philechat

This is one observation of mine. Missionaries from the West despaired over the syncretism of the Taiwanese people. It seems that in East Asia there is very little religious exclusivity except maybe a handful of converted Christians.

Not only is inter-faith marriage common in Taiwan, the political canditates have about the same chance of getting elected to office no matter they are Buddhist, Christian, or Atheist given the same credentials. Members of the same family may practice different religions without much conflicts.

But in the US I saw many people interacting only with members of their own faith, and hating each other just because of their religion (or denominations). When I presented the fact that many religious people in the US refuses to marry people of other faiths in a Taiwanese discussion board, I saw the following responses:

"God is not a gangster-head!"
"Those people are just making excuses for some other reason!"
"Those Christians are so damn arrogent to think their religion is the only true religion!"
"People are moral no matter what faith they practice!"
"Why would religious belief be a reason for not marrying another person?"
Etc. etc.

These responses shows a complete lack of comprehension of religious exclusivity. I have yet to hear a Taiwanese non-Christian claiming that atheists or believers of other religions are immoral.

Kinda funny. When I first encountered religious exclusivity in the US I was aghast. I laughed at someone in the face when he said he would not date people outside his faith, until I realized that he was offended.

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Orestes

I've never understood religious (or racial, or whatever) exclusivity when it came to love. Ah well, guess I'm jealous of the Taiwanese .

philechat

Some fact about Taiwanese religious practice from the government's website:

<a href="http://www.roc-taiwan.org/taiwan/5-gp/yearbook/chpt25.htm" target="_blank">Taiwanese religions</a>

Note that Christianity is never well-accepted in Taiwan despite 100+ years of missionary attempts, and it now takes up only 7% of total religious population in Taiwan.

Skepticism is very high. Only about half the Taiwanese claim religious adherence. Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism (both extremely open in terms of doctrine) are the two most practiced religious beliefs in Taiwan.

hinduwoman

Yes, stress on exclusivity is probably one reason why Christianity was not so popular in East Asia.
In India even after spending approximately 15 billion dollars, only 2.8% are Christians.

Vorkosigan

The lack of Christ-inanity is one of the reasons I live in Taiwan. No stupid holidays where everything closes due to some religious horseshit. No exclusivity. Nobody cares that I'm an atheist, because everyone else is.

Vorkosigan

lpetrich

I wonder how the theologians and apologists react to charges of exclusivity.

And as to Indian Christians, I wonder how many of them had ancestors that had been converted long before these present-day missionaries set foot in India. Like:

Wayward Nestorians (~1500 years ago)
Portuguese settlers in places like Goa (~500 years ago)
British imperialists (~150 years ago)

lpetrich

Such religious pluralism had actually been very common in Europe and the Middle East before the spread of the Abrahamic religions to those parts. Consider the Roman Empire and the religions that flourished in it.

hinduwoman

Most christians in India had been converted peacefully long before even the Portugese came to India. They have carried over their Hindu practices into their new religion. some Christians do not eat beef and some agree that all paths are valid. When the RC came here they promptly set up Inquisiton to burn the latter group until they recanted their error.

The problem with christians have started only with the recent agressive missionaries.