One of the world’s largest religions, namely Western Christianity, has very formalized views on other religious movements. The critical theses of such views are canonical, that is, they must be fair and relevant to absolutely all people professing this religion. To put it another way, situations in which a believing individual expresses an opinion about other world religions that differs from the canonical one should be excluded.
An excellent question is a discussion of what exactly canonicity entails. As we know, Western Christianity is firmly centered and has a leader in the person of the pope. The papal church has a formalized doctrine, Nostra Aetate, which fully reflects Western Christianity’s attitude toward world religions. Thus, the fundamental tenets of Nostra Aetate are several Christian positions at once. First of all, the papacy recognizes “…the community of all peoples…” (NA, 1). This means that all people were created by God, and therefore considering a positive attitude toward non-Christian religions is legitimate. Nostra Aetate justifies the multiplicity of world religions — whether Christianity, Buddhism, or Hinduism — by the individual’s permanent need to seek answers to the most profound questions of existentialism (NA, 1; NA, 2). Finally, the most critical part of the Vatican Declaration seems to be the direct quote that “…the Catholic Church rejects nothing true and holy in these religions…” (NA, 2). This reflects the central tenet of Christianity that every religion has the goal of bringing the believer into contact with a piece of Truth: the same goal Christianity has. To put it another way, the Western Christian Church, since the signing of Nostra Aetate under canonical law, has had no claims or conflicts with world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and, most notably, Islam.
Reference
Pope Paul VI. (1965). Nostra Aetate. Vatican.