Ch. 1/2 Flashcards
Define religion.
Characteristic of human species, awareness of a dimension beyond the invisible,
Define western religions.
Religions have that roots in the religious perspective of the Hebrew Bible; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Define Judaism.
based on the religion of the ancient Hebrews and major reforms after the destruction of the first Jewish temple in 500s BCE, and other reforms after the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE; most scholars think it developed from a polytheistic Israelite society where monotheism was slowly developing.
Define Christianity.
Reform movement growing out of Judaism in the first century CE; became the religion of the Roman Empires in the 300s.
Define Islam.
Reform movement in Arabian Peninsula in the 600s CE, within a hundred years became the dominant power from Spain and the North African coast.
Define Eastern Religions.
Imprecise division; generally religions of Asia, Islam is treated as a western religion.
Define Hinduism.
Generic term for an array of religions native to India that recognize the Vedas; largely restricted to India.
Define Buddhism.
Rejection of the Vedic religion, developed by the Buddha in 500s BCE in northeastern India; expanded eastward and became the dominant religion of Southeast Asia. Based on the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
Define confucianism.
Founded in 500s BCE by Confucius, emphasized social order and responsibility, reverence of family, restricted to East Asia.
Define Daoism.
Associated with Laos, teaches about the path (ado) consisting of maintaining a harmony of opposite but complementary forces and natural order; large;y restricted to China and Chinese communities. Taoism holds that humans and animals should live in balance with the Tao, or the universe. Taoists believe in spiritual immortality, where the spirit of the body joins the universe after death.
Define Sikhism.
Hindu reform movement, with elements of Islam; began by Nanak in 1500s CE, largely confined to Punjab areas of India. Monotheistic.
Define the dominant religions.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam Accounts for 75% of worlds population and 90% of religious population.
Define animism.
Sees the physical world acted on and dominated by spirits; who can render benefits or break havoc
Describe the Anthropology of religion.
Folk religions, tribal cultures and primitive religions are often the focus; rituals, shamanism, altered states, magic, and kinships also interested anthropologists historically. Now the focus has shifted to mainstream religions, though with emphasis on what is foreign or far.
Describe the sociology of religion.
Sociologists of religion study how religion shapes societal conditions and how social conditions shape religion; through either quantitative or qualitative means
Describe the philosophy of religion.
Discussion of the nature of truth and knowledge and the role of reason and revelation. Examines the rational basis of religious truth claims, often focusing on the nature of religious language,
Describe the theological approach to religion.
questions of human significance and meaning;
Define religious confessional.
Confessionalism, in a religious (and particularly Christian) sense, is a belief in the importance of full and unambiguous assent to the whole of a religious teaching. Confessionalists believe that differing interpretations or understandings, especially those in direct opposition to a held teaching, cannot be accommodated within a church communion.
Define a religious sect.
used for a subgroup within a major religious tradition, along with words such as school, branch, and subject
Define a cult.
Applied to a smaller group or a following with a very distinct focus.
Define shamans.
Independent religious operators; thought by their society to have an usual sense of the world of the invisible; and power within the world of gods
Define a ritual.
Patterned, repeatable, have meanings that must be learned, meaning of it is assigned by the group using it, no universal meaning, used at major points of transition in the life of a religious adherent
Where did the ancient religions develop and what were their main ideas?
Land of the Nile River in Egypt; Mesopotamia; centered on maintaining good divine-human relationships, in regard to political stability and social order and relationships—did not involve personal enlightenment, as in modern faiths
-Divine kinship rulers: rulers are descended from gods;
Major empires: Roman, Greek, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian
Why do Western religions tend to dissociate themselves from ancient religions that preceded them?
They see themselves as unique revelations from god; western religions have one god
Define Zoroastrianism.
religion of mighty emperors that had power over the whole middle east; Iranian religion and one of the world’s oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. Worship fire; monotheistic (fire is related to the god)
Define monotheism and polytheism.
belief in a single deity. Religions that are considered examples of monotheism include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Polytheism is a term for a belief system based on the belief in multiple deities.
Define the roots of Hanukkah.
Hellenism was forced on Judah and Jerusalem; considerable resistance arose and the Hellenistic kin desecrated the Jewish temple by sacrificing pigs on the alter. Jewish zealots, led by Judas Macabeaus, recaptured and rededicated the temple; Hanukkah is now celebrated as a result.
Define henotheists.
individuals who believed in one god as primary in their lives/region, but accepted the existence of other deities as being worthy of worship by others or by other regions
Define monolatry.
Acceptance that only one god is worthy of worship and that all other deities are inferior.
Why do Muslims criticize Christianity?
for the trinity, they think it sounds polytheistic (as if they are describing three gods) and is therefore violating monotheism
Define pantheism.
identifies god with everything in the universe
Define a religious myth.
Defines and captures what people at the time think is true; does not dismiss it as untrue.
Define the Babylonian myth of Enuma Elish.
Marduk won control of the primordial heavens, and the Tablet of Destiny after a battle with the goddess Tiamat, whose body then created the heavens and earth; her demon champion, Qingu, was slain and his blood was used to create humanity
Define the organic creation myths.
Creation is spontaneous and the creator paradoxically appears as a part of what is being created
define the creation from nothing myth.
Creator is perfectly timeless and fully separated from the created world.
What did animal sacrifice stem from?
The awareness that life and death are extricably linked
Define Yom Kippur.
Day of Atonement; Yom Kippur is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day’s observances consist of full fasting and ascetic behavior accompanied by intensive prayer as well as sin confessions.
Define mysticism.
Inner contemplative quest for what lies within;
Define rhetoric and orator.
art of using words effectively
-Public speaker with great skill
Define “animistic” religion.
Belief that spirits live in natural objects.
