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%FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF RELIGIOUS MORALITY 970809
Often religious leaders engage in conflicts which
lead to personal and communal disintegration --- because
they have not articulated and agreed upon even a basic set
of fundamental principles of religious morality. It may
be helpful to try to articulate some fundamental
principles of religious morality upon which a significant
fraction of all religious leaders might agree. The
following is an attempt to articulate some fundamental
principles in a descriptive mode, rather than in a
prescriptive or proscriptive mode.
The statements following are intended to be taken as
descriptive statements about human relationships ---rather
than a prescriptions or proscriptions. The order in which
the statements are presented does not necessarily indicate
anything about the relative importance of the statements.
The relative importance of the statements will vary from
reader to reader in ways which depend upon the readers and
their own personal and communal contexts at the time of
reading. The meanings of the statements are intricately
interdependent upon each other --- and upon the readers'
historical, genetic, and familiar heritages; and upon the
reader's experiences and pattern of responses to those
experiences. It will not be helpful to seek to
determine in any absolute/objective sense what the "real"
meanings of the statements are apart from what they mean
personally to individual readers.
The following statements' meanings are interdependent
upon each other in ways such that exclusion of any
statements from consideration will probably change the
apparent importance and meaning of many of the other
statements. Thus, it will be tragically misleading to
focus exclusively upon any few of these statements.
Central to much that follows are personal and
communal integrity --- which are intricately
interdependent upon each other. We cannot systematically
sacrifice either kind of integrity to promote the other
kind of integrity.
Personal and communal integrity depend upon balanced
consideration of the truths pointed to by the following
statements; rather than upon attempts to use any such
statements or the truths to which they point in order to:
1. Get people to conform to any demands or
expectations;
2. Claim that some people are better than other
people.
These statements point to fundamental truths, but
they are not themselves those truths, do not contain any
truths, and cannot be used to manipulate or control any
truths. People who believe/act otherwise deceive
themselves and others.
Some of the truths to which these statements point
are likely to be paradoxical to some readers and/or
hearers; i.e., apparently contradictory, even though
pointing to truths. In such instances it will be more
helpful to seek to discern the truth in what the
statements point to, rather than to focus upon any
apparent contradictions.
It will be tragically misleading to interpret or
react to these statements in ways which systematically
engender alienation through exclusivity, condemnations,
excommunications self-righteousness, unbalanced power
distribution, coercion, controls and/or violent conflicts.
Readers will do well to keep in mind the truths to
which these statements point --- while evaluating each
other's responses to the truths. People whose responses
to the truths are defensive, dishonest, manipulative,
coercive or violent --- will thereby threaten personal and
communal integrity in ways which will not merit respect or
support. People whose responses to these truths promote
improved balance, further insights, greater dialogue and
so both personal and communal integrity --- will merit
respect and support; e.g., if some of the statements
appear to be inaccurate and/or misleading to some readers,
and they describe how so:
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