Are Religious Values Universal?
Keywords:
Religious, Universal, Values, Traditions, CommunitiesAbstract
Are religious values universal? After studying and teaching religious studies for nearly thirty years it is hard not to recognise that there are indeed a plethora of local, indigenous, and revivalist religious traditions, both within larger religions and independent of them. There are many Judaisms, Islams, Christianities, Buddhisms, Hinduisms and Daoisms. My researches have led me to the conclusion that the differences between religious traditions are real and not easily reduced to any single pattern or model. But there are, of course, many overlapping elements, conceptual, theological and most evidently historical. All religious traditions, for example, are committed to the value of peace but all traditions equally know of war, and have different thresholds at which abhorred violence is not only permissible but often mandated.
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