UNIT 1 & 2 Test! #period Flashcards
Essential questions?
What is the Human Condition: (r we bad evil)
What is Spiritual Fulfillment:
What is Ethical:
How do we transcend human conditions:
How do we attain salvation:
What is our destiny:
What is the nature of this world:
what is the ultimate reality
Transcendence
The overcoming of limitations imposed by the human condition, whether temporary or abidingly
Cosmology
The study or understanding of the universe
Revelation
Transmission of the divine will or knowledge to human beings
Mono, Poloy, Pantheism, None
One multiple, divine exists everywhere, NONE
Transtheistic
Religion that has gods or demigods but they aren’t placed at the center of their religion
Faith
A form of experience with the divine or holy presence
Mysticism
An element of religion that deals with communing with the ultimate reality through inward contemplation
Ethics
What is right or wrong
Ritual
Formal worship practice
Empathy
The ability to see things from another’s pov and an important trait to have when studying different religions
Myth
A story that tends to answer questions of origins and serves as a source of sacred truth
Comparative Methology
Applying common questions to different forms of the same concept in order to understand what they have in common as well as how they differ.
Seven Dimensions
Experience/Faith: The way in which the higher power interacts with us
Mythology: The stories from which we derive understanding from God
Doctrine: The written content collected and shared.
Ethics: The proper behavior
Rituals: The religious actions and behaviors practiced
Social: Our place in the community, sense of belonging
Material: The tangible things that represent aspects of our religion
Aboriginal Experience and Mythology
- Believed in the Ancestors (who roamed around Australia). They were the ones that started everything; organized tribes and language. ancestors with lowercase A refers to dead who help out
- Dreaming
- constantly with cosmology
- ## Ancestors reside with the people; help the ppl
Aboriginal Doctrine and ethics
Had things written on walls. respect elders.
Aorignal Ritual Social Material
- Rituals involved reacting their world from the beginning
- Rituals like dreaming help them nourish power.
- Ancestors left behind symbols at sacred sites. Only certain ppl r allowed to be at
- Landmarks are believed to have significance (rocks, waterfalls)
- AYERS ROCK
- ## TOTEMS THAT ANCESTORS SYMBOLIZED
Aboriginal general
Non-literate ppl
Did not depend on writing, ORAL TRADITION
Small group
Australia
yoruba General
1k yo
30m ppl; NOT NATION BUT CULTURE
Ife; Nigeria
Yoruba experience and myth
Orisha-nla; Created the world in ife
- Heaven and earth
- Maintained the balance between humans and deities while guiding against evils like witches.
- SUPREME GOD ORLUN (DISTANT and REMOTE, not involved in human affairs); MODERN DEISM. LESSER GOD ORISHA (FUNCTION as mediators between humans and ORLUN and sources of power)
Ogun: God of iron and war. originally human; controls the border between ancestors and orishas.
- Esu: Complex; evil and good; between heaven and earth; TRIckster
ALSO HAD ANCESTORS: possessed power that can do good or bad. (Family Ancestors (deceased; good rep; worshipped by family) & Deified Ancestors (important figures known by all))
Yoruba doctrine and ethics
Diviners- people who practiced divination; Diviners knew stories special to ppl, could predict patterns.
- specialists helped connect ppl with ancestors and deities.
Yoruba ritual social Material
- Ancestors were worshipped at shrines
- Wear masks and costumes and dance at festivals
- when ppl die specialists come in and mediate a message
Lakota general
- Native americans
- Plains
- Various religions more than 30 tribes
- western Sioux (meant snakes)
- 2 basic rituals
- wounded knee killed many Lakotas
- now they live in conservation camps
lakota experience and mythc
- Wanka Tanka: Their supreme reality (Great spirit or mystery, Most sacred)
- 16 separate deities
- lucky number 4 (represented 4 compass directions)
- Inktomi (spider): Trickster figure): Mediator between supernatural and human world
- ## 4 souls depart and go on the Milky Way path and is judged by an old woman; parts of other souls enter inborn children and are born
Lakota doctrine and ethics
Lakota rituals social material
Vision Quest: Means for an individual to gain access to spiritual power; Both men and women can participate
- Medicine men interpreted the vision at the end of the quest; Before they start they go to the sweat lodge to purify themselves.
the quest follows; they leave and go into the woods by themselves for days, enduring the elements of nature. Visions come in the form of animals or nature.; SOMETIMES they can gain a guardian spirit or ghost,
Sun Dance: Ritual that celebrated the new year and prepares for bison hunt
- LATE SPRING OR SUMMER
- Cotton wood was the axis mundi; the center of the universe 28 poles connected representing the days in a month
- Sun dance requires body mutilation; bc its the only thing they own. only suitable sacrifice;
-
Aztec genereal
- Lived in mesoamerica
- Highly developed civilization 15m
- Tenochtitlan is the main city; believed to be the center of the world; home of the serpent mountain; its where q created everything; time and space
- influenced catholicism
died bc of cortes and his men; thought cortes was the T Q young prince and let him In ( feathered serpent).
Virginia Mary is tonantzin
-
Aztect Experience and mythology
Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent); the creator god; worshipped by all; believed he lived in the golden age
- Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl- Q’s realty representative; role model for authority figures
- Religion emphasized the interrelationship between myth and rituals; sometimes using human sacrifices
- cosmology was with time and space
- 5 suns the one was the present one (EAST SUN)
Aztect doctrine and ethics
Children were taught to recite verses from q
- Axis Mundi: 4 directions
- center of the universe connected earth heaven and underworld.
- Pessimistic view of life.
- Two divine forces of human; head and heart
- believed in the mastery of language.
knowers of things (specialist) communicated with the gods (riddles) Wit was good
-
Aztect rituals social material
Used human sacrifices.; to renourish the suns.
HEAD OFFERED TO SKY; HEART OFFERED TO GROUND; Usually captured warriors and rarely human or children
- pyramids of the sun and moon were placed to worship Q
- greater serpent mountain stood where the 4 directions met
- language offerings provided a alternative to human sacrifice
Dreaming
Aboriginal: The period where the ancestors roamed the land; they left behind symbols.
Initiation rituals (aboriginals)
Awakening young ppl to their spiritual essence
- two lower middle teeth are knocked out and buried
- Circumcision with a stone knife
Wilaryu
- Men cut their forearms letting their blood pour. Dried blood connects them to ancestors
- Boys are struck with whips on the back to symbolize scars.
Boys r then given a bull-roarer: wood attached to hair; recreated sounds of deities
- Boys also lived alone in the wilderness until wounds healed. Marked the transition from boy to men.
Trickster figures
Figures who disrupt normal life
