World Religions Midterm
Define Cosmological, Teleological, and Ontological argumentation for the existence of God or the validity of religion, or, state these three arguments in their class form.
Cosmological argumentation exists on causation and contingency: everything that exists must have a cause and everything that exists must have a contingency. There is an assortment of teleological arguments, but a common theme among them is the claim that certain characteristics of the natural world reflect design, purpose, and intelligence. These features of the natural world are then used as evidence for an intelligent, intentional designer of the world. Ontological argumentation states that if God can be said to exist, and at the very least in the mind's conception alone, then it is absurd that anything greater than a God could be said to exist.
Characterize the concept of "sudden enlightenment" in Buddhism with Hindu rational thinking.
Sudden enlightenment is characterized as the idea that insight is attained all at once. This is in opposition to the idea of "gradual enlightenment," which is that enlightenment can be achieved only step be step, through an arduous practice.
Define and characterize the role and significance of circumcision in African religion.
African religions engage male circumcision in adolescence to mark transition from youth to manhood. African women also go through circumcision as a mark of morality.
Define and evaluate the interrelationships of the following concepts in Hinduism: karma; samsara; moksha; dharma; atman; and brahman.
Atman basically means your eternal self, the spiritual essence of who you are. It is not the body you inhabit; not is it the sum total of your material possessions. It is the spiritual you. In very simplified terms, karma is the Hindu belief that a person's actions in life will determine their fate in the next life. Dharma is the moral force that orders the universe. It's the power that keeps the world in motion and keeps society ticking. It is when the individual upholds religious traditions, duties, laws, virtues, and stations of life. Samsara is the birth-death-rebirth cycle. Moksha is related to samsara in that it is the enlightenment from the cycle. Meaning, coming to peace and becoming whole.
Characterize, discuss and contrast the four stages of life in Hinduism.
Brahmacharya, the student stage, individuals should be preparing for success in later stages. They should gain religious training, to lay the foundation for spiritual practice. The second stage is called Grihastha. Known as the "householder" stage, it follows what most people do naturally after leaving school: maintain a home, having a family. Vanaprashta is the third stage. It begins after individuals fulfill their obligations to their families. In ancient times, once reaching this stage people would start detaching themselves from family life and the pursuit of material ends by moving to the forest time to devote more of their time to spiritual practice. Most people have stopped retiring to the forest, instead choosing to spend more time giving back to their communities, as they deepen their spiritual practice. The fourth stage is Sannyasa, renunciation. There are two traditional entry points into this stage of life. The goal of this stage is to attain liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth.
Discuss the life of Siddhartha Gautama with reference to achieving awakening in Buddhism.
By finding the path to Enlightenment, Siddhartha was led from the pain of suffering and rebirth towards the path of Enlightenment and became known as the Buddha or "awakened one." He was born into a royal family and after growing up, marrying and having a child, he went outside the royal enclosure where he lived. When he went outside he saw, each for the first time, and old man, a sick man, and a corpse. He had also seen a monk, and he decided this was a sign that he should leave his protected royal life and live as a homeless holy man. Siddhartha followed a life of extreme asceticism for six years, but this did not satisfy his desire to escape suffering. He then pursued the Middle Way, which is just what it sounds like; neither luxury nor poverty. One day, seated beneath the Bodhi tree Siddhartha became deeply absorbed in meditation, and refelcted on his experience of life, determined to penetrate its truth. He finally achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha.
Explain the importance or relevance of Experience to Buddhism.
Experience is essential to religion. Until one experiences something, the individual only knowns about it. Experience is very private and subjective, meaning it may happen to one but not the other. The endogenous mystical experience is the unity of the subject with the object; becoming one or whole with God or the object of experience. This is a monistic way of thinking and thus very Buddhist.
Explain the role of evil in HIck's concept that God is in the "soul-making" business.
Hick: God is into soul'making and needs evil to make good better.
Compare and contrast Buddhism and Hinduism with attention to the nature of self.
Hinduism is about understanding Brahma, existence, from within the Atman, which roughly means "self" or "soul," whereas Buddhism is about finding the Anatman - "not soul" or "not self." In Hinduism, attaining the highest life is a process of removing the bodily distractions from life, allowing one to eventually understand the Brahma nature within. In Buddhism, one follows a disciplined life to move through and understand that nothing in oneself is "me," such that one dispels the very illusion of existence. In so doing, one realizes Nirvana.
Evaluate the concept of creating karmic selves in Hinduism, and its relation to moksha.
Hindus generally accept the doctrine of transmigration and rebirth and the complementary belief in karma. The whole process of rebirth, called samsara, is cyclic, with no clear beginning or end, and encompasses lives of perpetual, serial attachments. Actions generated by desire and appetite bind one's spirit to an endless series of births and deaths. Desire motivates a social interaction, resulting in the mutual exchange of good and bad karma. In one prevalent view, the very meaning of salvation is moksha from this morass, an escape from the impermanence that is an inherent feature of mundane existence.
