RELIGION AND RELIGIONS: UNDERSTANDING THE COEXISTENCE OF DIFFERENT TRADITIONS

In regarding of my researches on peace education and conflict management, in my presentation I will explore the different definitions of the key terms: religion, conflict, and violence. For educating to the citizenship and to coexistence between religious and spiritual traditions, is necessary to clarify each of these three key terms and understand their possible integration. First of all it is necessary to consider the different meaning of religion within the popular discourses and within academic researches. In the West, for example, most sociological theories predicted a gradual decline of religion, until recently. How second point the presentation will consider what are conflicts and how they can linked with the religion. Are the conflicts caused by religion or are the policies that used the religion to affirm the own power and to generate conflicts? And what are the points of view of the new generation on these issues? In the last decades, there were some contributions that have affirmed how the religions can contribute at development of the culture of peace. Finally, I will consider that the aspect of the structural violence, in agreement with the Galtung's theory, how it is connected with the absence of the rights or the inequality of rights in the religious sphere and with the different relationship between the religious traditions and the laws of the State. In conclusion, I will present some reflexions on the how education has to develop learnings that gives skills to integrate religious and spiritual traditions in the construction of dialogues open to the comparison and exploration of the complexity of the human being.