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Religiocentrism or religio-centrism is defined (Corsini 1999:827) as the "conviction that a person's own religion is more important or superior to other religions." In analogy to ethnocentrism, religiocentrism is a value-neutral term for psychological attitude.
The neologism religiocentrism combines religio- (e.g., religiophobia) and -centrism (e.g., Eurocentrism). Derivations include religiocentric or religio-centric.
Although the precise origins of religiocentrism and religiocentric remain unclear, the words have been used since the early 20th century. The American economist Adrian Augustus Holtz (1917:15) described how early German school reforms were "carried on in a way that allowed for a religio-centric educational system." Sinclair Lewis's Main Street (1920:307) said, "Maud Dyer was neurotic, religiocentric, faded; her emotions were moist, and her figure was unsystematic."
The related term Christocentric theologically means "forms of Christianity that concentrate on the teaching of Jesus Christ", but is sometimes used as a near synonym of religiocentric. For instance (Hamilton 2002), "No matter where it appears, government-sponsored Christocentrism, or even religiocentrism, undermines this nation's ideals."
Religiocentrism is commonly discussed in contexts of psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
The Australian social psychologists John J. Ray and Dianne Doratis defined religiocentrism.
"Ethnocentrism" is the social scientist's value-neutral term for ethnic or racial prejudice. It refers to ethnically-based sentiments of exclusiveness without any implication of their moral worth or justifiability... By analogy, the term religiocentrism is derived here to mean religiously based sentiments of exclusiveness—beliefs that one should marry within one's own religion, work with members of one's own religion, and in general prefer members of one's own religion above others. This will also entail ipso facto devaluative judgments of other religions. (1971:170)
Ray and Doratis designed a groundbreaking attitude scale to measure religiocentrism and ethnocentrism. Their religiocentrism scale comprises 33 items (for instance, "I think my religion is nearer to the truth than any other" and "Most Moslems, Buddhists and Hindus are very stupid and ignorant"), with five-point Likert scale psychometric response options from "Strongly agree" (Scored 5) to "Strongly disagree" (1). To verify internal consistency among respondents, 11 items were reverse scored ("It makes no difference to me what religion my friends are" is the converse of "I think that it's better if you stick to friends of the same religion as your own"), resulting in a reliability coefficient of .88 among 154 first-year university students. The authors tested attitudes among Australian fifth-form students in two Catholic and two public schools, and discovered that neither ethnocentrism nor religiocentrism showed any correlation with religious background. Ray and Doratis concluded (1971:178), "Ethnocentrism, religiocentrism and religious conservatism were all shown to be separate and distinct factors of attitudes in their own right. They are not just three aspects of the one thing. Religiocentric people do however tend to be both religiously conservative and ethnocentric."
The Hungarian-Jewish historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai mentions religiocentrism as a variable in relationships between religion and culture,
Each religion also has a definite outlook on its own value in relation to that of other religions. Its relationship to other religions may range from complete toleration to the complete lack of it, with a corresponding range of self-evaluation. This variable, best called religio-centrism (on the analogy of ethnocentrism), can serve as an additional avenue of approach to the study of our subject. (1954:234)
Comparing Middle Eastern, Far Eastern, and Western cultures, Patai finds,
Religion in the Far East is characterized by the absence of religio-centrism: there is a marked toleration of other religions and a mutual borrowing and influencing; in the Middle East and in the West there is a high degree of religio-centrism, with intolerance and scorn of other religions: each religion is exclusive and regards itself as the "one and only" true faith. (1954:252)
In a later survey of the potentials for world peace, Patai differentiated the major modern religions between "theistic" and "nontheistic".
The three great monotheistic religions of the Middle East and the West, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are the foremost theistic religions and the dominant faiths of about one half of mankind. Common to all theistic religions is a pronounced religiocentrism, expressed most poignantly in the conviction that one's own religion is the one and only true one, and that all the other faiths are erroneous and hence depreciable. In this conviction were rooted the great religious wars which pitted, not only Muslims against Christians, but also various Muslim sects against one another, and likewise made various Christian denominations bitter enemies... The situation is more hopeful in the great nontheistic religions of South, Southeast, and East Asia. These religions, notably Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, lack the element of self-assurance and certainty that each is the exclusive possessor of the only truth. (1987:24-25)
In response, Andrew Wilson, Professor of Scriptural Studies of the Unification Theological Seminary, criticized Patai's opinion as theologically plausible but historically erroneous, citing examples (1987:28) of "rampant communal violence between Hindus and Buddhists in Sri Lanka and between Sikhs and Hindus in India."
Religiocentrism has a specialized meaning for sociologists (Chalfant, Beckley, and Palmer 1994:51). "This term is related to a common word used in sociological literature, ethnocentrism. Similarly, we might refer to feelings of rightness and superiority resulting from religious affiliation as religiocentrism. Religiocentrism inhibits the ability of a society to achieve adaptation, integration and goal-attainment."
Mohammed Abu-Nimer, the Director of the Peacebuilding and Development Institute at American University, distinguishes between religiocentrism and "religiorelativism".
