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F R E Q U E N T L Y A S K E D Q U E S T I O N S
1.Who are you?
2.Why did you set up BMDG?
3.What is the goal of BMDG?
4. What is the nature of dialog that you are promoting?
5-Does dialog has different dimensions?
6-Where does support come from?
1.Who are you?
We are a group of graduate students at Indiana University, Bloomington. For the time being, great majority of BMDG members are Turkish. But we welcome everybody regardless of their religion, race, and political affiliation.
2.Why did you set up BMDG?
We believe that interfaith dialog is a must today, and that the first step in establishing dialog is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones.
3.What is the goal of BMDG?
The goal of BMDG is to provide a platform for dialog which can be used as an effective tool to advance peace building around the world. We are living in a increasingly diverse society; we interact with people of different faiths. This poses a great challenge to everybody who is living in such a society. Something deeply sacred and true for one faith might be in contrast with what is true in another religious tradition. We think that dialog provides a common ground on which different religious groups share their values in such a way that the true message of their faiths benefit people from other religious traditions.
4. What is the nature of dialog that you are promoting?
We think that dialog is not a debate. In dialog, each must listen to the other openly and sympathetically in attempt to understand the other’s position as precisely as possible. We think that there is a need to recognize that differences do exist and objective is not to “correct†but to hear and listen to the other side. Indeed, regardless of how beliefs followers implement their faith in their daily lives, accepted values such as love, respect, mercy, forgiveness, human rights, peace, brotherhood and freedom are all values that are praised by religion. It is important to see these values and find a shared way to build universal peace.
5-Does dialog has different dimensions?
We think that dialog has many pillars such as love, compassion, forgiving, and tolerance.
6-Where does support come from?
Support comes from donations of BMDG members.
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