The Actual Study Guide

2024 Interfaith Dialogue Final

What are the defining characteristics of Jainism?

Asceticism and ahimsa

For Jains of this world, the immediate goal of religious life is

To achieve a good rebirth

Jain laypeople regard achieving the ultimate aim of salvation as

A distant possibility

Mahavira was born into which caste?

The Kshatriya caste

Buddha was a

Man, not a god

Of the following beliefs or features, which one does Buddhism not share with Hinduism?

The caste system

Gautama finally attained enlightenment when he

Discovered the Four Noble Truths

For Buddhists, Gautama the Buddha is

Not the first or only Buddha

Buddhism holds that salvation must be won through

Efforts of the human mind

The Noble Eight-fold Path sets forth

A life of moderation and ongoing practices

Zen is a unique form of Buddhism that focuses on

The experience of enlightenment

The person most responsible for explaining Zen to the West is

D.T. Suzuki

Which of the following does not describe Zen?

Theological

According to Zen Buddhists, the primary means of attaining enlightenment is

Meditation

Basho was a poet from Kyoto, Japan who was famous of the genre of

Haiku

Koans can be answered only through

Direct insight into reality

Confucius was most concerned with

Promoting and transmitting traditional ways

Confucius viewed nobility as being bestowed by

Birth and steadfast learning

Confucius believed that good government and effective leadership come about through

The cultivation of te

Confucianism emphasizes the

Self as primarily a center of human relationships

The Tao Te Ching was originally named for the man credited with writing it who was

Lao Tzu

Tao is the

Ultimate source of the universe, principle of order in the universe, and the way of nature

The power of virtue an individual acquires through living in harmony with Tao is

Te

Taoism regards moral values as

Relative

In Taoism life and death are

Two harmonious parts of the same whole

The sage attains oneness with Tao through insight regarding its

Simplicity and natural unity

Taoism teaches that when a sage chooses not to compete or argue

The sage emerges victorious

Which of the following describes Taoism´s view of conflict or war?

Admits that warfare is sometimes necessary and encourages pacifism

Shinto is the native religious tradition of

Japan

The Shinto myth

Tells of the divine ancestry of Japan and its people and illustrates that the kami are always present and always close to Japan's and people

Shinto's most important deity is

Amaterasu

Shinto regards nature as

Sacred

In ceremonial worship, the kami of the shrine is believed to

Descend into the kami body

The torii is formed by

two upright pillars and a cross beam

The Grand Imperial Shrine at Ise is

dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu, the grandest and most famous of all Shinto shrines, and rebuilt every twenty years to ensure purity

In the medieval Japanese tale "The Forty-seven Ronin" the ronin were

revered for having perfectly embodied bushido

Sikhism tries to reconcile the differences between

Hinduism and Islam

Sikhism is

monotheistic

Over the centuries, Sikhs have occasionally engaged in violent confrontations with

Muslims and Hindus

Sikhism's most important sacred text is called

Adi Granth or Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Shortly after Guru Nanak received God's revelation, he

traveled widely

Which of the following was not one of the effects of Guru Arjan's leadership in Sikhism?

Arjan installed the Adi Granth as Guru

Sikhism teaches that the ultimate purpose of life is to

attain complete union with God

Sikh theology maintains that God

dwells within creation and can be approached in a personal way

Haumai

is the human inclination to be self-centered and increases the distance between individuals and God

To symbolize the Sikh community's unity, worship generally ends with

the sharing of a cake made of wheat and honey

God's name appears in the Bible in the Hebrew equivalents of the letters

YHWH

The five books of the Torah are

traditionally believed to have been revealed directly by God and the central statement of Judaism's religious laws

Jews refer to the Hebrew Bible as the

Tanakh

____________received the Law at Mount Sinai and is regarded as the Torah's author.

Moses

It is most accurate to think of the Jews as

an ethnic group that shares a common history and religion

Jews believe that God is

directly involved in history

Torah defines

worship and ethical conduct

Whom did God call to be the father of a great nation, the first patriarch of the Jewish people?

Abraham

The three main pillars of Christianity are

Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant

Which of the following acts did the emperor Constantine perform?

He issued the Edict of Milan, which ended persecution of Christians and he convened the Council of Nicaea.

