Courtney

Religious Diversity, in many words, is the multiplicity of many different religions in society today and around the world . Within Sweetman's Religion: Key Concepts in Philosophy, he categorizes religious diversity into three sections: exclusivism, pluralism, and inclusivism. In Sweetman's opinion, these three things are responses to the problem of religious diversity. Exclusivism, Sweetman describes, is the view that the path to salvation can be found in only one religion, Pluralism is the view that there are many different ways to salvation in the various world religions, and so, all religions have a certain legitmacy, and Inclusivism is the view that there is only one true way to salvation, but people from other religions will be able to reach salvation still. While reading both Hick and Sweetman's articles, you get the idea that religious diversity is a fact. For Instance, within Hick's article On Conflicting Religious Truth Claims, he states an example: “Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross, whilst Muslims believe that he only appeared to die”, with this example Hick shows us how different sets of religions consists of “differences of historical belief which carry significant theological implications”. This simply states how religious diversity is in fact, real and worldwide. However, in Sweetman's case, he feels religious diversity is a philospical “problem”, in the sense of exclusivism and plurlism. He feels as though religious exclusivism is that you can't possibly make an accurate judgement of which world religion is the true one, and provides the right way to reach salvation. Religious pluralism, in his opinion, overly “flirts” with skepticism. Skepticism, along with relativism, are also key components in the “problem” with religious diversity. Skepticism is the view that all points of view should be approached with doubt and a