Thank you for your usual penetrating remarks on the ideas of religion and world society as seen in Charles Taylor’s book, in Hans Joas’ ideas, and on the powerful thought of Jurgen Habermas. Taking up your ideas on the confluence of thought from Buddhist, Confucian enlightened ideas about the brother/sisterhood of all men and women on the planet today — and adding to that the recent declaration of the confluence of basic Islamic and Christian notions of peace and mutual respect signed by over 130 Islamic doctors, professors and Imams and sent to the leaders of all the major Christian leaders. Given the positive responses from the latter, it seems to me that the time is ripe to go a step further. Here in Kyoto, Japan, as you know, we have organized the Kyoto Cosmos Club where believers and participants from literally every religion and spiritual tradition are invited to come together once a month and sit down together to a common meal and listen to a representative from one of the many Buddhist, Christian, and other sects tell us about the beauty and goodness of their own tradition. Most recently we had a teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition lead us in a beautiful period of meditation and then explain the goodness of that ancient tradition. My question — or suggestion is therefore this: Since we live today inside of Taylor’s Immanent Frame, and since it lends itself to both an “open” (or religious) and a “closed” (or non-religious) interpretation, why do we of the “open” variety not multiply “Cosmos Clubs” in all the major cities of the world? Of course, the fundamentalists of the various religious traditions who think that only they have the real interpretation of the Holy Kuran, the Bible, the Sutras and the other teachings will not join. Nevertheless is it not time to light a thousand candles of mutual understanding, respect a peaceful brother/sisterhood in all the cities of the world?

Morris Augustine