Religion

• Religion


  An organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods
• Religion


  • Involves ceremonies and rituals
  • Used to worship a god or group of gods
  • An organized system of beliefs
• Friedrich Schleiermacher: 'The essence of religion is in the feeling of absolute dependence'
• James Martineau: 'Religion is the belief in a divine mind and will ruling the universe and holding moral relations with mankind'
• F.H. Bradley: 'Religion is the attempt to express the complete reality of goods'
• James Frazier: 'Religion involves propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man'
• Emile Durkheim: 'Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden'
• Paul Tillich: 'Religion is the state of being grasped by ultimate concern'
• Milton Yinger: 'Religion is the human struggle with the ultimate problem of human existence'
• John Hick


  Human response to transcendent reality
• Characteristics or dimensions of religion

  • Ritual
  • Mythological
  • Doctrinal
  • Ethical
  • Experiential
• Peter Berger


  Sacred cosmos that will be capable of maintaining belief in the ever-present of the sacred
• James C. Livingston


  Perceived to be sacred in value
• Clouser


  Belief in something or other as divine (god)
• Roland Robertson


  Distinction between empirical, transcendental reality
• Spirituality


  A subjective experience of a sacred dimension and the deepest values and meanings by which people live, often in a context separate from organized religion
• Religiosity


  Being on a spiritual path without being part of an organized religion, specific set of beliefs and shared practices usually community or group
• guidelines concerning how humans to relate to the divine

  Ethical codes of religion
• Religion


  Born in history and develop into living traditions that affect the lives of the followers
• World Religions


  Have own stories and are universal in nature
• World Religions

  • Zoroastrianism
• Zoroastrianism once flourished in South Asia but now is only confined to Iran, India and Central Asia
• Zoroastrianism


  One of the world's most monotheistic religions, having originated in ancient Persia (Iran)
• Zoroastrianism


  Influenced the belief systems of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
• Time of Moses, the Hebrew leader of Exodus

  1200 BCE
• Hindus compiled their holy texts (Vedas)

  1100-500 BCE
• Geography and culture affect religion
• Prehistoric humans (Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons) practiced burying their dead, painting on the walls of caves, and carving images from stones
• Zoroastrianism


  • Profound dichotomy between good and evil, and the idea of a creator God (Ahura Mazda)
• Time of Abraham, the first Hebrew patriarch

  2000 BCE
• Abrahamic Religions


  • Judaism
  • Christianity
  • Islam
• Abraham is the father of the Abrahamic religions
• Veda


  A collection of poems and hymns, the holy text of Hinduism