Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity

Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity PDF

Author: Douglas S. Duckworth

Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781781799062

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Is it true that Buddhists are tolerant of other religions?To what extent are Buddhists tolerant?Is nirvana held to be attainable through Buddhism alone?If so, through which Buddhist tradition?Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity approaches these questions and others from perspectives representing Therav?din and Tibetan traditions of Buddhism.Buddhist attitudes toward other religious traditions (and its own) are unquestionably diverse, and have undergone changes throughout historical eras and geographic spaces, as Buddhists, and traditions Buddhists have encountered, continue to change (after all, all conditioned things are impermanent). The present time is a particularly dynamic moment to take stock of Buddhist attitudes toward religious others, as Buddhist identities are being renegotiated in unprecedented ways in our increasingly globalized age.This volume brings together a spectrum of views that are not often found side-by-side or in a meaningful dialogue with each other. It breaks new ground to further understanding and constructive encounters across Buddhist traditions and between other religious traditions and Buddhists.

Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity

Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity PDF

Author: Douglas S. Duckworth

Publisher: Equinox Publishing (Indonesia)

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9781781799048

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This volume discusses contemporary Buddhist responses to religious diversity from Theravādin and Tibetan Buddhist perspectives. Buddhist attitudes toward other religious traditions (and its own) are unquestionably diverse, and have undergone changes throughout historical eras and geographic spaces, as Buddhists, and traditions Buddhists have encountered, continue to change (after all, all conditioned things are impermanent). The present time is a particularly dynamic moment to take stock of Buddhist attitudes toward religious others, as Buddhist identities are being renegotiated in unprecedented ways in our increasingly globalized age. Is it true that Buddhists are tolerant of other religions? To what extent are Buddhists tolerant? Is nirvana held to be attainable through Buddhism alone? If so, through which Buddhist tradition? This volume approaches these questions and others from perspectives representing Theravādin and Tibetan traditions of Buddhism. The chapters herein bring together a spectrum of views that are not often found side-by-side in a single volume or in a meaningful dialogue with each other, needless to mention with other religions. This volume seeks to remedy this situation, and break new ground to enable further dialogue, understanding, and constructive encounters across Buddhist traditions and between other religious traditions and Buddhists.

The Buddha and Religious Diversity

The Buddha and Religious Diversity PDF

Author: J. Abraham Vélez de Cea

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0415639727

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Providing a rigorous analysis of Buddhist ways of understanding religious diversity, this book develops a new foundation for cross-cultural understanding of religious diversity in our time. Examining the complexity and uniqueness of Buddha’s approach to religious pluralism using four main categories – namely exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralistic-inclusivism and pluralism – the book proposes a cross-cultural and interreligious interpretation of each category, thus avoiding the accusation of intellectual colonialism. The key argument is that, unlike the Buddha, most Buddhist traditions today, including Theravda Buddhism and even the Dalai Lama, consider liberation and the highest stages of spiritual development exclusive to Buddhism. The book suggests that the Buddha rejects many doctrines and practices found in other traditions, and that, for him, there are nonnegotiable ethical and doctrinal standards that correspond to the Dharma. This argument is controversial and likely to ignite a debate among Buddhists from different traditions, especially between conservative and progressive Buddhists. The book fruitfully contributes to the literature on inter-religious dialogue, and is of use to students and scholars of Asian Studies, World Religion and Eastern Philosophy.

The Buddha and Religious Diversity

The Buddha and Religious Diversity PDF

Author: J. Abraham Velez de Cea

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-05-31

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781138108080

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Providing a rigorous analysis of Buddhist ways of understanding religious diversity, this book develops a new foundation for cross-cultural understanding of religious diversity in our time. Examining the complexity and uniqueness of Buddha�s approach to religious pluralism using four main categories � namely exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralistic-inclusivism and pluralism � the book proposes a cross-cultural and interreligious interpretation of each category, thus avoiding the accusation of intellectual colonialism. The key argument is that, unlike the Buddha, most Buddhist traditions today, including Therav�da Buddhism and even the Dalai Lama, consider liberation and the highest stages of spiritual development exclusive to Buddhism. The book suggests that the Buddha rejects many doctrines and practices found in other traditions, and that, for him, there are nonnegotiable ethical and doctrinal standards that correspond to the Dharma. This argument is controversial and likely to ignite a debate among Buddhists from different traditions, especially between conservative and progressive Buddhists. The book fruitfully contributes to the literature on inter-religious dialogue, and is of use to students and scholars of Asian Studies, World Religion and Eastern Philosophy.

