Religious Pluralism: As acceptance of the concept that two or more religions with mutually exclusive truth claims are equally valid.
Why does it matter?
Well, in current times religious acceptance has come far but still has a long ways to go. In the United States alone, Islamophobic attitudes were seen in an abundance by outspoken voters, and even the 2016 presidential election was swarmed with Islamophobic sentiments from many of even the candidates themselves. It's an issue that most definitely deserves more attention.
How can we achieve it?
I feel like in order for religious pluralism to work, a couple of things have to happen that will facilitate religious pluralism. First of all, I believe people have to be willing to accept that there are other religions than their own that people practice, and they have to realize that the presence/practice of other religions in no way takes away from one’s own religious practices. Many times people are not necessarily afraid of something because of its values, but they become afraid that something new to them can in some way harm them. Recognizing that most well established religions will in no way impede on another religion’s followers practicing. Religion serves the same purpose of giving meaning to life. Another component that needs to happen is that some sort of common ground has to not only be found, but understood. This common ground could be something along the lines of “our religions both do this in order to give followers a way to reach out to deities in time of crisis” or “our religions both have founders that faced hard times before they were able to establish this religion”. Once a sort of common ground has occurred, people may be more likely to remember that even though others believe in religions other than their own, they will realize that in the grand scheme of things religions have values that can be universally found. An extra step that would be great would be for people to make efforts to educate themselves about other religions, no matter how small, about another’s religion. Making that effort can literally open a whole new world for a person to things they never knew. When these things happen, religious pluralism will then be able to thrive.
