go. But that doesn't stop our needs from changing. The result of that is modern Christianity, the great compromise, where you can have your superstition and your modern day moral code too.

By contrast, Islam is most heavily practiced in those areas of the world where the culture has not evolved so strongly. The nature of the religion is probably partially responsible for this, as I think it endorses a code that is naturally stifling to creativity. But even so, Islam will eventually follow Christianity.

To be more on point, when you remember that religion originally existed to protect people, I think yes, different religions can learn from each other. When you forget this, and instead believe that religion is divine mandate, I think no, religions cannot learn from each other. The true difference here is not religion though, the difference is the ability to hold an open mind, and the ability to see the best in everything, and the ability to discard the rest.

After all, how can a benevolent god fault you for doing what you believe to be best?

Good point. People tend to fight other religions, believing that their beliefs are perfect, failing to realize that much progress can be made from exchanging ideas in a peaceful, intellectual way.

I just went back from church I didn't like today's lecture, which was about war against the "godless" nations. I prefer our other pastor who sticks to preaching the peace of God.

As insincere as the movie was generally made to be, I love the like Chris Rock had in Dogma. That the one thing that Jesus Christ hates more than all others is the factioning of all religions. That we took a good thing and built a believe structure around it. It is more important to have ideas. Ideas are easy to change with the passing of time, where it is hard to change beliefs.

To the point, I don't think most religions are at the point of taking much consideration into other religious doctrines. Until such a time, there isn't a snowball chance in Hell that it will ever happen.

No... To much animosity and spiritual indifference for people to put aside their beliefs and try to understand each other.