Religious Discrimination Essay Introduction Part I
Religious discrimination is defined as “treating individuals differently in their employment because of their religion, their religious beliefs and practices, and/or their request for accommodation (a change in a workplace rule or policy) of their religious beliefs and practices” (Religious Discrimination, 2010). Religious discrimination has been a very tedious problem in all around the world. This problem happens in different ways and in several contexts such as workplace, schools, even in sports and etc. One of the ways that shows religious discrimination happens not only by the individual’s religion but by the people around them is stated by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as “Religious discrimination can also involve treating someone differently because that person is married to (or associated with) an individual of a particular religion” (Religious Discrimination, 2009).
Introduction Part II
Religious discrimination is not an issue that occurs only in certain parts of the world. The problem of religious discrimination has become a global problem and people believing in different religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and all the other religions are facing some problems regarding their religious beliefs in all around the world. The global extend of religious discrimination is stated by Peter Beaumont in The Guardian about the conclusion of a religious discrimination forum as “The conclusions of the project, conducted by the Pew Research Centre, an American Think-tank’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, were published on Thursday. The analysis, of 197 countries and territories, identifies a sharp rise in religious limits globally and a 6% increase in restrictions in the four years until 2010” ( (Beaumont, 2012).
Introduction Part III
Even religious discrimination is a global dilemma, humanity can come up with useful solutions to religious dilemma. This paper touches upon the potential solutions to religious discrimination, which has now become a global problem as mentioned above, and these predicted solutions are; firstly, educating people about other religions, secondly, finding similarities between religions and lastly respecting other religions.
Religious Discrimination 1st Body-Part I
First of all, education is the key to the majority of the problems in the world as Nelson Mandela states in his 1993 Nobel prize laureate as “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” (Duncan, 2013). Education starts in family and continues in schools where the minds and characteristics of children are actually shaped. The best way of solving the problem of religious discrimination is trying to change the minds of people about religions from childhood. This can be achieved via schools. The curriculum of the schools can be changed in a way that tells the children the fact that people can believe in different religions, prophets, even no religion and etc. In this way, the next generation will become more tolerant to other religions.
1st Body-Part II
The second way of educating people about the other religions can be achieved through using communication media. We are living in the communication age and communication media is a great way to influence people’s ideas. If people are exposed to reasonable information about the equality of all the religions, they can reconsider their views on religious discrimination and they can understand why there should not be any discrimination between religions. The third way of educating people about other religions is by writing journals. The way journals work is like the communication media and people should be informed about equality of religions by the aid of journals.
2nd Body- Part I
Secondly, to cope with the problem of religious discrimination some similarities should be found between religions. Finding similarities is important because if someone feels that an idea is similar to what he or she believes, he can be more tolerant to that idea. These similarities can be found by three different ways. Firstly, people from different religions can be gathered in social sites where they have the opportunity of sharing each other’s religious beliefs. The second way is having real, which can also be stated as physical, dialogues with people from other religions. The last way of finding similarities between religions is cultivating excellent listening skills.
2nd Body- Part II
These three ways have the same goal, which is learning what is correct about other religions. If people can have the opportunity of communicating one-to-one with people from other religions, they can learn the insights of that religion from the first hand. In addition, people can face the truth that the other people who believe in other religions are human beings just like themselves. In order to achieve this, everyone should cultivate excellent listening skills which will enable them to listen to the people from other religions carefully.
3rd Body
The third problem with religious discrimination are the prejudice, ignorance and stereotyping towards other people. Today, it is a fact that everyone has certain properties about the people who believe in other religions. For instance, Muslims are called by the non-Muslims as terrorists because of some terrorist groups in middle east like ISIS. This how Muslims are stereotyped by people that believe in other religions. This issue also contains prejudice because, for example, if someone sees a Muslim in Europe, they feel like the Muslim person is going to make a terrorist attack to them. Also, individuals or societies can ignore the other individuals and societies from different religions by not making any interactions with them and/or without listening to their views. The prejudice, ignorance and stereotyping of religions can be solved only by making people from different religions live, work or study etc. together. If we can achieve this, In this sense, if we can achieve having people know each other, everyone can understand that there are exceptions in every religion and there should be no prejudice, ignorance or stereotyping towards anyone from any religious view.
Religious Discrimination Essay Conclusion
To conclude, religious discrimination has now become a global problem and it should be solved to maintain peace in all over the world. There are three types of solutions that this paper examined; Firstly, everyone from every religion should be educated about other religions and this education should start from childhood in order to let the next generations free of religious discrimination, secondly, people should be provided to find the similarities between their religion and the other religions as individuals feel themselves close to ideas or people who are similar to them and lastly, the prejudice, ignorance and stereotyping towards other people should be broken and this can be achieved by making different people from different religions live, work or study together.
Religious Discrimination References
Beaumont, P. (2012, 9 20). Religious intolerance on the rise worldwide, says US report. The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/20/religious-intolerance-on-rise-worldwide
Duncan, A. (2013, 04 23). Education: The Most Powerful Weapon for Changing the World. usaid.gov: https://blog.usaid.gov/2013/04/education-the-most-powerful-weapon/
Religious Discrimination. (2009). Eeoc.gov: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm
Religious Discrimination. (2010). Work Place Fairness: https://www.workplacefairness.org/religious-discrimination
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