Peace and Dialogue (Junior Cert Religious Education): Revision Notes

Peace and Dialogue

Understanding peace

Peace involves much more than simply avoiding conflict or violence. True peace means creating an environment where people can show love and compassion towards their neighbours, allowing everyone to live together in harmony.

Peace represents a complete way of life that promotes the wellbeing of all people. It demands mutual respect between individuals and, most importantly, requires us to find peace and harmony within our own hearts first.

Religious and philosophical perspectives on peace

While major world religions and belief systems generally promote peace, many recognise that there are specific circumstances where conflict or war might be considered acceptable or even necessary.

Hinduism

Hinduism teaches that people should avoid causing harm to any living being. This principle, called ahimsa, covers physical, mental, and emotional harm. Hindu sacred texts strongly condemn violence and warfare.

However, these same texts also acknowledge that war can sometimes become a moral duty in particular situations, especially when defending what is right and just.

Judaism

Judaism emphasises that genuine peace cannot exist without justice for everyone. Jewish teaching recognises that violence and war may sometimes be necessary tools to establish or protect justice.

This perspective suggests that temporary conflict might be needed to achieve lasting peace built on fairness and equality.

Buddhism

Buddhism stands as fundamentally a peaceful tradition. Non-violence forms the core of Buddhist thinking and behaviour. Buddhist sacred texts provide no support whatsoever for using violence or warfare to resolve conflicts.

This makes Buddhism unique among world religions in its complete rejection of violent solutions to problems.

Christianity

Christianity aims to create a world where peace and justice are enjoyed by all people. Christians believe that war should rarely be justified and should be avoided whenever possible.

However, Christian teaching accepts that war might become necessary when certain specific conditions are met, though these circumstances are considered exceptional.

Islam

Islam strongly favours peace and opposes violence. The religion allows warfare only in self-defence, to protect Islam itself (though not to spread it by force), and to defend those who are being oppressed.

Islam provides strict guidelines about how people should behave during wartime, emphasising limits and proper conduct even in conflict.

Humanism

Humanists view war and violence as fundamentally human problems. Since humans start wars, humanists believe that only humans can end them through their choices and actions.

Throughout history, humanists have worked actively to build peace. They see peace as an active process that requires people to solve problems fairly and without resorting to violence.