GRADUATE TO SPIRITUALITY FROM RELIGION AND SECULARISM

Abstract

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Centre and the resulting reckless destruction of life has brought to public consciousness the relationship between religion and violence more than ever before. Numerous books and articles investigating, reasoning and evaluating their congruence and association were published.1 That fateful event reinforced the presumption of the secular world that religion is equal to irrationality, divisiveness, and violence. Religious people responded to this accusation arguing that the real motivation behind the so-called religious violence is in fact economic and political, than religious. They insisted that the people who do violence are neither religious nor do they know the fundamentals of the religions they profess. These arguments, however, lacked lustre since it was evident that people who engaged in violence were fanatical adherents and promoters of their religions. It is not easy to distinguish religious motives from economic and political motives. All the same, religions cannot and should not be excused of their responsibility on the basis of the ignorance attributed to their followers.