Exam 3 - Confucianism, Daoism, Navajo Religion, Atheism

Analects

collection of the sayings and actions of Confucius

Confucius

the key figure in classical Confucianism, credited as the author of the Analects and later divinized

mandate of heaven

authority to rule given by heaven to a virtuous dynasty and withdrawn from an unvirtuous one

ru

Chinese word for scholar and the source for the term Ruism, a popular Confucian alternative to “Confucianism”

ren

the key Confucian virtue of humaneness, or benevolence

li

the key Confucian virtue of ritual propriety; also “principle” or “patter,” a central concept in the Neo-Confucian School of Principle

filial piety (xiao)

respect for a deference to one’s parents

Mencius

China’s Second Sage, who argued that human nature is essentially good

Neo-Confucianism

a reinvention and revival of Confucianism that drew on Buddhist and Daoist influences to turn the Confucian tradition inward toward self-cultivation

Laozi (“Old Master”)

legendary figure credited with writing the Daodejing, revered in his deified forms as Lard Lao and Most High Lord Lao

Daodejing (“Scripture on the Way and Its Virtue”)

the most influential text in Daoist history and one of the world’s most frequently translated books, traditionally attributed to Laozi and also called the Laozi

Dao (“Way”)

Ultimate Reality and its manifestations in everyday life, the preexisting source of everything in the cosmos, and the process through which everything in it is transformed

qi

key Chinese concept variously translated as breath, vital energy, life force

yin and yang

ancient Chinese concept in which two complementary principles interact with one another to create individual, society, and cosmic change

internal alchemy (neidan)

an interiorization of older external alchemical processes in which the elixir of immortality is manufactured inside the human body via meditation and visualization

wuwei (“nonaction”)

sometimes translated as “inaction,” but better understood as spontaneous, effortless, or nonintentional action, like water running downhill

Diné (“The People”)

the Navajo people

Holy People "(Diyin Dine’é)

superbeings who are the subjects of Navajo stories and the recipients of prayers and ceremonies

Diné Bikéyah

the Navajo homeland; set amid the four sacred mountains, also known as Navajoland, as distinct from the legal boundaries of the Navajo reservation

inner form

wind-animated life force inside the outer form of a living thing. ceremonies are addressed to the inner forms of Holy People, whose outer forms are no longer in this world

hozho

beauty, harmony, and the central value inNavajo life, often paired with its contrasting term hocho. upon its creation, the upper world was characterized by hozho

singer (hataalii)

medicine person, also known as a chanter, who organizes and conducts ceremonies in order to restore individual health and community harmony

Holy Wind (Nilchi)

animating life force and a source of movement for all living things, associated with breath, speech, thought, and action

agnosticism

the belief that humans cannot know whether God exists, or the position of particular individuals that they themselves do know whether God exists

atheism

the belief that God does not exist

secularization theory

the sociological theory that as the world becomes more modern it will become less religious

spiritual but not religious (SBNR)

an identity and social category signaling a negative view of organized religion and a positive view of individual spiritual practices

Enlightenment

wide-ranging European intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that affirmed human progress and religious tolerance even as it elevated science and reason over religious superstition

Deism

the belief in a “watchmaker” God who created the world but does not intervene in it

materialism

the view that everything originates in matter and is caused by material forces that can be studied scientifically