The Actual Study Guide

  1. What are the defining characteristics of Jainism?

    1. Asceticism and ahimsa

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

    1. To achieve a good rebirth

  3. Jain laypeople regard achieving the ultimate aim of salvation as

    1. A distant possibility

  4. Mahavira was born into which caste?

    1. The Kshatriya caste

  5. Buddha was a

    1. Man, not a god

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

    1. The caste system

  7. Gautama finally attained enlightenment when he

    1. Discovered the Four Noble Truths

  8. For Buddhists, Gautama the Buddha is

    1. Not the first or only Buddha

  9. Buddhism holds that salvation must be won through

    1. Efforts of the human mind

  10. The Noble Eight-fold Path sets forth

    1. A life of moderation and ongoing practices

  11. Zen is a unique form of Buddhism that focuses on

    1. The experience of enlightenment

  12. The person most responsible for explaining Zen to the West is

    1. D.T. Suzuki

  13. Which of the following does not describe Zen?

    1. Theological

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

    1. Meditation

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

    1. Haiku

  16. Koans can be answered only through

    1. Direct insight into reality

  17. Confucius was most concerned with

    1. Promoting and transmitting traditional ways

  18. Confucius viewed nobility as being bestowed by

    1. Birth and steadfast learning

  19. Confucius believed that good government and effective leadership come about through

    1. The cultivation of te

  20. Confucianism emphasizes the

    1. Self as primarily a center of human relationships

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

    1. Lao Tzu

  22. Tao is the

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

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

    1. Te

  24. Taoism regards moral values as

    1. Relative

  25. In Taoism life and death are

    1. Two harmonious parts of the same whole

  26. The sage attains oneness with Tao through insight regarding its

    1. Simplicity and natural unity

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

    1. The sage emerges victorious

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

    1. Admits that warfare is sometimes necessary and encourages pacifism

  29. Shinto is the native religious tradition of

    1. Japan

  30. The Shinto myth

    1. 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

  31. Shinto’s most important deity is

    1. Amaterasu

  32. Shinto regards nature as

    1. Sacred

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

    1. Descend into the kami body

  34. The torii is formed by

    1. two upright pillars and a cross beam

  35. The Grand Imperial Shrine at Ise is

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

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

    1. revered for having perfectly embodied bushido

  37. Sikhism tries to reconcile the differences between

    1. Hinduism and Islam

  38. Sikhism is

    1. monotheistic

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

    1. Muslims and Hindus

  40. Sikhism's most important sacred text is called

    1. Adi Granth or Sri Guru Granth Sahib

  41. Shortly after Guru Nanak received God's revelation, he

    1. traveled widely

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

    1. Arjan installed the Adi Granth as Guru

  43. Sikhism teaches that the ultimate purpose of life is to

    1. attain complete union with God

  44. Sikh theology maintains that God

    1. dwells within creation and can be approached in a personal way

  45. Haumai

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

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

    1. the sharing of a cake made of wheat and honey

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

    1. YHWH

  48. The five books of the Torah are

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

  49. Jews refer to the Hebrew Bible as the

    1. Tanakh

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

    1. Moses

  51. It is most accurate to think of the Jews as

    1. an ethnic group that shares a common history and religion

  52. Jews believe that God is

    1. directly involved in history

  53. Torah defines

    1. worship and ethical conduct

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

    1. Abraham

  55. The three main pillars of Christianity are

    1. Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant

  56. Which of the following acts did the emperor Constantine perform?

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

  57. Who assisted bishops in the early Christian Church?

    1. presbyters and deacons

  58. Paul believed Gentile Christians should

    1. be exempt from most requirements of Torah

  59. What symbolized the unity and equality of early Christians?

    1. Baptism and the shared meal of the Eucharist

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

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

  61. The Gospel authors strove mainly to

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

  62. The primary sources of information about Jesus' life are

    1. the New Testament Gospels

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

    1. Constantine declared Christianity a legitimate religion

  64. The Protestant Reformation sparked the

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

  65. Islam

    1. 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

  66. The word Muslim means

    1. "one who submits"

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

    1. the archangel Gabriel

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

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

  69. What do Muslims believe leads to sin?

    1. actions which go against the commands of God

  70. In Islam the natural world is

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

  71. All Muslims are required to pray how often each day?

    1. five times

  72. Fasting during Ramadan helps Muslims to

    1. 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

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

    1. 2.5 percent

  74. Rumi is a renown mystic/poet from which tradition?

    1. Sufism

  75. Brahman is the

    1. eternal essence of reality and source of the universe

  76. Krishna compares reincarnation to

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

  77. Hinduism's closest equivalent to the Western term religion is

    1. brahmin

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

    1. gender, caste, and stage of life

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

    1. sannyasin

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

    1. Shiva

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

    1. shudra, the caste of servants and laborers

  82. Hindu worship includes

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

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

    1. studying the philosophy of Vedanta, Yoga, or Sankhya

  84. Indigenous religious traditions are generally the traditions of

    1. non-literate people

  85. The foundation of Aboriginal religion is the

    1. concept of the Dreaming

  86. The purpose of the Yoruba religion in Africa is to

    1. 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

  87. The Sun Dance is a ritual in which 

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

  88. The Aborigines believe that the spiritual essence of the Ancestors

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

  89. The Aztec understanding of the axis mundi extended to

    1. human beings and Serpent Mountain

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

    1. easily crossed over

  91. The basic dimensions of a religious tradition include

    1. myths/sacred stories, doctrines, and rituals

  92. The understanding of the nature of the universe is called

    1. cosmology

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

    1. theistic

  94. What questions does religion seek to respond to

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

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

    1. myths

  96. Which two things enrich our study of world religions?

    1. comparative methodology and empathy

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

    1. material

  98. The social dimension promotes all of the following except

    1. transcendence

  99. What are some different ways of understanding ultimate reality?

    1. 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)

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

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