Religious Diversity--What's the Problem?

Religious Diversity--What's the Problem? PDF

Author: Rita M. Gross

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 1620324091

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Once upon a time, on grounds of both religion and common sense, people assumed that the earth was flat and that the sun literally rose and set each day. When newly developing knowledge made those beliefs untenable, giving them up was difficult. Today the belief that only one of the world's various religions is true for all people on earth is equivalent to the belief in a flat earth. Both notions have become untenable, given contemporary knowledge about religion. Even though many people are still troubled by the existence of religious diversity today, that diversity is a fact of life. Religious diversity should be no more troubling to religious people than the fact that the earth is round and circles the sun. This provocative book, based on the author's longtime practice of Buddhism and comparative study of religion, provides tools with which one can truly appreciate religious diversity as a gift and resource rather than as a deficiency or a problem to be overcome. After we accept diversity as inevitable and become comfortable with it, diversity always enriches life--both nature and culture.

America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity

America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity PDF

Author: Robert Wuthnow

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-07-01

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 1400837243

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Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of other non-Western religions have become a significant presence in the United States in recent years. Yet many Americans continue to regard the United States as a Christian society. How are we adapting to the new diversity? Do we casually announce that we "respect" the faiths of non-Christians without understanding much about those faiths? Are we willing to do the hard work required to achieve genuine religious pluralism? Award-winning author Robert Wuthnow tackles these and other difficult questions surrounding religious diversity and does so with his characteristic rigor and style. America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity looks not only at how we have adapted to diversity in the past, but at the ways rank-and-file Americans, clergy, and other community leaders are responding today. Drawing from a new national survey and hundreds of in-depth qualitative interviews, this book is the first systematic effort to assess how well the nation is meeting the current challenges of religious and cultural diversity. The results, Wuthnow argues, are both encouraging and sobering--encouraging because most Americans do recognize the right of diverse groups to worship freely, but sobering because few Americans have bothered to learn much about religions other than their own or to engage in constructive interreligious dialogue. Wuthnow contends that responses to religious diversity are fundamentally deeper than polite discussions about civil liberties and tolerance would suggest. Rather, he writes, religious diversity strikes us at the very core of our personal and national theologies. Only by understanding this important dimension of our culture will we be able to move toward a more reflective approach to religious pluralism.

Buddhist Inclusivism

Buddhist Inclusivism PDF

Author: Kristin Beise Kiblinger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1351954288

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Although Christians have well-developed responses to other religions, the counterpart scholarship from Buddhists has thus far lagged behind. Breaking new ground, Buddhist Inclusivism analyzes the currently favored position towards religious others, inclusivism, in Buddhist traditions. Kristin Beise Kiblinger presents examples of inclusivism from a wide range of Buddhist contexts and periods, from Pali texts to the Dalai Lama's recent works. After constructing and defending a preferred, alternative form of Buddhist inclusivism, she evaluates the thought of particular contemporary Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Masao Abe in light of her ideal position. This book offers a more systematic treatment of Buddhist inclusivism than has yet been provided either by scholars or by Buddhist leaders.

