What is Faith and Does it Define Religion or Spirituality?
The main issue is that there is a fundamental flaw in the very concept of ‘interfaith’. The problem lies in the world ‘faith’ for defining religious and spiritual traditions. Western monotheistic religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, are certainly faith-based and one can rightly call them different faiths, that being what they call themselves and how they define themselves. Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, however, are knowledge-based and do not call themselves ‘faiths’ but dharmas. For them faith (shraddha in Sanskrit) has a place but is subordinate to a higher knowledge. Just as a scientist would not attend an interfaith conference representing science as another faith, so too, the followers of knowledge based traditions are not comfortable with their traditions being turned into faiths or made on par with faith based beliefs and dogmas. While Biblical traditions generally define the goal of human life as salvation through faith, in the dharmic traditions the g