Define and characterize the interrelationships of the concepts of self, suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and interdependent origination in Buddhism.
Impermanence refers to the belief that everything in life is impermanent and changing constantly. Because everything is in a state of impermanence, attachment to them would cause suffering and would not allow an individual to attain Nirvana. Those that follow Buddhism believe that suffering is being attached to material wants. Everyone and everything in the universe is tied together is the idea of interdepentdent origination.
Characterize the concept of salvation in Jainism.
In Jainism, knowledge regarding the universe and salvation is very important because it maintains that salvation of the soul depends on understanding its predicament. And the soul's predicament is based in the makeup of the universe, which is composed of both eternal souls and infinite particles of matter.
Explain why ontologicalism provides a valid framework for comprehending Hinduism.
In contemporary moral philosophy, ontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which choices are morally required, forbidden, or permitted. In other words, ontology falls within the domain of moral theories that guide and assess out choices of what we ought to do, in contrast to those that guide and assess what kind of person we are and should be. These ideas are closely related to the Hindu religion.
Explain the meaning of the following statement: "Jainism is just a form of strict Buddhism".
Jainism and Buddhism have similar beliefs, but Jainism is distinguished from Buddhism by extreme austerity. In Jainism the extremely strict is the better way and the only way to conquer samsara.
State, explain and characterize the three key principles in Jainism
Jainism has three key principles which are non-violence, non-absolutism, and non-possessiveness. Non-Violence is compassion and forgiveness in thoughts, words and deeds towards all living beings. Non-Absolutism is respect for and seeking others' views. Jains encourage dialogue and harmony with other faiths. Non-Possessiveness is balancing of needs and desires, while staying detached from these possessions.
Characterize Jainism with attention to Jainist's appreciation for the value of all life forms.
Jainism holds that all of existence is filled with tiny life-forms. All life, no matter how simple, contains jiva, and each of us bears the karmic burden for destroying life or causing life-forms to suffer: "the higher the life-form, the heavier the karmic burden of its destruction. Levels of life are determined by their degree of sensitivity."
Compare and contrast the differences in the concepts of enlightenment (Moksha) in Hinduism, awakening (Nirvana) in Buddhism, and omniscience (Kevala) in Jainism.
Moksha in Hindu religion refers to liberation from the cycle of births and deaths as human life is believed to be one full of pains and sufferings. Nirvana in Buddhism is believed to be a state of mind when human emotions become stable, and the feeling or emotions get dissolved. Kevala in Jainism is the ultimate description of salvation. Reincarnation occurs despite an individual's ability to attain kevala, meaning everyone is reborn into another station. This process in Jainism occurs immediately which is not the case for Buddhism or Hinduism.
According to Pojman, explain why the problem of evil casts doubt on whether God exists or whether religion is valid.
The evident problem of evil is the problem of determining whether and, if so, to what extent the existence of evil constitutes evidence against the existence of God a being perfect in power, knowledge and goodness. Evidential arguments from evil attempt to show that, once we put aside any evidence there might be in support of the existence of God, it becomes unlikely, if not highly unlikely, that the world was created and is governed by an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good being. Such arguments are not to be confused with logical arguments from evil, which have the more ambitious aim of showing that, in a world in which there is evil, it is logically impossible - and not just unlikely - that God exists.
Define and characterize the 5-class caste system for reincarnation in Hinduism.
The four classes are: 1) Brahmans or Brahmins - the intellectuals and the priestly class who perform religious rituals; 2) Kshatriya (nobles or warriors) - who traditionally had power; 3) Vaishyas (commoners or merchants) - ordinary people who produce, farm, trade and earn a living; and 4) Shudras (workers) - who traditionally served the higher classes, including laborer, artists, musicians, and clerks. There are also the untouchables.
Define and characterize the four noble truths and the eight-fold path in Buddhism.
The four noble truths are life is suffering, the cause of this suffering is desire, to end desire means to end the suffering, and to do this one must follow the eight-fold path. The eight-fold path consists of the right view of the changing reality, the right resolve (committing to receiving continuous understanding / learning), right speech (speak right to people), right action (what one does, defines who one is), right livelihood (how you live your life should benefit all), right effort (put your best effort into everything/avoid bad habits), right mindfulness (essentially means what you are aware of), and right concentration (at the very heart of Buddhist thinking). If one does all of this then it leads to Nirvana.
Define and characterize the concept of spiritism in African religion
Traditional African concepts of reality and destiny are deeply rooted in the spirit world. The activities and the actions of the spirit beings govern all social and spiritual phenomena. The spirit world can be divided into two broad categories: non-human spirits and the spirits of the dead. Non-human spirits are regarded in hierarchical order in accordance with their kind and importance, depending upon their power and the role they play in the ontological order in the spirit world.