Buddhism and Religious Diversity: Christianity

Buddhism and Religious Diversity: Christianity PDF

Author: Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9780415535670

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In today 's globalized world, religious diversity has become one of the strongest challenges to the self-understanding of any major religious tradition, provoking two interdependent questions. How does it see itself in the light of others? And, how does it see others in the light of its own teachings? While the Abrahamic religions are often accused of a predominantly intolerant and exclusivistic attitude to the religious other, Eastern religions and Buddhism in particular enjoy the reputation of being naturally tolerant, absorbing, and even pluralistic towards competing faiths. Some thinkers (from David Hume to Jan Assmann) understood religious intolerance as an inevitable property of monotheism, supposedly absent in the case of non-theistic or polytheistic religions. More recent research, however, has suggested that this impression, part of a whole cluster of Western clich s, is false. Buddhism is and has been as much convinced of its own superiority as any other faith, and has also been involved in various inter-religious tensions and violent conflicts. The ways, however, in which Buddhists have thought about the religious other, and practically dealt with it, display peculiar features, which do indeed differ profoundly from what we find in the Abrahamic faiths. Yet today, Buddhism must address the question whether it can arrive at a genuine appreciation of religious diversity, and recognize other religions as different but nevertheless equally valid. This new four-volume collection from Routledge 's acclaimed Critical Concepts in Religious Studies series enables users to make sense of this and other dizzying questions. It brings together the best thinking on Buddhism 's relationship with other faiths and provides a one-stop collection of classic and contemporary contributions to facilitate ready access to the most influential and important scholarship. Fully indexed and with a general and volume introductions, newly written by the editor, which carefully locate the collected materials in their historical and intellectual context, Buddhism and Religious Diversity is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by specialists and scholars working in related areas as a vital research tool.

Religious Diversity

Religious Diversity PDF

Author: David Basinger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-18

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1351904698

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Religious diversity exists whenever seemingly sincere, knowledgeable individuals hold incompatible beliefs on the same religious issue. Diversity of this sort is pervasive, existing not only across basic theistic systems but also within these theistic systems themselves. Religious Diversity explores the breadth and significance of such conflict. Examining the beliefs of various theistic systems, particularly within Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, Basinger discusses seemingly incompatible claims about many religious issues, including the nature of God and the salvation of humankind. He considers particularly the work of Hick, Gellman, Plantinga, Schellenberg, Alston, Wainwright, and Quinn, applying their perspectives on 'exclusivism' and 'pluralism' as they become relevant to the issues in question. Basinger's survey of the relevant literature, proposed solutions, and fresh insights offer an invaluable contribution not only for philosophers of religion and philosophical theologians but for anyone interested in the increasingly significant question of what a religious believer can or cannot justifiably say about their religious perspective.

New Religions and State's Response to Religious Diversification in Contemporary Vietnam

New Religions and State's Response to Religious Diversification in Contemporary Vietnam PDF

Author: Chung Van Hoang

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-07-03

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 3319585002

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This book approaches newly emerging religious groups through the interplay between religious and non-religious spheres in the specific context of Vietnam. It considers the new religious groups as a part of religious reconfiguration in Vietnam caused by intensified interactions among these spheres. It explores changes of relationship between religions, and changes between the religious sphere and the political, economic and public spheres in contemporary Vietnam. Specifically, it traces trajectories of religious development in relation to politico-economic changes in this rapidly modernising nation. It tests a hypothesis that at least some new yet unrecognized new religious groups have a positive/ active role in modernisation rather than a negative/reactive role. To this end, the book draws on a number of research approaches and methodologies in an effort to provide readers with a multi-faceted understanding of Vietnam’s new religious groups. The research is interdisciplinary in orientation, drawing on sociology and anthropology. It is also comparative in that it bases its argument on a consideration of three distinct new religious groups in Vietnam. The research is also qualitative and ethnographic in that it drew on some of the techniques associated with participant observation during a sustained period of fieldwork amongst the three religious groups. The concept of religious reconfiguration developed in this book provides a framework for the study of religion in Vietnam which opens the way to further analysis from a comparative perspective. Meanwhile, an emphasis upon religious reinvention which addresses processes of remaking, transforming, legitimating and accommodating can be useful for research into New Religious Movements elsewhere in Asia. A research in the challenges of new religions could act as a catalyst for interdisciplinary studies based on detailed empirical study of religious diversity and of religious freedom by other scholars. It is hoped that this research might help to give a voice to religious minorities that are often the victim of stereotyping, misunderstanding, and punitive treatment. The book is suitable for post-graduate students and social researchers who are interested in religious revival, religious diversification, State-religion relationships, and State's regulation of new religions.