(Dupuis 2001, 86-9), However, what about Jews, pagans, unbaptized babies, or people who never have a chance to hear the Christian message? 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. 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. The rest of the population is made up of folk religions (5.3%), Buddhists (0.6%), and Jews (.2%). It is only modern people who are blinded by the misunderstanding that science reveals all, who have forgotten it. : a critical examination of some formulations of the Neo-Hindu position., Smith, Huston. Heim strenuously objects to pluralist theories that they impose uniformity on the various religions. In contrast, exclusivist approaches say that only one religion is uniquely valuable. It can be argued that Abe is an inclusivist, maintaining that Buddhism is the best religion, rather than a true pluralist. This led to both the questioning and the defense of various exclusivist traditional Christian claims. (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. (Netland 2001, 23-54) Theories of religious diversity have largely been driven by attacks on and defenses of such claims, and discussions continue within the realm of Christian theology. These are called protected characteristics. This account is narrower than pluralism is usually thought to be, but it is arguably a version of it. Religious Diversity and its Challenges to Religious Belief.. (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. 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. Insofar as they in good conscience practice what is good in their religion, people in other religions receive Gods grace and are anonymous Christians, people who are being saved through Christ, though they do not realize it. 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. 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. Most importantly, it offers a chance to discover the deep self as Being. Characteristics of cultural diversity : Multiplicity of cultures Each worldview is the product of the individual development of a people. (Legenhausen 2006), Other objections have been centered on the status of Hicks personae. (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. 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. Religious diversity definition: The diversity of something is the fact that it contains many very different elements. 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. This seems incompatible with Heims agnosticism about which, if any, of the diagnosed problems is the fundamental one. Stenmark views it as most similar to identist pluralism (see 2e below). All religions are equal? In reply, Hick urges that his claims are not themselves religious, but are rather about religious matters, and are, as such, philosophical. Equally, Advaita Vedanta Hindus must let go of their insistence on Nirguna Brahman as ultimate. (Peterson et. 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. It's also important because in the 21st century there are global problems and issues which seemingly have religious origins and which will take a concerted effort of people of different faiths to help resolve. Religion and religion diversity are expressed by believers to cause strong opinions and emotions in all environments. (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. By contrast, the Real in itself, that is, the Ultimate Reality as it intrinsically is, is never experienced by anyone, but is only hypothesized as overall the most reasonable explanation of the facts of religious diversity. marriage and civil partnership. These connections between theory and character which are believed by some to provide practical arguments for or objections to various theories need to be argued for. Given that any core pluralism inevitably downplays the other non-core elements of the religions, this approach has also been called reductive pluralism. (Legenhausen 2006), The most influential recent proponent of a version of core pluralism has been Huston Smith. Religious Pluralism and the Some-Are-Equally-Right View., Yandell, Keith. (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. In contrast, any non-pluralist theory of religious diversity is associated with many arguably bad qualities. Local variations in Protestant practices and ethnic differences among the white settlers did foster a religious diversity. One asserts not merely the possibility, but the actuality of salvation for those who are inculpably ignorant of the gospel but who seek God and try to follow his will as expressed through their own conscience. Religious and Spiritual Diversity | The Office of Diversity, Inclusion A plurality of different religions, major and minor, exist in the world, each believing different things. While there are other sorts of negative naive pluralism, we shall concentrate on positive kinds here, as most of the scholarly literature focuses on those. Perhaps these are the angels, devas, and heavenly Buddhas of the religions, great but nonetheless finite beings. Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. (Netland 2001; Burton 2010). (Plantinga 1999, 288-303), Subsequent papal statements have moved cautiously in Rahners direction, affirming the work of the Holy Spirit not only in the people in other religions, but also in those religions themselves, so that in the practice of what is good in those religions, people may respond to Gods grace and be saved, unbeknownst to them, by Christ.
characteristics of religious diversity
