Online Inter-faith Dialogue Platform

这项野外研究项目将导致开发一个在线平台，以实现一种完善的宗教间对话形式，该平台具有对世俗和宗教多元化的全球社会的变革潜力。在一个世俗性和多种宗教复杂混合的世界中，出现了宗教社区成员如何充分参与公共辩论的问题。对这些问题的一个主要答案是，只有当宗教参与者将他们对宗教思想和实践的特定传统的承诺保密时，公开争论才有可能。然而，其他答案也是可能的——关注每个宗教传统内部推理实践的答案，以及当这些不同实践相互作用时可能出现的共享推理模式。探索这种可能性的一个突出的工作例子是开发一种称为“圣经推理”（SR）的跨信仰讨论实践。在SR中，不同宗教传统的成员以小组形式会面，共同讨论他们的神圣或权威文本的摘录。在这个过程中，某一传统的成员学会向那些不认同她的传统的人解释形成她的判断（包括对公共问题的判断）的阅读和推理实践。她还学会回答有关这些实践的问题，了解形成其他参与者判断的不同阅读和推理实践，并作为其他参与者文本的读者进行实验。这个过程的正常结果不是达成共识，而是对他人判断的根源有更深入的理解，对自己的传统和他人的传统所固有的灵活性和反应性的理解，以及对那些与自己的权威和推理传统不同的人可能有意义的论点的理解。因此，这种跨信仰推理的实践加深了传统内部和传统之间的理解，并促进了跨传统理性辩论实践的发展。学者、宗教领袖、学生、学童、公民领袖和普通公民之间现有的SR模式面对面实施已被证明是令人鼓舞的，并且表明，在一个宗教承诺和对共同公共话语的承诺经常被认为是反对的社会中，这是一种具有潜在变革影响的做法。然而，面对面的实施不可避免地受到限制：聚集多信仰团体进行讨论的成本很高；数量有限；地理限制意味着参与者往往来自相似的文化背景；讨论的单语性质既减少了可能的参与者范围，也给一些穆斯林参与者带来了特殊的限制，对他们来说，对尚未翻译的阿拉伯文本权威和推理传统的依赖至关重要。为了确保实现SR的潜在变革影响，需要克服这些限制。该项目提供了一种创新的方法，将 SR 实践带到网络上并跨语言进行。我们将建立在现有的在线宗教间平台（由剑桥宗教间计划和非营利性技术公司 Meedan 开发）的基础上，其中包括一个机器辅助人工翻译阿拉伯语和英语之间的内容和讨论的设施。通过对来自英国和中东的基督教和伊斯兰社区的各种非学术用户群体进行广泛的用户测试，我们将针对基督教-穆斯林 SR 的特定用途定制该平台，在此过程中跨越地理和语言障碍扩展 SR。

This Research in the Wild project will lead to the development of an online platform for a well-established form of inter-faith dialogue, with proven transformational potential for a secular and religiously plural global society.In a world that is a complex mix of secularity and multiple religions, questions arise about how members of religious communities can participate fully in public debate. One dominant answer to those questions says that public argument is only possible to the extent that religious participants keep private their commitment to particular traditions of religious thought and practice. However, other answers are possible - answers that focus upon the practices of reasoning internal to each religious traditions, and upon the patterns of shared reasoning that are possible when those differing practices are brought into interaction.One prominent example of work that explores this possibility has been the development of a practice of inter-faith discussion called 'Scriptural Reasoning' (SR). In SR members of different religious traditions meet in small groups to discuss extracts from their sacred or authoritative texts together. In the process, a member of one tradition learns to explain to those who do not share her tradition the reading and reasoning practices by which her judgments (including judgments about public issues) are shaped. She also learns to respond to questions about those practices, to understand the different reading and reasoning practices by which the judgments of other participants are shaped, and to experiment as a reader of the other participants' texts. The normal outcome of the process is not consensus but a deeper understanding of the roots of others' judgments, an understanding of the kinds of flexibility and responsiveness built in to one's own tradition and the traditions of others, and an understanding of the kinds of arguments that might make sense to those whose authorities and traditions of reasoning differ from one's own. This practice of inter-faith reasoning therefore deepens understanding both within and between traditions, and enables the development of practices of reasoned debate across traditions.Existing face-to-face implementations of the SR model amongst scholars, religious leaders, students, school children, civic leaders and ordinary citizens have proved encouraging, and have demonstrated that this is a practice with a potential for transformational impact in a society where religious commitment and commitment to shared public discourse are often assumed to be opposed. Face-to-face implementation is, however, unavoidably limited: gathering multi-faith groups for discussion is expensive; numbers are limited; geographical constrains mean that participants tend to be from similar cultural backgrounds; and the mono-lingual nature of the discussions both reduces the range of possible participants, and presents particular constraints for some Muslim participants for whom reliance on as-yet-untranslated Arabic textual authorities and traditions of reasoning is essential.To ensure that the potential transformational impact of SR is realised, these limitations need to be overcome. This project offers an innovative way to do so by taking SR practice onto the web and across languages. We will build on an existing online inter-faith platform (developed by the Cambridge Inter-faith Program and the non-profit technology company Meedan) which includes a facility for machine-assisted human translation of content and discussions between Arabic and English. By means of extensive user testing with a variety of non-academic user groups drawn from Christian and Islamic communities in the UK and the Middle East, we will tailor this platform for specific use in Christian-Muslim SR, extending SR across geographical and linguistic barriers in the process.