World Religion Chapter 1

Tended to take for granted that Christianity was a model of what religion ought to be.

A primary concern regarding a sound academic approach to the study of world religions involves the fact that it arose within an intellectual culture that

To know one just one religion is to know none..

A statement that is foundational to the field of religious studies is:

institution

According to Bruce Lincoln's definition, the fourth "domain" of religion is __________.

in their solitude

According to William James, religion is "the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men __________."

polymethodic

Along with being cross-cultural, religious studies is multidisciplinary, or __________, drawing on the contributions of various disciplines and fields of study.

William James

American psychologist __________ emphasizes in his definition the individual nature of religion.

nativity site, buddha's tree, city of mecca

Among many examples of a place of special significance established by a hierophany is

transcendent

Both the numinous and nirvana are examples of __________ states of existence.

Discourse, practice, community, and institution.

Bruce Lincoln's definition of religion emphasizes four "domains":

What is the ground of consciousness?.

Certain basic and extremely significant scientific questions remain unanswered; for example,

Immanuel Kant

Enlightenment thinkers, most influentially the German philosopher __________, conceived of religion as something separate from the various phenomena the human mind is capable of perceiving.

pluralistic

For many individuals who live in religiously __________ societies, it is difficult to regard any one religious worldview as the only viable one.

supernatural beings and events normally are held to be beyond its reach.

For the academic study of religion, as opposed to doing religion or being religious,

The unification brought about by "beliefs and practices," culminating in a "moral community called a Church".

French sociologist Émile Durkheim insists in his definition of religion on

the linking and intermixing of cultures.

Globalization is

secularization

Globalization, like modernization, has nurtured the notably modern process of __________, the general turning away from traditional religious authority and institutions.

a plurality of gods but elevates one of them to special status.

Henotheism acknowledges

Mircea Eliade

Historian of religions __________ describes the hierophany as a manifestation of the sacred that helps a people to establish its cosmology.

10 percent

In 2009, the percentage of senior pastors in Protestant Christian churches who are women was

Peter Berger

In the words of sociologist __________, "a definition is not more or less true, only more or less useful."

nirvana

Modes of experience such as Buddhist __________ are by definition beyond the reach of empirical observation and of description.

Sigmund Freud

Psychologist __________ asserted that religion is "the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity."

Karl Marx

Religion functions in an unhealthy manner as an opiate that deters the suffering individual from attending to the true cause of affliction, according to

doctrinal and ritual

Religious scholar Ninian Smart's "dimensional" scheme divides the various aspects of religious traditions into seven dimensions, which include

False

Rudolf Otto gives preference to the mystical experience, a category that includes such phenomena as Buddhist nirvana.

describes the encounter with "the Holy" as "numinous".

Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy

Carl Jung

Swiss psychologist __________ made vital contributions to the study of religious symbolism and of the general role of the unconscious mind in the religious life.

True

T/F "World Religions" has been a prominent course of study in American colleges and universities for nearly a century.

False

T/F Bruce Lincoln's definition of religion could not leave room for an atheistic tradition.

True

T/F Experiencing transcendence does not depend upon believing in God or gods.

False

T/F In monotheistic religions, the world is normally depicted as a kind of illusion, somehow not altogether real or permanently abiding.

False

T/F Karl Marx was a thoroughgoing idealist who insisted that religious ideas can cause great changes in the economy.

False

T/F Monotheism is the belief in one god who is more powerful than the rest.

True

T/F Neither Freud nor Marx ever tried actually to define religion; rather, they tried to explain it away.

True

T/F One effect of feminist theory has been to reveal contributions of women through the ages that hitherto have been largely ignored.

True

T/F Quasi-divine figures, such as angels and demons, though difficult to categorize, are important elements of religion nonetheless.

True

T/F Religions typically prescribe what is right behavior and what is wrong based on a set of ethical tenets such as the Jewish and Christian Ten Commandments.

True

T/F Religious cosmologies typically describe both the origin and the status of the universe.

True

T/F Some religions, Christianity among them, teach that both revealed ethics and individual conscience work together as means of distinguishing right from wrong.

False

T/F The academic study of religion has been an important field of study in universities for several centuries.

True

T/F The attempt to define religion is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning for the most part with the European Enlightenment of the 18th century.

True

T/F The traditional Catholic doctrine of purgatory anticipates an intermediary destiny somewhere between the perfect bliss of heaven and the horrible agony of hell.

empathy

The capacity for seeing things from another's perspective is

Origin of Species

The encounter of religion and science can clearly be observed by noting the impact of Charles Darwin's __________.

is pronounced in similar forms in the scriptures of virtually all of the world's major traditions.

The so-called Golden Rule set forth in the Christian New Testament

Christianity

The world religion that most emphasize doctrines is

an effect of societal forces

Underlying Durkheim's definition is a theory that reduces religion to being

Christianity

Until the late decades of the 19th century, theorists applied the term "world religion" only to __________.

What is the correct definition of "religion"?.

Which of the following is not among the prominent questions addressed by religions?

It is brought about through prayer on the part of a congregation of worshipers..

Which of the following is not typical of religious revelation?

Zen

__________ Buddhism refuses to make much at all of death beyond acknowledging its natural place in the order of things.

atheism

__________ explicitly denies the existence of God or gods.