Diversity can include characteristics such as cultural background and ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, language and education. 3 There are many ethnic groups in the United States, due in large part to its immigrant population; each of these groups contributes to America's cultural heritage. After catholic Christianity became the official religion of the empire (c. 381), it was usually assumed that the message had been preached throughout the world, leaving all adult non-Christians without excuse. Although you may be nervous about broaching the subject, it is important to discuss religious diversity so . Unfortunately, it is often used with some mix of the above values in mind, leaving it unclear exactly which values are pertinent. An uninformed person, noting certain commonalities of religious belief and practice, may suppose that all religions are the same, namely, that there are no significant differences between religious traditions. The religious composition and social context varies considerably by generation. Further, it respects and does not try to eliminate all these differences, and so makes genuine dialogue between members of the religions possible. There are other major ones which remain unseen. Paradoxically, such pluralism is often expressed along with claims that Hinduism is greatly superior in various ways to other religions. Others find it excessive that Smith accepts other traditional doctrines, such as that Platos Forms are not only real but alive, that in dreaming the subtle body leaves the body and roams free in the intermediate realm, belief in siddhis (supernatural powers gained by meditation), possession by spirits, psychic phenomena, and so on. Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. However, they nearly always have at least one criterion for excluding religions as inferior in the aspect(s) they focus on. Scholars distinguish seven aspects of religious traditions: the doctrinal and philosophical, the mythic and narrative, the ethical and legal, the ritual and practical, the experiential and emotional, the social and organizational, and the material and artistic. Still, given that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets, his teachings and practices should, and some day will supersede all previous ones. Local variations in Protestant practices and ethnic differences among the white settlers did foster a religious diversity. The first part of the article deals with the European and, specifically, Croatian sociopolitical and cultural framework of inclusive pedagogy and presents its basic postulates. Diversity is a wide array of people that come from different backgrounds, lifestyles, social experiences, races, and religions. (Plantinga 1999, 124-5; Neuner and Dupuis 2001, 305) Note that this might still be interpreted with or without the various non-standard ways to obtain church membership mentioned above. Water baptism, from the beginning, had been the initiation rite into Christianity, but it was still unclear what church membership strictly required. al. This would be the view of many naturalists, who hold that all religions are the product of human imagination, and fail to have most or all of the values claimed for them. This encompasses the idea that physical reality, the terrestrial plane, is contained within and controlled by a more real intermediate plane (that is, the subtle, animic, or psychic plane) which is in turn contained and controlled by the celestial plane. Other Buddhists experience Amida Buddha, while Christians experience Christ, and Jews Yahweh, Hindus Isvara, and Muslims Allah. Keywords: nation-state, religious diversity, social life, global conflicts, peace building. In his earlier writings, monotheistic concerns seem important. (Griffin 2005a) They do, however, take seriously at least many of the unusual religious experiences people report. A typical Rabbinic view is that although non-Jews may be reconciled to God, and thus gain life in the world to come, by keeping a lesser covenant which God has made with them, still Jews enjoy a better covenant with God. In this article exclusivism about religious diversity denies any form of pluralism; it denies that all religions, or all major ones, are the same in some important respect. Such would be the work of a religiously embedded and committed theology of religious diversity, not of a general philosophy of religious diversity. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, including the U.S. 70% of Americans attend a religious service monthly. It offers a fall from primordial spirituality into modern spiritual poverty, cured by adopting the outlook sketched above. And secondly, we have all the different: Experiences Talents Skills Opinions Personalities These differences, for example employees' talents, are less obvious and require the organization's effort and proactiveness to shine. Legenhausen, Hajj Muhammad [Gary Carl]. (Long 2005) The slogan may also imply that all religions feature veridical experience of that one object, by way of a non-cognitive, immediate awareness. This view has not been widely accepted because the Process theology and philosophy on which it is based has not been widely accepted. Thus, the Hindu intellectual Ram Mohun Roy (1772/4-1833) held that Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, when understood in their original, non-idolatrous and non-superstitious ways, all teach the important truths about God and humankind, enabling humans to love and serve God. al. Literature since 1950 focuses on the truth or rationality of religious teachings, the veridicality (conformity with reality) of religious experiences, salvific efficacy (the ability to deliver whatever cure religion should provide), and alleged directedness towards one and the same ultimate religious object. At the same time, they argued that many people who are outside the one church cannot be blamed for this, and so will not be condemned by God. (Datta 2005; Morales 2008) It has been argued that whether and how a Hindu embraces a theory of religious pluralism will depend crucially on what she takes Hinduism to be. The Epistemological Challenge of Religious Pluralism., Ignatius of Antioch, The Letter of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, in, King, Nathan. Early bishop Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-107) writes that if any follow a schismatic [that is, the founder of a religious group outside of the bishop-ruled catholic mainstream] they