A core pluralist claims that all religions of some kind share a common core, and that this is really what matters about the religions; their equal value is found in this common core. gender reassignment. Monotheists, after all, take the ultimate being to be a personal god while others, variously called ultimists, absolutists, or monists, hold the ultimate to be impersonal, such as the Dao, Emptiness, Nirguna Brahman, and so forth. In this article, religious pluralism refers to a theory about the diversity of religions. Protestant versions of exclusivism can be at least as strict as Augustines. But some had always held on to theories about ways into the church other than water baptism, and since the European discovery of the New World it had become clear that the gospel had not been preached to the whole world, and many held that such pagans were non-culpably ignorant of the gospel. What do we mean by Race, Ethnicity and Diversity? - Kansas State University The Religious Diversity Index is divided into four ranges: very high (the top 5% of scores), high (the next highest 15% of scores, which works out to 16% because of tie scores), moderate (the next 20% of scores) and low (the bottom 59% of scores). If, for example, in his view Allah, Vishnu, and Yahweh are all real and distinct, is Hick thereby committed to polytheism? Another, without saying that people may be saved through membership in them, affirms various positive values in other religions, including true teachings, which serve as divinely ordained preparations for reception the gospel. Facts and Theories of Religious Diversity 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. Contrary to widespread depictions of religious blocs of uniform practices, values and concerns, it is essential to emphasize the plurality of . Ethnic or national origins include, for (On the majority inclusivism, see section 4b below.) Hick realizes the incoherence of dubbing all religions true, for they have core teachings that conflict, and most religions are not shy about pointing out such conflicts. As a relative latecomer which has always acknowledged the legitimacy of previous prophets, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, while proclaiming its prophet to be the greatest and last, Islam has, like Judaism, tended towards inclusivist views of other religions. In contrast, exclusivist approaches say that only one religion is uniquely valuable. There are numerous cultures in the world, understood as different visions of the cosmos , of humanity itself and of the world, with their traditions, imaginaries, languages and representations. But doesnt Christian tradition demand that each person eventually either achieves fellowship or union with God, or is irrevocably damned? 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. An exclusivist stance is often signaled by the claim that there is only one true religion. Other religions, then, are false. A naive person may infer from this that no claim, or no central claim of any other religion is true, but all such are false. It would seem that that, for example, a Christian to accept this ultimist pluralism, she will have to reinterpret what many Christians will regard as a core commitment, namely, that the ultimate reality is personal. This sort of core pluralism was propounded by some members of the Theosophical Society such as co-founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91) in her widely read The Secret Doctrine (1888), and by French convert to Sufi Islam Ren Gunon (1886-1951) and those influenced by him, such as the eclectic Swiss-German writer Frithjof Schuon (1907-98). Consider the claim that the cosmos was intentionally made. People over age 40 are more likely to identify with a religion or engage in religious practices. Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. (Hasker 2011) At first Hick evades the issue of polytheism by describing his theory not as a kind of polytheism, but rather as poly-something. He then suggests that two views of the personae are compatible with his theory: that they are mental projections, or that they are real, but angel- or deva like beings, intermediaries and not really gods. Some have urged that it be replaced by the more neutral terms particularism or restrictivism. (Netland 2001, 46; Krkkinen 2003, 80-1) This article retains the common term because it is widespread and many have adopted the label for their own theory of religious diversity. Religion Diversity in the Workplace In today's workplace, there are many rules and regulations to ensure the wellbeing of the employee. Hicks claim that no human concept applies to the Ultimate Reality has been criticized by many, whove pointed out that Hick applies these concepts to it: being one, being ultimate, being a partial cause of the impersonae and personae, and being ineffable. Diversity is a wide array of people that come from different backgrounds, lifestyles, social experiences, races, and religions. Key facts about Asian Americans | Pew Research Center Because of this, arguably exclusivism (or inclusivism, see section 4 below) is a default view in religious traditions. Thus, if central Christian teachings are true, then so is at least one central teaching of these two rival religions. Monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam agree that there is a sole God. (For others see Hick 2004, Introduction.). Nineteenth century popes condemned Enlightenment-inspired theories of religion pluralism about truth and salvation, then called indifferentism, it being, allegedly, indifferent which major religion one chose, since all were of equal value. It is a mistake to think that the ultimate is any substantial, self-identical thing, even an ineffable one. 