Define asebeia
lacking faith/respect for the gods
Define the chief Greek religious ritual.
sacrifice/prayer
Define an oracle.
Message passed to the people from a god(s).
Define Hesoid’s Theogony.
Hesiod’s Theogony (literally, “Birth of the Gods”) is also a cosmogony (“birth of the
cosmos”), because for Hesiod the physical universe was itself made up of gods. His poem,
then, is a description of how the universe came to exist in the form his audience recog-
nized; that process of evolution takes place through the birth of gods.
Define Hesiod.
Lived a century after Homer
First person to give a narrative a bit like Genesis (creative narrative)
Theogony: first narrative
Define an epic, tragedy, and comedy.
Epic: long, and follows closely a hero’s movements in the story
Tragedy: is a story that begins with the hero being in a perfectly happily place, hero is physically attractive; over the course of the tale things fall apart, by the end the hero is reduced to a shadow of their previous self (very often dies or is killed)
Comedy: comedy is the reverse of a tragedy; protagonist is in absolute horrible situation, then over the course of the tale as things get better; only becomes successful because of their goodness (by the help of the gods or other forces, happy ending)
Define an “anthropomorphic” god.
A god like people in appearance, thinking, and feeling)
Illustrate the origins of the Olympics.
Modern olympics began in 1896; recreation of Greek olympic games held every four years near the area of Mount Olympus
Greek olympic games were a foot-race in a straight line for 200m
Athletes could only compete if they took a series of religious oaths; devoting themselves to win by demonstrating devotions to the gods (Recite lines from Homer as part of their oath taking)
Why is understanding the world’s religion and ideologies important:
1- They are a vital ingredient in the varied story of humankind’s various experiments in living (heritage of humankind)
2-In order to grasp the meanings and values of the plural cultures of today we need to know something about the worldviews that underlie them
3-We might try to form our own coherent and satisfying picture of reality, and its relevant to see the great ideas of different cultures and civilizations
What dimensions define religion?
1-The practical and ritual dimension: (rituals such as prayer and sacrifice, practices such as yoga); t practices with more rules can be described as more ritualistic.
2-The Experiential and Emotional Dimension: the feelings which a practice generates; this is why music is so prevalent in religion (rouses emotions). (see Rudolf Otto’s terms)
3-The Narrative or Mythic Dimension (the story side of religion, the mythic side, may be rooted in history or before history)
4-The Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimension (the written body of teachings of a religious group that are generally accepted by that group: educates members and leaders of the faith);
5-Ethical and Legal Dimension: the law which a tradition incorporates into itself is the ethical dimension; affects the religious and political aspects of society (Sharia law, etc)
6-Social and Institutional Dimension: every religious movement is embodied in a group of people or organized church, understanding how the faith works in people
7-Material Dimension: buildings, works of art, and other creations
Define Rudolf Otto’s term “numinous” and “mysterious tremendous et fascinates”
1-Numinous (/ˈnjuːmɪnəs/) is a term derived from the Latin numen, meaning “arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring.” Specifically relates to spirits or gods worthy of fear and awe.
2-A mysterious something which draws you to it but brings out fear in you.
Define the term “canonical”.
Recognized by the relevant body of the faithful and accepted as truth.
What are the oldest cities known?
Ur and Urk are traditionally considered to be the oldest cities; the prefix UR is the oldest traceable thing that can be found
Damascus is the oldest still existent city today
What is the book of the dead?
Egyptian culture, found engraved in temples and written in Egyptian tombs (in Rosetta): hieroglyphs/how Egyptians were to act when people died.
Define a bard.
(has a role similar to the priest) are acting like intermediaries of channels of communication from above to us
Define the insider vs. outsider view of religion.
The subjective vs. objective view of religion; one should examine tradition on its own merit without prioritizing their own view.
Define Memphis theology.
The god Ptah, holding within himself eight other deities, created the world through speech; creation has four aspects
(pg.21)
Define the confessional perspective.
Approaches the study of religion from the assumptions of one particular religion
Define Apollo.
has several important entities: the arts report to him, healing, god most closely related to prophecy and knowing what the future is going to be (usually doesn’t do this directly, does this through Delphi, the place where Delphi games took place in his honor)
Define Herackles labours.
The Nemean Lion (find a lion in the hills of Nemeah, a lion that cannot be wounded, and kill it bring the king back the skin) meets a peasant on the way, says to Heracules that they should make a sacrifice to Zeus to bring him good fortune
^Goes into the cave, lets himself get attacked, Hercules strangles the lion to death after, takes the skin back with him
-the Augean Stables
Stables of a rival King, Augeaus; these stables were famous for being the largest stables and the worst ones for sanitary conditions
Heracles sees that stables are near where two rivers flow; reroutes the rivers to clean them
-The Labours, Three
Cerebrus is the dog that guards Hades, with three heads
Heracles deals with the dog
After successfully completing this, he gets married again to Deianira (his wife has met a centaur…ointment for the lion skin was poison)
Define Ovid.
Ovid: Sulmona is his birthplace; equivalent to Homer for Roman (Latin) literature; links to the temple of Hercules because everyone thought the Hercule’s temples were Ovid; wrote the most obscene works of literature in the Art of Love
Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses: influential; collection of about 250 tales dealing with Greek and Roman deities (tale of Narcissus, the most handsome god to exist)
Define Alexander the Great, his modified currency to exert control and power, and the reason for his death.
-Heir to the Macedonian Kingdom; student of Aristotle and Leonidas
-Alexander was the son of Zeus; given magic horns in artwork to illustrate this
-Currency was modified as a symbolic way of maintaining control and power without being physically present in a region; gold staters, silver tetradrachms, and drachims became the new currency of Alexander’s empire
