Inter-Faith Dia[bo]logue

A cousin of mine has written to me today that she and her husband are working hard with people of different faiths to establish an Inter-Faith Dialogue Forum. They want me to "publicize this through eMail and other communication tools at [my] disposal".

I have, sadly, turned down their request and sent them the following:

I am in a quandary. A Dialogue, the dictionary tells me, is 'a discussion intended to produce an agreement'. An agreement can only take place if both parties are prepared, at the outset, to accept that either of them could be wrong - totally, or in parts - and the other party possibly right. However, if either party believes that it is absolutely right, with NO possibility of error, since it is divinely guided (and in the case of a forum of this nature every one of them, obviously, holds such a belief) there seems hardly any point in starting such a dialogue.

Of course, if 'agreeing to disagree' is the goal, it needs no discussion; just a commitment. And it is a concept that even the Qur'an expounds: To you your way of life, to me mine! 

Incidentally, this Ayat is addressed to the Kafiroon, a category into which many Muslims seem to place even those other Muslims who do not subscribe to their narrow definition of Islam. And although the Qur'an does not say that this Ayat excludes Apostates who, I guess, would have become Kafirs - having abandoned The Faith - the Ulema are agreed that the pleasure in killing them far exceeds that of strictly following the Qur'anic injunctions.

Understandable, for, after all, what is one to do for entertainment in the kind of society they wish to create?