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. More Empathy While some characteristics of diversity include age, gender, the color of the skin. (Legenhausen 2006, 2009). Some experience this Being as if it were a god, but the most able gain a non-conceptual awareness of it in its ineffable glory. Differing people, perspectives, topics, ideas, etc. Yet other religious mystics perceive the Cosmos, that is, the totality of finite things (the body of the World Soul). Legenhausen, Hajj Muhammad [Gary Carl]. How can a Theravada Buddhists accept that such a heavenly next life is a good and final end for non-Buddhists? 1939), have formulated various pluralist theories. There are other major ones which remain unseen. Another view which is taken by Bible-oriented evangelical Protestants allows the possibility of non-Christians receiving saving grace, but is firmly agnostic as to whether this actually occurs, and if it does, how often, because of the paucity of relevant biblical statements. But these lesser ways should and eventually will give way to Christianity, the truest religion, intended for all humankind. An informed Christian must concede that Jews and Muslims too believe this, and that they teach it as a central doctrine. An ethnic group refers to people who are closely related to each other through characteristics such as culture, language, and religion. These qualities include but are not limited to: being humble, reasonable, kind, broad-minded, open-minded, informed, cosmopolitan, modern, properly appreciative of difference, non-bigoted, tolerant, being opposed to proselytizing (attempts to convince those outside the religion to convert to it), anti-colonialist, and anti-imperialist. This baptism of desire was officially affirmed by the Roman Catholic Council of Trent in 1547. If a religion cures only a shallow, derivative human problem, leaving the deeper problem intact, then what it offers would not deserve the name salvation, for it would leave those who achieve it still in need of the cure. (Dupuis 2000, 91-2). U. S. A. Concept and Characteristics of Diversity: Linguistic, Regional & Religious The Many Gods of Hick and Mavrodes,, Hick, John. Many religious claims will be logically incompatible with the accepted diagnosis, and many religious practices will be useless or counter-productive when it comes to getting what one believes to be the cure. Religious pluralism in some contexts means an informed, tolerant, and appreciative or sympathetic view of the various religions. Paradoxically, such pluralism is often expressed along with claims that Hinduism is greatly superior in various ways to other religions. Heim suggests that those who attain Nirvana would be, from a Christian perspective, either a subgroup of the saved or of the damned, depending on just what, metaphysically, is actually going on with such people. religion or belief. Facts and Theories of Religious Diversity, Abe, Masao. It is difficult to make a fully clear distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist approaches. ]Religion and religious conceptions, beyond being systems of belief and patterns of worship . These objects of religious experience are mind-dependent, in that they depend for their existence, in part, on people with certain religious backgrounds. This patient's religious beliefs have led him to pursue mindfulness and meditation as ways of . Or are those gods mere fictions? The rest of the population is made up of folk religions (5.3%), Buddhists (0.6%), and Jews (.2%). Exploring the trend in religious diversity: Based on the geographical How could a perfect being fail to be available to all people in all the religions? (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. 3) To say that it is either, Hick realizes, would be to hand an epistemic victory to either the monotheists or the absolutists (ultimists). In the second, even a virtuous pagan might be a church member. A similar pluralism is advanced by Japanese Zen scholar Masao Abe (1915-2006). 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. Wouldnt this be to attribute more reality to God than shes willing to? (Peterson et. 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. Keywords: nation-state, religious diversity, social life, global conflicts, peace building. The degree of religious diversity in the US is also reflected in Americans' core social networks. (Neuner and Dupuis 2001, 309-10) It also seems to close the door to non-standard routes to church membership, saying that never was anyone, conceived by a man and a woman, liberated from the devils dominion except by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (Tanner 1990, 575) Non-Catholics will go into the everlasting fireunless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their livesnobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the catholic church. (Tanner 1990, 578), This exclusivistic or rigorist way of understanding the slogan, on which only the Roman Catholic church could provide the cure needed by all humans, was the most common Catholic stance on religious diversity until mid-nineteenth century. 