Inter faith week 2010 21-27 Nov

Get Involved!

We encourage all Buddhist organisations and individuals to find out what is happening during this year’s inter faith week in your local areas and to contribute a Buddhist voice – or event – where possible. Please let the Buddhist community and NBO know what you are planning via comments to this web page or the Buddhism UK facebook site.

The purpose of inter faith is to :

promote good inter faith relations

highlight the contribution of faiths to building community

increase understanding between faiths and wider society

And the specific aims of this year’s inter faith week are:

• to strengthen good inter faith relations at all levels;
• to increase awareness of the different and distinct faith communities in the UK, in particular
  celebrating and building on the contribution which their members make to their neighbourhoods and to wider society; and
• to increase understanding between people of religious and non-religious belief.

These aims are all encouraging a greater level of friendliness between people in the UK; whether or not they identify with a particular religion or faith, or have a non-religious approach to life. And, of course, non-religious may not mean having no interest in what we broadly categorise as the ‘spiritual’, but simply that people may not align themselves or feel comfortable with established religious traditions.

Friendliness and understanding between  people is, of course, encouraged in Buddhism, just as it is in every genuine and wholesome teaching in all faiths, philosophies and religions. But at this particular time, there is a lot of conflict in which attachment to religions and religious ideology plays a part, so it is especially important that good people from all backgrounds make an effort to work together. It would be nice to generate some positive and heart-warming headlines about religion rather than what seems a constant litany of scandal and conflict. So, those practising Buddhism have an important role to play during inter faith week in encouraging cooperation, common-sense and kindness between all peoples .