methodologies

Human Condition: The characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and morality

  • something that unites humans

Religion:

  • Many different religions

  • Has community

  • Worships something

  • Has a set of rules

  • Place of worship

Methodology: how one studies religion

Historiography: reconstruct accurately events of the past to understand the belief system

Theology:  “God Talk” reflect, refine, and interpret beliefs of a particular faith tradition

  • Focuses on the data of the descriptive parts of religion

Anthropology: how religion functions within a culture

  • Anthropology is about THEM, focusing on ritual and myth

Sociology: how does a society and religion interact and impact one another

  • Focusing on laying foundations for exploration of combining religious and secular worldviews

Literary Criticism:  sacred text or scripture through literary analysis. when/where/why/how the sacred scripture was produced. why/where/why/how is it important in the belief system. why/where/when/how one uses it

Psychology: “ study of the soul” how religious behavior affects psyche of a person group

  • Focus on ways in which humans operate

Phenomenology: seeking to ACCURATELY describe human experiences rather than explain them

  • Religious experience through interpretation vs. factual actual history

Cosmology: understanding the nature of the universe and how it relates to the ordering of those created in the belief system

  • Science and religion working together 

Ethics: A basic requirement for the journey towards spiritual fulfillment

Transcendence: Overcoming of the normal limitations imposed by the human condition

Salvation: Spiritual fulfillment is the ultimate goal in each belief system

  • Enlightenment

  • nirvana=liberation

  • heaven/paradise 

 Revelation: Transmission of the divine will or knowledge to human beings

  • Through myths or religious experience 

  • Often times through a specific person/prophet

Bias: Refers to a prevailing attitude, set of values, or prejudices that influence the way people perceive new information

  • Irrational, rumor, misinformation, fear, hatred

  • WE DON’T HAVE TO AGREE BUT WE DO HAVE TO SHOW RESPECT

Ritual Dimension: formal worship practice often based on the reenactment of a myth, this can be private or public

Experiential and Emotional Dimension: encompasses the emotional bond that one has with their religious community or the faith they feel towards the divine

Narrative and Myth Dimension: story that tends to answer questions of origin and serve as a source of important sacred truth

Doctrinal Dimension: systematic formulation of religious teachings in an intellectually coherent form

Ethical Dimension: dimension of religion that deals with how we are to act while living in the world

Social Dimension: belief system is shard through a community and attitudes practiced by a group

  • Often rules for identifying community membership and participation (public)

Material Dimension: ordinary objects or places that symbolize or manifest the sacred or supernatural

Monotheism: belief in ONE Gold

  • Christianity, Islam, Judaism

Polytheism:  belief in many gods

  • Hinduism/greek mythology

Pantheism: the belief that the Divine reality exists in everything

  • Divine is everything and everything is the Divine 

  • Concept of “Mother Nature”

Nontheistic: no belief in Divine

  • Buddhism, rather believes in a way of life

Ecumenism: the movement, inspired and led by the Holy Spirit, that seeks the union of all Christian faiths and eventually the unity of all people throughout the world





Main Concepts

  • What is the purpose of this course and why is it important to study World's Religions?

    • To learn about other religions and compare it to our own 

  • Why should we study other religions?

    • It gives us a different perspective of what people believe and how they see us. 

  • What are the ways in which we study religions (again within this course specifically)?

    • Learn about other religions and then compare it to our own

  • What is the purpose of knowing cosmology? What does it give us the answers to?

    • Gives us the answers to the origin/world/creation questions

      • Humans place in existence

      • Determines a religious degree of interest in the natural world

  • What is the unitive purpose of all religions? Why is it important to understand religion through these three concepts?

    • It unites us with different people, giving us something in common, but different in a way that we can discuss and compare our beliefs. It helps us understand different people and their perspectives, respect others more, and supports our own personal growth.

  • How does a believer get to the goal at the end of one's life?

    • The end goal for most Catholics is to go to heaven with Jesus. To do this, we must pray, talk to God and act like disciples of Jesus.

  • What is religious bias?
    Why is it harmful when approaching the study of religion?

    • Religious bias is favoriting the religion you believe more than another one. This can be bad because it can make you negatively perceive another religion. It could also cause you to influence how you treat someone else in another religion. 

  • How does one prevent bias?

    • Investigation: read, listen, ask questions of “other” and “self”

    • Patience: LISTEN  to those within a belief system

    • Sympathetic imagination: what is it like to see things in that way

    • Charity: interpreting as reasonably as you can. What seems “crazy” to you but not those within

  • What are Padua’s Cultural norms?

    • Act out of love

    • Validate experiences

    • Learn the full story

    • Step out of your comfort zone

    • Push against ignorance

    • Represent our community

  • Who created the 7 Dimensions of religion? What was his purpose in this?

    • Ninian Smart

    • It’s a way of defining the different world religions but allowing them to be compared based on the 7 elements

  • What are each of the 7 Dimensions, you should be able to give the definition and example for each. 

    • Ritual:

      • receiving Eucharist, weddings

    • Experiential and emotional:

      • trust, guilt, awe, mystery

    • Narrative and myth: 

      • Adam and Eve

    • Doctrinal: 

      • doctrines and cree

    • Ethical: 

      • rules laws about humans, Ten commandments

    • Social: 

      • weddings

    • Material: 

      • bible, rosary, artifacts, jewelry

  • How do Catholics approach the study and treatment of other religions?

    • Researching other religions and their beliefs and talking to people in different religions. 

  • What is Nostra Aetate? What did it declare for Catholics (to be , to understand, to do?) 

    • Nostra Aetate: latin for “our time”, “in our age”

    • It declares: the unity of all peoples, the will of the catholic church to accept other religions and shared tenets

    • The commonalities of Islam with christianity and catholicism as well as the bond that ties christians to jews

    • Importance of interfaith dialogue and collaborations to promote social justice and peace, and the denunciation of discriminations