will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (Letter of Ignatius to the Philadelphians 3:3) Leading catholic theologian Origen of Alexandria (c. 186-255) wrote: outside the Church no one is saved. (Dupuis 2001, 86-7) Yet Origen also held, at least tentatively, that eventually all rational beings will be saved. A Dynamic Unity in Religious Pluralism: A Proposal from the Buddhist Point of View., Bogardus, Tomas. This account is narrower than pluralism is usually thought to be, but it is arguably a version of it. One may object that this above proposal is counter to the equalizing spirit of pluralism. However, he maintained that people in the religions interact with it indirectly, by way of various personae and impersonae, personal and impersonal appearances or phenomena of the Real. sex. (Mawson 2005), Historically, Buddhist thought about other religions has almost never been pluralistic. (McDermott and Netland 2014) Other Protestants choose forms of inclusivism similar to Rahners (see 4b below). 3) To say that it is either, Hick realizes, would be to hand an epistemic victory to either the monotheists or the absolutists (ultimists). We should respect freedom of religion by rejecting the kinds of false and damaging claims that are sometimes made about religion, especially Islam. (Hick 2004; Quinn and Meeker 2000) Hicks approach is original, thorough, and informed by a broad and deep knowledge of many religions. Diversity, Divisions, Religion, Caste, Secularism, News, Theocratic states, Terrorism, Fundamentalism, Extremism, Congress, BJP, Communism. Ethnic or national origins include, for This view was affirmed by Pope Pius X (r. 1846-78) in his Singulari Quadam (1854): outside the Apostolic Roman Church no one can be savedOn the other handthose who live in ignorance of the true religion, if such ignorance be invincible, are not subject to any guilt in this matter before the eyes of the Lord. (Neuner and Dupuis 2001, 311). Research on religious diversity has found that when the percentage of a dominant religion and religious diversity are both included, the proportion of the dominant religion is an arithmetic component of the religious diversity measure (Chaves and Gorski 2001; Olson 1999), resulting in a misspecified model. (Yandell 2013), Again, it has been objected that Hick, contrary to many religions, downgrades religious practice and belief as inessential to a religion, the only important features of a religion being that it is a response to the Ultimate Reality and that it fosters the ethical transformation noted above. All Christians believe that some were saved before Christianity, through Judaism. (Heim 1995, 154-5, 161) This is an important qualifier, as various religious goals clearly presuppose contrary claims. Such views are consistent with exclusivism in the sense that Roman Catholic Christianity is the one divinely provided and so most effective instrument of salvation, as well as the most true religion, and the true religion in the sense that any claim which contradicts it official teaching is false. This, it is hoped, rules out anyone having grounds for believing any particular religion to be the uniquely best religion. [This entry examines the origins and differing patterns of development of the world's major religious traditions, as well as the varying patterns of interaction between these religions and the social, political, and economic frameworks with which they coexist. (Sedgwick 2004) Like traditional religions, it too offers a diagnosis of the human condition and a cure. Or are those gods mere fictions? Finally, inclusivist theories try to steer a middle course by agreeing with exclusivism that one religion has the most value while also agreeing with pluralism that others still have significant religious value. For example, in Theravada Buddhism, one must realize that there is no self, whereas in Advaita Vedanta Hinduism one must gain awareness that ones true self is none other than the ultimate reality, Brahman. Most importantly, it offers a chance to discover the deep self as Being. All the major religions, then, are really oriented towards, and involve the experience of some reality regarded as ultimate (Creativity, God, or Cosmos). (Hick 2000, 2004), As to Hicks idea that the correlation of birthplace and religious belief somehow undermines the rationality of religious belief, it has been pointed out that religious pluralism too is correlated with birthplace. pregnancy and maternity. Influential German theologian Karl Rahner (1904-84), in his essay Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions, argues that before people encounter Christianity, other religions may be the divinely appointed means of their salvation. The Equality Act replicates the provisions of previous legislation. Appropriating Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian language, Smith says that this spirit is the Atman that is Brahman, the Buddha-nature that appears when our finite selves get out of its way, my istigkeit (is-ness) whichwe see is Gods is-ness. (Smith 2003 ch. Some authors, usually ones who wish to celebrate these facts, call them religious pluralism, but this entry reserves this label for a family of theories about the facts of religious diversity. 4. As a result, he became convinced that basically the same thing was going on with these others religious followers as with Christians, namely, people responding in culturally conditioned but transformative ways to one and the same Real or Ultimate Reality. one? This is not compatible with his thesis that Vishnu and others are phenomena of the Real, that is, culturally conditioned ways that the Real appears to us. In their view, those who confess experience of Emptiness, Nirguna Brahman, or the One (of Neoplatonism) behold the ultimate reality (Creativity) as it really is, in contrast to monotheists or cosmos-focused religionists, who latch on to what are limited aspects of Creativity. An ethnic group refers to people who are closely related to each other through characteristics such as culture, language, and religion. In modern societies, religion and its diversity is attached to public institutions. The latter two classes of beings, but not the first, may be described as personal.. Because of this, arguably exclusivism (or inclusivism, see section 4 below) is a default view in religious traditions. Later on, Hick firmly settled on the view that this Real should be thought of as ineffable. Here we can survey only a few of the criticisms that have been made.
