How Jews, Christians, and Muslims perceive people who do not share their religious beliefs

Abstract

This paper is an outline of a lecture for health care professionals. Without an ambition to provide a comprehensive and theologically founded approach to the complex and sensitive topic of interaction among Abrahamic religions, I would like to provide a brief introduction to those who work with people from different faith traditions. There is no doubt that our globalized and interconnected world must face new challenges, with a special reference to the interaction of Abrahamic religions, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this complex mesh of cultural exchanges, it is crucial to understand how individuals with different religions perceive each other. Despite this fact, relatively few attempts have been made to perform a head-to-head comparison of the attitudes of Abrahamic religions. In this brief paper, I first elucidate the etymological and historical aspects of interfaith attitudes, and then describe more modern perceptions of disbelievers. Although there are some differences among Jews, Muslims, and Christians in their perception of individuals with other faith traditions, these seem to be exaggerated by the current political turmoil and hysteria. Every effort must be made to take into consideration the cultural and individual determinants of interfaith interactions in order to avoid potentially detrimental reactions, violence, close-minded prejudice, and political-religious fundamentalism and fanaticism.