Universalism
That system is inclusive of all individuals,[7] regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature.
In the teachings of the Baháʼí Faith, a single God has sent all the historic founders of the world religions in a process of progressive revelation.
In this view, there is unity among the founders of world religions, but each revelation brings a more advanced set of teachings in human history and none are syncretic.
[9] In addition, the Baháʼí teachings acknowledge that in every country and every people God has always revealed the divine purpose via messengers and prophets, masters and sages since time immemorial.
[18] Some forms of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism even extended the Buddha nature theory to plants and insentient phenomena.
[18][20] The Lotus Sutra, an influential Mahayana scripture, is often seen as promoting the universality of Buddhahood, the Buddha's teaching as well as the equality of all living beings.
For Goldwater, Buddhism transcends local contexts and culture, and his practice grew increasingly eclectic over time.
[27] The desire to develop a more universalist and nonsectarian form of Buddhism was also shared by some modernist Japanese Buddhist authors, including the influential D.T.
They point to historical evidence showing that many early fathers of the church were universalists[30] and attribute the origin of the idea of hell as eternal punishment to mistranslation.
They also appeal to many texts of Scripture to argue that the concept of eternal hell is not biblically or historically supported either in Judaism or early Christianity.
[39] Universalist writers such as George T. Knight have claimed that Universalism was a widely held view among theologians in Early Christianity.
[41] Between 1648-1697 English activist Gerrard Winstanley, writer Richard Coppin, and dissenter Jane Leade, each taught that God would grant all human beings salvation.
Thomas Whittemore wrote the book 100 Scriptural Proofs that Jesus Christ Will Save All Mankind[44] quoting both Old and New Testament verses which support the Universalist viewpoint.
Some Bible verses he cites and are cited by other Christian universalists are: Christian universalists point towards the mistranslations of the Greek word αιών (literally "age," but often assumed to mean "eternity") and its adjectival form αἰώνιος (usually assumed to mean "eternal" or "everlasting"), as giving rise to the idea of an endless hell and the idea that some people will never be saved.
"[53]Among the English translations that do not render αἰώνιος as "eternal" or "everlasting" are Young’s Literal Translation (“age-during”), the Weymouth New Testament ("of the ages”), the Concordant Literal Version ("eonian"), Rotherham's Emphasized Bible ("age-abiding"), Hart's New Testament ("of that Age"), and more.
[77] A well-known Rig Vedic hymn says: "Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti" meaning, "Truth is One, though the sages know it variously.
[81] There are considered to be six orthodox Hindu schools of philosophy/theology,[82] as well as multiple unorthodox or "heterodox" traditions called darshanas.
[citation needed] Hindu universalism, also called Neo-Vedanta[83] and neo-Hinduism,[84] is a modern interpretation of Hinduism which developed in response to western colonialism and orientalism.
[88]Hinduism embraces universalism by conceiving the whole world as a single family that deifies the one truth, and therefore it accepts all forms of beliefs and dismisses labels of distinct religions which would imply a division of identity.
An early exponent of Hindu Universalism was Ram Mohan Roy, who established the Brahmo Samaj.
[95]Western orientalists played an important role in this popularisation, regarding Vedanta to be the "central theology of Hinduism".
[87] Oriental scholarship portrayed Hinduism as a "single world religion",[87] and denigrated the heterogeneity of Hindu beliefs and practices as 'distortions' of the basic teachings of Vedanta.
[96] Islam recognizes to a certain extent the validity of the Abrahamic religions, the Quran identifying Jews, Christians, and "Sabi'un" (usually taken as a reference to the Mandaeans) as "people of the Book" (ahl al-kitab).
For example, Surah 9:5 states:But once the Sacred Months have passed, kill the polytheists ˹who violated their treaties˺ wherever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them on every way.
Although the Sikh gurus did not agree with the practices of fasting, idolatry and pilgrimage during their times, they stressed that all religions should be tolerated.
Although Sikhism does not teach that men are created as an image of God, it states that the essence of the One is to be found throughout all of its creation.
Unlike many of the major world religions, Sikhism does not have missionaries, instead it believes men have the freedom to find their own path to salvation.
Unitarian Universalism (UU) is a theologically liberal religion characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning".
Unitarian Universalists draw from all major world religions[118] and many different theological sources and have a wide range of beliefs and practices.
[119] Contemporary Unitarian Universalism espouses a pluralist approach to religious belief, whereby members may describe themselves as humanist, agnostic, deist, atheist, pagan, Christian, monotheist, pantheist, polytheist, or assume no label at all.