Who assisted bishops in the early Christian Church?

presbyters and deacons

Paul believed Gentile Christians should

be exempt from most requirements of Torah

What symbolized the unity and equality of early Christians?

Baptism and the shared meal of the Eucharist

Which of the following statements does NOT describe what it means to be a Christian?

believe that Jesus was just a prophet, not the son of God

The Gospel authors strove mainly to

Present Christ's teachings and express the meaning of the events of Christ's life

The primary sources of information about Jesus' life are

the New Testament Gospels

Which of the following events did not happen during the Middle Ages

Constantine declared Christianity a legitimate religion

The Protestant Reformation sparked the

Catholic Reformation (or Counter-Reformation) and the Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants

Islam

Is deeply rooted in the biblical tradition, reveres Jesus Christ and Judaism's great prophets, and has played a crucial role in shaping Western culture, especially during the Middle Ages

The word Muslim means

"one who submits"

Who appeared to Muhammad in a dream on the Night of Power and Excellence?

the archangel Gabriel

Muslims consider Muhammed to be the Seal of the Prophets because they believe that he is

The final prophet, revealing the will of Allah fully and precisely, and for all time

What do Muslims believe leads to sin?

actions which go against the commands of God

In Islam the natural world is

seen as good and worthy of reverence, another form of revelation of God's will, and sometimes referred to as the cosmic Qur'an

All Muslims are required to pray how often each day?

five times

Fasting during Ramadan helps Muslims to

focus attention on moral and religious concerns and thus develop spiritual fortitude, gain insight into the situations of less fortunate people, and come more aware of their own mortality

What proportion of their possessions' value are Muslims required to contribute to a public treasury (known as Zakat) ?

2.5 percent

Rumi is a renown mystic/poet from which tradition?

Sufism

Brahman is the

eternal essence of reality and source of the universe

Krishna compares reincarnation to

getting undressed at night and putting on a different set of clothes in the morning

Hinduism's closest equivalent to the Western term religion is

brahmin

A person's particular dharma is determined by his or her

gender, caste, and stage of life

a wandering ascetic who has advanced to the fourth and highest stage of life is called

sannyasin

Which of these Hindu gods is known for destruction and is worshipped by millions?

Shiva

Which of the following concepts is not one of Hinduism's four goals of life?

shudra, the caste of servants and laborers

Hindu worship includes

household and village rituals, pilgrimages to holy places, and veneration of cows

Which of the following items is part of jnana marga, the path of knowledge?

studying the philosophy of Vedanta, Yoga, or Sankhya

Indigenous religious traditions are generally the traditions of

non-literate people

The foundation of Aboriginal religion is the

concept of the Dreaming

The purpose of the Yoruba religion in Africa is to

guard against the evil deeds of sorcerers and witches and maintain the balance between the human beings of earth and the gods and ancestors of heaven

The Sun Dance is a ritual in which

many North American Plains tribes celebrate the new year and prepare for the annual bison hunt

The Aborigines believe that the spiritual essence of the Ancestors

remains in various symbols the Ancestors left behind, as well as each individual

The Aztec understanding of the axis mundi extended to

human beings and Serpent Mountain

Most indigenous religions believe that the boundaries between the human and supernatural realms are

easily crossed over

The basic dimensions of a religious tradition include

myths/sacred stories, doctrines, and rituals

The understanding of the nature of the universe is called

cosmology

A religion that includes a belief in a personal god or gods is

theistic

What questions does religion seek to respond to

What is the human condition? What is our destiny? What is the ultimate reality?

Many world religions include sacred stories that are passed along from one generation to the next. These are called

myths

Which two things enrich our study of world religions?

comparative methodology and empathy

Cathedrals, temples, statues, and sacred places in nature are all examples of which dimension of religion?

material

The social dimension promotes all of the following except

transcendence

What are some different ways of understanding ultimate reality?

Good luck lol (Google says: Ultimate reality is found in one personal God (Christian). Ultimate reality consists of many divine or semi divine beings (Hindu). All reality is essentially one thing, and human beings are part of this ultimate reality (Buddhism)

Which of these films did we NOT watch in our Interfaith Dialogue class?

Good luck again, but here's what we did watch :The Whale Rider, Arranged, Babbette's Feast, Over the Moon