IRDW 2019 : Interreligious Dialogue in a World full of Conflicts and Violence

the world is full of conflictual feelings and opinions on religion lately. This is a historical moment for humankind from a lot of angles, and religion has its own moment of crossroads when strange and new situations occur. Everyone questioned two decades ago if the new millennium will be religious or not and religious people, mostly the fundamentalists, have struggled to prove it is, but the path that we all, religious or secular, took and set before us reveal issues that no religious leaders have ever think of. With each step taken into defense traditional religions seem to lose followers and credibility, the 2nd generation religions have their moment to prove they deserve being followed, but the newest generation of religions, liberal and nothing-to-do-with-traditional, gain trust and numbers. This unexpected turn in religion's countenance can have lots of explanations and even more scenarios for its future. For the moment the only hypothesis we throw in this debate is that civil society is eager to have peace from all the conflictual streams and, since religion proved with time to be the most important source of violence, humanity has turned every opportunity against religion's liability over people. The last strategy it adopted was to demythologize and debunk its essence, but this only aimed the religious leadership's mistakes and its pecuniary opportuneness, while the human need for spirituality and idealism still remain far beyond the reach of secularism. Would this be the best story for society-religion partnership? Would this scenario end the religious violence for good? Or, would this "scenario" be only our side of reality and another explanation is still out there, waiting to be said or unveiled?