Sectarianism

Sectarianism is a form of bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group.

Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the mania
Which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth, and one way. ~ Friedrich Hölderlin

The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of non-duality. - Paul Brunton.

See also: Pluralism ~ Sect ~ Toleration

Quotes

The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy. ~ Aleister Crowley

They may hold their meetings, if they wish, and offer prayers according to their established use … and for the future, let all people live in harmony … Men should be taught and won over by reason, not by blows, insults, and corporal punishments. ~ Julian.

• Political tension by itself cannot lead to civil war. Sectarianism is the one possible cause. But the position of the leadership has pulled the rug out from under this proposition.
  • Abbas Bayati in: Iraqi Civil War? Some Experts Say It's Arrived, The Los Angeles Times, 1 January 2006

• He who does reverence to his own sect, while disparaging all other sects from a feeling of attachment to his own, on the supposition that he thus glorifies his own sect, in reality by such conduct inflicts severe injury on his own sect.
  • Ashoka, Edict 12: Toleration, in Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India, vol. 28, p. 128

• The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of non-duality.
  • Paul Brunton in: The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: Relativity, philosophy, and mind, Larson, 1988, p. 72

• In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.
  • James Fenimore Cooper in: The American Democrat: The Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America, Transaction Publishers, 1 April 2010, p. 207

• The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.
  • Aleister Crowley, in 777 (1909)

• From a distance you look like my friend
  Even though we are at war
  From a distance I just cannot comprehend
  What all this war is for.
  • Julie Gold, in "From a Distance" (1985); Bette Middler's version alters the last line of this stanza to "What all this fighting is for."

• From a distance there is harmony
  And it echoes through the land
  And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves
  It's the heart of every man
  (Every man).

  It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves
  This is the song of every man.

  • Julie Gold, in "From a Distance" (1985)

• She continued, "Theirs was a religion of freedom and joy and not pervaded by fanatical and morbid asceticism as some people would have us believe." Here again I feel she is absolutely right. The critics of Catharism fail to distinguish between the Parfait and the ordinary croyant. The latter were not required to fast and mortify the flesh any more than the average Hindu or Roman Catholic, even though both Hindu and Catholic priests may regularly practise asceticism as well as meditation and other such disciplines.
  • Arthur Guirdham, in The Cathars and Reincarnation (1970), p. 100

• Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the mania
  Which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth, and one way.
  • Friedrich Hölderlin, in "The Root of All Evil" as translated by Michael Hamburger

• I had imagined that the prelates of the Galilaeans were under greater obligations to me than to my predecessor. For in his reign many of them were banished, persecuted, and imprisoned, and many of the so-called heretics were executed … all of this has been reversed in my reign; the banished are allowed to return, and confiscated goods have been returned to the owners. But such is their folly and madness that, just because they can no longer be despots, … or carry out their designs first against their brethren, and then against us, the worshippers of the gods, they are inflamed with fury and stop at nothing in their unprincipled attempts to alarm and enrage the people.
  • Julian, in his Edict to the people of Bostra, as quoted in Documents of the Christian Church (1957) by Henry Bettenson

• They are irreverent to the gods and disobedient to our edicts, lenient as they are. For we allow none of them to be dragged to the altars unwillingly... It is therefore my pleasure to announce and publish to all the people by this edict, that they must not abet the seditions of the clergy … They may hold their meetings, if they wish, and offer prayers according to their established use … and for the future, let all people live in harmony … Men should be taught and won over by reason, not by blows, insults, and corporal punishments. I therefore most earnestly admonish the adherents of the true religion not to injure or insult the Galilaeans in any way … Those who are in the wrong in matters of supreme importance are objects of pity rather than of hate.
  • Julian, in his Edict to the people of Bostra, as quoted in Documents of the Christian Church (1957) by Henry Bettenson

The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential....In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Muslim. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds. - Walpola Rahula.

• I’m inspired to be in this room because every single one of you is here for the same reason. You’re here because you’ve adopted as a core motivation the simple fact that this world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another. If we took just 5 minutes to recognize each other’s beauty, instead of attacking each other for our differences. That’s not hard. It’s really an easier and better way to live. And ultimately, it saves lives.
  • Ellen Page, in her Valentine's Day "coming out" speech at the Human Rights Campaign's Time to Thrive conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (14 February 2014)

• Some foreign writers, some our own despise;
  The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize.
  Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply’d
  To one small sect, and all are damn’d beside.
  Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,
  And force that sun but on a part to shine.
  • Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism,” 394-399

• The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential....In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Muslim. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds.
  • Walpola Rahula in: What the Buddha Taught, Grove Press, 1 December 2007

• One who is holy of sect is proud because he is confident of his right of possession in God. The man of devotion is meek because he is conscious of Gods right of love over his life and soul. The object of our possession becomes smaller than ourselves, and without acknowledging it in so many words the bigoted sectarian has an implicit belief that God can be kept secured for certain individuals in a cage which is of their own make. In a similar manner the primitive races of men believe that their ceremonials have a magic influence upon their deities. Sectarianism is a perverse form of worldliness in the disguise of religion it breeds a narrowness of heart in a greater measure than the cult of the world based upon material interest can ever do. For undisguised pursuit of self has its safety in openness, like filth exposed to the sun and air. But the self-magnification with its consequent lessening of God that goes on unchecked under the cover of sectarianism loses its chance of salvation because it defiles the very source of purity.
  • Rabindranath Tagore in: The Complete Poems of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali: Texts and Critical Evaluation, Sarup & Sons, 1 January 2006, p. 202

• The dark shadow we seem to see in the distance is not really a mountain ahead, but the shadow of the mountain behind - a shadow from the past thrown forward into our future. It is a dark sludge of historical sectarianism. We can leave it behind us if we wish.
  • David Trimble in: Peace 1996-2000, World Scientific, 2005, p. 114