1. World Religions Mr. Book
Foundations of Religion and Ch. 1 Religious Responses
Textbook: Living Religions

2. Beginning Inquiry Questions
What is religion?
What is faith?
What is the relationship of
religion and culture?
Why are there so many different beliefs out there in the world or are they really that different?
How did religions arise and what were the factors that lead several of these to become “world religions?” And what are “living religions”?

3. Religion is…
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
YES, NO, INDIFFERENT/UNDECIDED

4. Faith is… A complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
YES, NO, INDIFFERENT/UNDECIDED

5. Religions exist because…
People need to feel like they are living for a specific purpose.
YES, NO, INDIFFERENT/UNDECIDED

6. Roles/ Practitioners in Religion
Shamans
Medicine Men (or women) Healers
Priests
Prophets
Mystics
Sages
Religious Teachers
Scribes
Religious Clerics: Rabbis, Pastors, Bishops, Cardinals, Popes, Imams, etc.

7. Religions originating in India and their Ultimate Concern
Religions that originated in India: Hinduism
Jainism
Buddhism, and Sikhism
Ultimate concern: release from the ongoing, endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth

8. Religions originating in China & Japan and the Ultimate Source, Monism, and Inclusivism
Religions originated in China and Japan: Daoism, Confucianism, and Shinto
A strong tendency to hold to inclusive views of various religious expressions, thus practicing syncretism (the coming together, or uniting of different views)

9. Religions originating in the Middle East and the Ultimate Source, Goal, and Exclusivism
Religions originated in the Middle East: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha’i
Transcendent view of God who is Creator & Ultimate Source
Ultimate Goal is generally Heaven/ Paradise
Strong tendency to exclusive view of their religion

10. Defining Religion (3)
Common Threads that holds the tapestry of Religion together: They all:
Deal with the greater and unseen reality
Have a sense of the sacred
Have beliefs
Have rituals with deeper meaning
Have spirituality
Have values
Have stories that tell their sacred story, history, and story of cosmos

11. Nature of Religion
It deals with the supernatural, God, or unseen forces throughout nature
It deals with the sacred
It exercises belief
Genuine religious experience expressing itself thru various rituals, rites, ceremonies
Prayer, meditation, chanting/singing are key practices
It has fashioned & passed down myths (stories)

12. Religion is multifaceted
Ninian Smart distinguished seven dimensions of religion
1. Ritual – Forms and orders of ceremonies (either private or public)
2. Narrative and mythic – Stories that often times try to interpret the universe and human’s place in it.
3. Experiential and emotional – dread, guilt, awe, mystery, devotion, inner peace, bliss
4. Social and institutional – belief system that is shared and practiced by a group. Often rules that identify community membership
5. Ethical and legal – Rules about human behavior
6. Doctrinal and philosophical – Systematic formulation of teachings
7. Material – Ordinary objects or places that symbolize something sacred or supernatural

13. Negative aspects of Organized Religions (1)
1)  Institutionalization of religion
2)  Charismatic leaders can dominate and control their followers
3)  The potential for the exaggeration of guilt
4)  Escapism
5)  When church and state are one, the dominate national religion may be used to oppress those of other beliefs within their country
6) Dangerous politicized polarizations between religions on increase today

14. Review Questions In what ways has the term “religion” been defined?
What are some of he different perspectives available for understanding religion?
Describe absolutist and liberal interpretations of religious traditions

15. Discussion Questions
What relationship does spirituality have to institutional religion?

16. Animistic Theories
Tylor maintained that “primitive” people developed a sense of other and soul from experience w/ death and dreams.
(Lat. Anima lit. means “soul,” spirit)
found not only in people but in all of nature: in stones, trees, rivers, mountains… The entire world including air seen as being alive with spirits of all kinds.

17. The Nature-Worship Theory
Personification of the forces in nature: sky, sun, moon, etc.), and tales that eventually became mythology; the key to the origin of all religions.

18. The Theory of Original Monotheism
Originally, “primitive” societies were monotheistic, but because the worship of one god was difficult, religion corrupted into polytheism.

19. The Magic Theory There also is a linear development of the human mind:
First phase: Magic, peoples attempted to control the world through magic. When humanity realized that nature could not be coerced through magic, it turned to the second phase: religion.

20. Theories of Religion as Projections of Human Needs (1)
L. Feuerbach--religions were essentially projections of the wishes and needs of humanity
Karl Marx socialized Feuerbach’s theory: saw the origin & development of religion in terms of view of history as economic and social struggle between classes
Sigmund Freud: religion is a result of the projection of human needs out on the comic canvas;