10 Key Characteristics Of Cultural Diversity With Definition And Examples al. Thus, Christian exclusivists usually allow that those who die as babies, the severely mentally handicapped, or friends of God who lived before Christian times may avoid hell and attain heaven despite their not being fully-fledged, believing and practicing Christians. The unaffiliated represent close to 5%. This study examines the spatial characteristics of the development of the global religious diversity index . They hypothesize that some religious mystics really do perceive (without using ordinary sense organs) some ultimate (that is, something regarded as ultimate). 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). RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, including the U.S. 70% of Americans attend a religious service monthly. Finally, Cobb and Griffin emphasize that this approach does not endorse any unreasonable form of relativism and, as such, allows one to remain distinctively Christian or Buddhist and so forth. His critics, he argues, are merely asserting without reason that there cannot be a transcategorial reality. 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. It has always been recognized by people outside the smallest and most isolated communities. (Legenhausen 2009), The term religious pluralism is almost always used for a theory asserting positive value for many or most religions. Asians have a lower homeownership rate than the U.S. public overall (59% vs. 64%). Second, the claim that meaningfulness requires the possibility of empirical verification has little to recommend it, and is self-refuting (that is, the claim itself is not empirically verifiable). The Problem of Contingency for Religious Belief,, Byrne, Peter. It has been objected that this theory is not promising because it is hard to see how we could ever have sufficient evidence for some of its claims, while others are implausible in light of the evidence we do have. 2; see section 3c below). Wide distances, poor communication and transportation, bad weather, and the clerical shortage dictated religious variety from town to town and from region to region. Generally, a belief should affect your life choices or the way you live for it to be included in the definition. Instead, it is the view that all religions are valid, meaning that they have some degree of (some kind of) value. (Sometimes, however, Hick makes the weaker claim that were unable to pick any religion as best at effecting this transformation.) 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. (Netland 2001), Others object that Hicks pluralism requires arbitrarily reinterpreting religious language non-literally, and usually as having to do with morality, contrary to what most proponents of those religions believe. (Sharma 1979) But if there is no one clear modern Hindu pluralism, it remains that various modern Indian thinkers have held to versions of core or identist pluralism. (Heim 1995, 163) This is consistent with the Christian thinking that the end pursued by Christians is in fact better than all others; thus, heaven is better than Nirvana. The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity engages with one of the most characteristic features of modern society. Later on, Hick firmly settled on the view that this Real should be thought of as ineffable. A Primer on Diversity - Resources Religious difference has become a factor in local and global conflicts and peace building. (Dupuis 2000, 165-170) A key area of disagreement is whether or not these imply that a person may be saved by means of their participation in some other religion. They hope that each religion can, while remaining distinct, begin to construct global theologies, influenced by the truths and values of other religions. (1995, 2004) All the major religions are equal in that they (1) refer to and facilitate cognitive contact with a single, transcendent reality, (2) each offers a similarly moral- and eternal-oriented cure, and (3) each includes revisable and incomplete accounts of this transcendent reality. This means making sure each employee is treated equally. Even a Mahayana Buddhist may have a lot of adjusting to do, if she is to admit that believers in a personal God really do experience the greatest entity, and something which is not separate from Emptiness. Water baptism, from the beginning, had been the initiation rite into Christianity, but it was still unclear what church membership strictly required. While this is compatible with some religion being the best in some other respect(s), the theorists using this label have in mind that many religions are equal regarding the central value(s) of religion. Religious diversity definition: The diversity of something is the fact that it contains many very different elements. (Hick 2004, ch. Further, it is really Creativity that is ultimate, and it is embodied in and does not exist apart from or as an object in addition to God and the