Chapter 1 Level 1 - An Invitation to the Study of World Religions

__________ explicitly denies the existence of God or gods.

Atheism

The world religion that most emphasize doctrines is

Christianity

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

Discourse, practice, community, and institution

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

False

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

False

Cite examples of the material dimension of religion, noting how other dimensions might also be relevant.

Hindu temple structures, statues of Jain tirthankaras, and Islamic arabesque decor. Smart acknowledges that the various dimensions are closely interrelated; the ethical dimension extends into the doctrinal and the mythic and so forth. That is why other dimensions are relevant because they extend into one another.

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

Immanuel Kant

Why must one have an awareness of world religions in order to be an educated person?

In own words: So that we can study appropriately by acknowledging the "dos and donts." An appropriate study of world religions does not privilege any religion as being exemplary or the model with which others are to be compared. We need to avoid terms rooted in such privileging. Mastering the "dos" and avoiding the "donts" enriches our study.

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

Karl Marx

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

Nirvana

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

Sigmund Freud

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...

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

In what ways might the study of another person's religion be analogous to studying a goldfish in a pond?

The need to balance the perspectives of an insider and outsider.

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

True

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

True

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

True

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

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

True

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

True

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

What is the correct definition of "religion"?.

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

William James

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

Zen

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

doctrinal and ritual

The capacity for seeing things from another's perspective is

empathy

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

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

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

polymethodic

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

secularization

Globalization is

the linking and intermixing of cultures

French sociologist Emile Durkheim insists in his definition of religion on...

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