Oneness of humanity vs oneness of religion

One of the things I've been thinking about this week is related to a quote that I included as part of the series on the oneness of religion. The quote I'm referring to is one that talks about how society, in the last 100 years or so, seems to have far more readily accepted the notion of the oneness of mankind than the oneness of religion. I've pasted the quote below here for your reference:

In contrast to the processes of unification that are transforming the rest of humanity's social relationships, the suggestion that all of the world's great religions are equally valid in nature and origin is stubbornly resisted by entrenched patterns of sectarian thought. The progress of racial integration is a development that is not merely an expression of sentimentality or strategy but arises from the recognition that the earth's peoples constitute a single species whose many variations do not themselves confer any advantage or impose any handicap on individual members of the race. The emancipation of women, likewise, has entailed the willingness of both society's institutions and popular opinion to acknowledge that there are no acceptable grounds — biological, social or moral — to justify denying women full equality with men, and girls equal educational opportunities with boys. Nor does appreciation of the contributions that some nations are making to the shaping of an evolving global civilization support the inherited illusion that other nations have little or nothing to bring to the effort.

So fundamental a reorientation religious leadership appears, for the most part, unable to undertake. Other segments of society embrace the implications of the oneness of humankind, not only as the inevitable next step in the advancement of civilization, but as the fulfilment of lesser identities of every kind that our race brings to this critical moment in our collective history. Yet, the greater part of organized religion stands paralyzed at the threshold of the future, gripped in those very dogmas and claims of privileged access to truth that have been responsible for creating some of the most bitter conflicts dividing the earth's inhabitants.
-- From a letter written by the Universal House of Justice to the world’s religious leaders in 2002

P commented when he read this quote that it seems that it "indicates that it is easier to shift the moral/social teachings aspects of a religion than to shift the relation of a religion’s followers with their particular understanding of the divine." I thought this was a very insightful comment, and one worth writing more about - why is it that people find it easier to shift their own moral principles than their relationship with the divine? What is it about the particularity of that relationship that is so deep and resistant to change/evolution?

After some thought I think I've come up with five possible reasons why. Here they are:

1. Moral teachings define our relationship with other people and society, while one's understanding of the divine is seen as a very personal thing, to be guarded against any encroachment. Therefore, the individual is almost forced to change one's moral perceptions as society evolves - if for nothing else, but for fear of being judged by society. For example, a 100 years ago it was very common to think of certain races of people as being somehow inherently inferior to others. In today's world though, expressing even the slightest hint of such a sentiment would immediately lead to one being labeled a racist - and so people are forced to revise their opinions and confront the reality that truly there is no essential difference between various races. One's relationship with God, on the other hand is seen to be extremely personal, and one that is not subject to the dictates of society, or to popular vote. So what if everyone in society came to believe in a God whose essence is unknowable? I could still choose to believe in my own image of God, as that relationship exists within the domain of my subjectivity that no one else has access to. The fundamental truth that any claims about God are, at some level or another unprovable, bolsters this view that one's image of God can be completely at odds with everyone else's, and that that is ok.
2. One's relationship with God, though very personal, is also often strongly linked to the tradition/culture one has grown up in - and this creates a level of attachment that is extremely hard to overcome. Holding the religious beliefs that one grew up with is often seen as a sign of cultural fidelity, and one is often judged on this basis - if my religious beliefs evolve, then somehow I am seen as being untrue to my own culture. This is particularly true with religions such as Hinduism and Islam. Even apart from the judgment angle, one gets attached to the rituals, practices and social aspects of one's culture - and these are usually so strongly linked to religious belief that it is hard to separate one from the other. Social mores, on the other hand, are tending to become more and more universal over time, and blending into different cultures.
   
3. Related to the above two, the proofs of the oneness of humanity are much more tangible and evident, while those of the oneness of religion are far more abstract and intangible. As one interacts more and more with people from different races, cultures and backgrounds, and as scientific evidence points more and more to there being tremendous commonalities in terms of genetic structure, the acceptance of the oneness of humanity becomes more and more inevitable - after all, as we form friendships with people from different cultures, get to know them and love them, how can we not accept them as being one with us? The oneness of religion, on the other hand, is much harder to prove, especially since on the surface they are so evidently different! When considering the oneness of humanity one looks at people as they are today in the world - while when considering the oneness of religion, one has to make the additional jump to thinking about the different times in history at which each religious system came up, the particular context of the society in which it evolved, etc - and this can be hard to analyze even for the most perceptive amongst us!
   
4. The fourth point is related to the key element in the second - attachment. Though one develops a personal relationship with God, we then seek to find other people who share a similar relationship. As humans, we need that company, we need to feel accepted within a community, we need to feel (ironically) like we are one with a group of people - and so we develop an attachment not just to the culture that our religious beliefs represent, but to the people who form that community. Presented with a different set of religious beliefs, it then becomes very hard to separate oneself both from one's culture and one's people - because we see both of those as being strongly tied to one's religious convictions.
5. Finally, I think there could be another angle to all of this - in many cases, individuals themselves might not change very much, both in their religious beliefs and in their humanist beliefs. And so many members of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, might never have changed their opinions about certain races of people, however much society around them changed (even if they changed how openly they expressed those beliefs). However the change happens over generations - and this change is much easier in the domain of social/moral beliefs than in the domain of religious beliefs, mostly for the reasons listed earlier.
   

So is there no hope then? Are we doomed to never accept, as a society, the oneness of religion? I usually tend to be a staunch optimist, so of course I'd say there is hope - but I think there are some clear pathways ahead that one could take to facilitate this process:

1. Communication is the first (and maybe most important) step - too often we are afraid to talk about our religious beliefs, for fear of being judged or because we don't want to hurt someone else's sentiments. The desire for secularism has firmly pushed us into the realm of relativism and created a situation where we instinctively feel uncomfortable talking about religion. We are willing to accept people's beliefs at face value, and don't want to go to the trouble of understanding where those beliefs come from, what they might mean, how they might be similar to my own beliefs, where the differences arise from etc. We prefer to remain largely insular in this context, and are comfortable sharing these ideas only within a circle where we know everyone else believes much the same thing. As we learn to step outside these boundaries and create spaces where people can more openly share their beliefs without being afraid that they might be judged, I believe we will come to understand each other as well as the underlying commonalities in our beliefs better.
   
2. A lot of us tend not to apply reason to faith - we think that by definition faith cannot be subject to reason, and so fail to question our own beliefs and see whether they make sense or not. Understanding how one can apply scientific principles on the path of spiritual discovery might be one of the biggest challenges facing us all. Fostering this spirit of questioning, of being comfortable with evolution in thought, of valuing truth above all else will help us overcome some of these hurdles.
   
3. Developing the ability to differentiate between culture and religion also seem important. Too often people are scared to change anything about their thinking because they don't want to abandon their culture - but if we come to accept that our understanding of spiritual reality can evolve while we continue to value our culture for what it is and foster those aspects of it that don't impede our spiritual growth, the path ahead will be much smoother.
   

Before I end, I should clarify - I certainly don't think that the ideal is for all of us to develop the exact same relationship with the Divine. I think there is much richness in the diversity of our personal relationships, and that that will always be the case - however I do think that we can, over time, develop a common framework within the bounds of which we develop our personal relationships. Accepting the notion of God as an unknowable essence, as propounded by the Baha'i writings, has certainly changed, to some extent, how I perceive the Hindu pantheon of Gods. And yet, that background and upbringing has helped form my own unique relationship with the unknowable essence that is God, with the forces of nature that are represented by the Hindu Gods, and molded specific aspects of my spiritual practice. This, I think, is both natural and desirable.