A religiorelative person is firm in his/her belief that other religions have the right to exist and be practiced, even if such norms and beliefs are contradictory to one's own set of religious beliefs. Such a person is prone not to engage in violence or discriminatory actions against the others. In contrast, a religiocentric person is a believer who denies other religions' "truth" and who holds an absolute truth that leaves no room for different religious practices. Such a person becomes more prone to dehumanize, exclude, and discriminate against other religious groups and individuals. Often, as a result of negative and destructive exposure and experience with conflict and war, religiocentric beliefs not only are exacerbated and easily translated into violence against the enemy (that is, the different other), but also actually grow and prohibit human and peaceful contact with the other. However, there are conflict resolution and peace-building activities and forums that can assist peace workers in such settings to transform a religiocentric into a religiorelative believer. (2004:497)
Abu-Nimer (2004:479-501) analyzes three typical reactions of a religiocentric person to another religion: denial (e.g., Israel not allowing Arabs to purchase or use state land), defense mechanisms ("There is no salvation outside the Church"), and minimization ("We are all the children of God").
Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of using the standards of the particular culture involved. Since this judgment is often negative, some people also use the term to refer to the belief that one's culture is superior to, or more correct or normal than, all others—especially regarding the distinctions that define each ethnicity's cultural identity, such as language, behavior, customs, and religion. In common usage, it can also simply mean any culturally biased judgment. For example, ethnocentrism can be seen in the common portrayals of the Global South and the Global North.
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, logic and ethics.
Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods and of qualitative approaches.
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision making.
Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held unquestioningly and with undefended certainty. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, or Protestantism, as well as the positions of a philosopher or of a philosophical school, such as Stoicism.
Religious humanism or ethical humanism is an integration of nontheistic humanist ethical philosophy with congregational rites and community activity which center on human needs, interests, and abilities. Self-described religious humanists differ from secular humanists mainly in that they regard the nontheistic humanist life stance as a non-supernatural "religion" and organising using a congregational model.
Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is an academic field devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
Nontheism or non-theism is a range of both religious and non-religious attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in the existence of God or gods. Nontheism has generally been used to describe apathy or silence towards the subject of gods and differs from atheism, or active disbelief in any gods. It has been used as an umbrella term for summarizing various distinct and even mutually exclusive positions, such as agnosticism, ignosticism, ietsism, skepticism, pantheism, pandeism, transtheism, atheism, and apatheism. It is in use in the fields of Christian apologetics and general liberal theology.
Exclusivism is the practice of being exclusive, a mentality characterized by the disregard for opinions and ideas which are different from one's own, or the practice of organizing entities into groups by excluding those entities which possess certain traits.
Xenocentrism is the preference for the cultural practices of other cultures and societies, such as how they live and what they eat, rather than of one's own social way of life. One example is the romanticization of the noble savage in the 18th-century primitivism movement in European art, philosophy and ethnography. Xenocentrism contrasts with ethnocentrism, the perceived superiority of one's own society to others.
This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology.
A person's life stance, or lifestance, is their relation with what they accept as being of ultimate importance. It involves the presuppositions and theories upon which such a stance could be made, a belief system, and a commitment to potentials working it out in one's life.
Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda was a 1957 California Courts of Appeal case in the Fellowship of Humanity, an organization of humanists, sought a tax exemption from Alameda County, California on the ground that they used their property "solely and exclusively for religious worship." Despite the group's nontheistic beliefs, the court determined that the activities of the Fellowship of Humanity, which included weekly Sunday meetings, were analogous to the activities of theistic churches and thus entitled to an exemption.
In the history of religion and philosophy, deus otiosus is the belief in a creator God who has entirely withdrawn from governing the universe after creating it or is no longer involved in its daily operation. In Western philosophy the concept of deus otiosus has been associated with Deism since the 17th century, although not a core tenet as often thought.
Some movements or sects within traditionally monotheistic or polytheistic religions recognize that it is possible to practice religious faith, spirituality and adherence to tenets without a belief in deities. People with what would be considered religious or spiritual belief in a supernatural controlling power are defined by some as adherents to a religion; the argument that atheism is a religion has been described as a contradiction in terms.
Theistic rationalism is a hybrid of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, in which rationalism is the predominant element. According to Henry Clarence Thiessen, the concept of theistic rationalism first developed during the eighteenth century as a form of English and German Deism. The term "theistic rationalism" occurs as early as 1856, in the English translation of a German work on recent religious history. Some scholars have argued that the term properly describes the beliefs of some of the prominent Founding Fathers of the United States, including George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson.
The theology of religions is the branch of theology and religious studies that attempts to theologically evaluate the phenomena of religions. Three important schools within Christian theology of religions are pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism, which describe the relation of other religious traditions to Christianity and attempt to answer questions about the nature of God and salvation.
Nontheistic religions are traditions of thought within a religious context—some otherwise aligned with theism, others not—in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices. Nontheism has been applied and plays significant roles in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While many approaches to religion exclude nontheism by definition, some inclusive definitions of religion show how religious practice and belief do not depend on the presence of a god or gods. For example, Paul James and Peter Mandaville distinguish between religion and spirituality, but provide a definition of the term that avoids the usual reduction to "religions of the book":
Religion can be defined as a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing.
The definition of religion is a controversial and complicated subject in religious studies with scholars failing to agree on any one definition. Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as the belief in and/or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Others, such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, have tried to correct a perceived Western bias in the definition and study of religion. Thinkers such as Daniel Dubuisson have doubted that the term religion has any meaning outside of western cultures, while others, such as Ernst Feil doubt that it has any specific, universal meaning even there.
