Comparative Religion
COMPARATIVE RELIGION. The term comparative religion broadly signifies the study of all traditions and forms of religious life, as distinguished from the study or exposition of just one. Ideally, and more specifically, it is the disciplined, historically informed consideration of commonalities and differences among religions. Indeed, such cross-cultural or global perspective is entailed in the notion of an academic study of religion.
Comparison is a fundamental mental activity: grouping some things together under a common class or pattern, but also noticing how the examples vary in relation to each other. Such connections and relationships are the basis of thought and science. Without them, there are only isolated, contextless facts. It is on the basis of comparison that generalizations, interpretations, and theories are formed. Hence, comparative frames can create new ways of perceiving and organizing the world.
One cannot generalize about religion on the basis of a single case, just as geologists do not construct geological science on the basis of the rocks that simply happen to be in one's backyard. The local rocks, like the local religions, are themselves instances of certain universal chemistries and patterned formations. Accordingly, without identifying these recurring factors it is not possible to know what any particular religious tradition or phenomenon has in common with others and, consequently, how it differs from them.
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