Cosmos. Sometimes God and Cosmos are described as aspects of Creativity. Appropriating Immanuel Kants distinction between phenomena, how things appear, and noumena, things in themselves, Hick postulated that the Real is ineffable and is not directly experienced by anyone. On the one hand, it is difficult to consistently distinguish inclusivism from exclusivism, because the latter nearly always concedes some significant value to other religions. It is not hard to find religions or religious cults which would not plausibly be thought of as good in the way(s) that a pluralist has in mind. This diversity is increasing, even in communities that have previously been relatively homogeneous. Judaism and Other Faiths., Datta, Narendra [Swami Vivekananda]. Diversity definition: what do we mean by diversity in the workplace? In some sense these three are one, however, the Truth Body manifests or acts as various Enjoyment Bodies, which in turn manifest or act as various Transformation Bodies. 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. It is arguably the doctrinal and philosophical aspects of a religion which are foundational, in that the other aspects can only be understood in light of them. RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY. Dissenters are found among historians of religion, who deny that there is and has always been a common core in all of the worlds religions. Email: filosofer@gmail.com one? (Sharma 1990) This modern Hindu outlook has proven difficult to formulate in any clear way. On this view, all the religions are right to the same degree, that is, all versions of monotheism (or perhaps, ethical monotheisms, or Abrahamic monotheisms). For example, all non-Christians go to hell, or all non-Buddhists fail to gain Nirvana, or to make progress towards it. Dabblers and hobbyists freely stitch together unique quilts of religious beliefs and practices, but such constructions seem to make little sense once a believer has accepted any particular religion. Heim notes that pluralists like Hick insist on one true goal or salvation which is achieved by all the equally valuable religions, a goal which is proposed by the pluralist and which differs from those proposed by most of those religions. He switches to the term transcategorial, points out historical versions of this thesis, and urges that the Real simply is not in the domain of entities to which concepts like personal and non-personal apply. Among these purported facts, for Hick, is that the great religions equally well facilitate the ethical transformation of their adherents, what Hick calls a transformation from self-centeredness to other-centeredness and Reality-centeredness. Thus, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-533) interpreted the slogan as implying that all non-Christians are damned, because they bear the guilt of original sin stemming from the sin of Adam, which has not been as it were washed away by baptism. But Heims theory does not require them to be, but only that they occur and may be plausibly thought of as fulfilling to those who have them. Swedish philosopher Mikael Stenmark explores what he calls the some-are-equally-right view about religious diversity, and discusses a version of it on which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are held to possess equal amounts of religiously important truths. Thus, it has been observed that identist religious pluralism (see 2e below) is essentially a Hindu position, and closely resembles Advaita Vendanta thought. These negative qualities include but are not limited to: being arrogant, unreasonable, mean, narrow-minded, closed-minded, uninformed, provincial, out of date, xenophobic, bigoted, intolerant, in favor of proselytism, colonialist, and imperialist. It is a matter of dispute whether certain famous Sufi Muslims such as Rumi (1207-73) and Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) have held to some form of religious pluralism. Recent Islamic thinkers have independently come to conclusions parallel to those of Rahner, while critiquing various pluralist theories as entailing the sin of unbelief (kufr), the rejection of Islam. Again, if a Christian diagnosis is correct, that humans are alienated from and need to be reconciled to God, yet some manage to attain Nirvana, they would still lack the cure, for it is no part of Nirvana that one is reconciled to God. While such naive exclusivist positions are rarely expounded by scholars, they frequently appear in the work of pluralists and inclusivists, held up as unfortunate, harmful, and unreasonable theories which are in urgent need of replacement. (McDermott and Netland 2014, 148) But these are sometimes tempered with loopholes such as: a universal chance to hear the gospel at or after death, a free pass to people who die before the age of accountability, or the view that less was required to be saved in pre-Christian times. Importantly, he construes the various religious goals as experiences obtaining in this life and continuing beyond. This, it is hoped, rules out anyone having grounds for believing any particular religion to be the uniquely best religion. Catholics are exhorted to patient, friendly dialogue with members of other religions.
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