((3) Universality of religious beliefs is an issue that is closely linked with that
of core beliefs and has consequently been an important topic in comparative religion.
The comparative approach as a historical method aims to detect similarities and
differences between doctrines and rituals characteristic of diverse traditions in order
to determine any universally occurring patterns of religious thought in the history of
religious ideas. As already mentioned in this article, historical accounts include
some psychological theorising as well. In other words, when using the comparative
approach, historians of religion do not adhere strictly to textual analysis but often
adopt an implicitly empirical, i.e., psychological, approach. Their actual approach
fluctuates between explaining the text, as a set of formalised beliefs, on the one
hand, and construing a wider meaning of those beliefs for ordinary individuals in
response to such doctrines, on the other. It is important to recognise, however, that
the hermeneutic approach, although challenging and creative for students of religious
traditions, is insufficient to show if there are any universal religious beliefs in
the human population. For texts are typically produced by sustained intellectual effort
of a small number of specialists and as such need not be representative of the
beliefs of ordinary individuals. To establish whether members of the human population
universally hold any particular religious beliefs, we also need methods of research
that are used in cognitive and developmental psychology when dealing with
large numbers of participants.