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Why are you, the founders, starting the group?
The purpose of Interfaith@MIT is to catalyze relationships between religious groups on campus and to invite the MIT community to take notice and take part in activities that reach across cultural, intellectual and religious bounds. Specifically, Interfaith strives towards the following goals:
- Interfaith Catalyst
*: To bring religious or belief groups on campus together, two at a time, to deepen understanding and cultivate respect at both the religious and personal level; to involve the MIT community in casual activities on campus between peoples of different beliefs; to promote interfaith and faith-specific events on campus and encourage attendance from all belief groups.
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Additionally, we plan on regular events that highlight a religious group on campus. In a brief (one 1/2 hour) presentation accompanied with lunch, one religious group is given the time to talk about the basic tenets of their beliefs and showcase their religion in any way they feel is necessary. This could range from a worship demonstration to a deeper discussion on more confusing aspects of the faith. The purpose of these events are to give basic understanding of different faiths and to demonstrate the diverse peoples MIT has on her campus.
Lastly, we plan on bringing MIT's religious organizations and students together through collaborative community service. We plan on organizing regular projects or service trips to foster fraternity between students of different religions, based on the following idea:unmigrated-wiki-markup
"_From now on, the great religions of the world will no longer declare war on each other, but on the giant ills that afflict \ [humankind\]."_ \ - Charles Bonney, 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions
Who is the intended audience of the group?
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We hope to include as many people as are interested in religion and interfaith activities in the MIT community. We expect to start of off relatively small, but increase in membership as we talk to more people, and as we involve more religious groups on campus in our interfaith activities. We hope to become a group of ~50 members not counting the belief groups on campus that are involved regularly in our events.
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