Religion and Belief System

Question 1

What is considered as the oldest form of social institution?

Answer 1

Religion

Question 2

What is religion?

Answer 2

It is an organized system of beliefs concerning supernatural beings. This system of beliefs is exercised through rituals that are meant to influence facets of the universe which otherwise people can do nothing about.

Question 3

What is the centrality of worship among religions?

Answer 3

A supreme being that has overreaching influence to the pressent and afterlife.

Question 4

Who emphasized the role of religion as an egent of social cohesion?

Answer 4

Emile Durkheim

Question 5

What are the thoughts of Emile Durkheim on religion?

Answer 5

• The origin of religion is no supernatural, but social.
• Rituals are enacted simply to enhance the solidarity of the community as well as its faith.

Question 6

Who pointed out that religion also inspires division among those with differences in beliefs.

Answer 6

Karl Marx

Question 7

What did Karl Marx think about religion?

Answer 7

• Religion is a profound form of human alienation, the situation in which people lose their control over the social world they have created.
• A dominant religion in any society is always the religion of the politically and economically dominant class, thus providing justification for existing inequalities and injustices.

Question 8

What are the functional roles of religion in society?

Answer 8

• Religion is a source of an orderly model of the universe
• It provides explanations of things and experiences that cannot be grasped by human senses
• It provides believers with sets of guidelines of what is right and what is wrong

Question 9

What are types of religion that developed through time?

Answer 9

Animisim, Polytheism, Monotheism

Question 10

What is animism?

Answer 10

Belief that spirits may dwell in nature or human-made objects

Question 11

What is polytheism?

Answer 11

Belief in multiple gods

Question 12

What is monotheism?

Answer 12

belief in a single, powerful diety

Question 13

What are the four types of religious organizations?

Answer 13

Ecclesia, Church or denomination, Sect, and Cult

Question 14

What is ecclesia?

Answer 14

Religious organization that claims the membership of everyone in society or even in several societies

Question 15

What is the church or denomination?

Answer 15

Two or more established relatively tolerant religious organizations that claim allegiance to a substantial part of the population

Question 16

What is a sect?

Answer 16

An exclusive and uncompromising religious organization, often, one that has split off from a denomination due to doctrinal reasons

Question 17

What is a cult?

Answer 17

Loosely organized religious movement and independent from the religious tradition of the surrounding society

Question 18

In the Philippines, what is the thought on separation of church and the state?

Answer 18

This doctrine operates more as a restriction on the powers of the State or the government than on the Church.

Question 19

What section and article states that the “separation of the Church and State shall be inviolable”

Answer 19

Section 6, Article II of the Philippine Constitution