Download 1: Introduction - White Rocket Books

Religions Introduction
 Why study religions?
 Better understanding of:
 History
 Art
 People
 There is a blending of peoples and societies.
 Peace among nations and peoples requires understanding and tolerance.
 What is religion?
 Latin “religio”–
 fear or awe one feels in the presence of a spirit or a god.
 A set of beliefs having to do with a god or gods.
 Origins of humanity? The world? Universe?
 Some religions teach a moral system.
 A person’s concern that is “more important than anything else.”
 But– family? Nation?
 It’s not always spirituality.
 Belief in an “unseen order.”
 Our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves to it.
 Religion provides explanations:
 For puzzling natural phenomena
 For puzzling experiences
 Dreams, prescience, deja vu.
 For the origins of things
 For why there is evil and suffering
 Religion provides comfort:
 Makes mortality less unbearable
 Allays anxiety
 Religion provides social order:
 Holds societies together
 Perpetuates a particular social order
 Supports morality
 Religion as a cognitive illusion:
 People are superstitious
 Religious concepts are irrefutable
 Refutation is more difficult than belief
 Types of religions
 1: Basic religions
 Ideas are not preserved in written form.
 Prehistoric or remote.
 Many different beliefs.
 Animistic view of nature.
 Belief that nature is alive with spirits.
 Taboo
 Certain actions must be avoided.
 Totems
 A tribe’s kinship toward a particular animal or object.
 Sacrifice
 Gift or appeasement for the god(s).
 Myth
 Stories/poetic ways of telling a great truth.
 Basic religions
 Rituals
 Rites or ceremonies that often re-enact mythologies
 Rites of passage
 Rituals at key transitional points in one’s life—
 often birth, puberty, marriage, and death
 Ancestor veneration
 Honoring deceased members of the family,
 out of respect or fear
 Magic
 Attempt to control nature
 Divination
 Predicting the future
 By contrast:
 Religions originating in India:
 Concerned with freeing self from the cycle of reincarnation.
 Religions originating in Middle East:
 Focus on one supreme creator god.