There are varieties of cosmos, one being a “Region of the Great Spirit”. According to Schlegel (2006), the Great Spirit is a creator of everything and is neither male or female, omnipresent, omniscient, nor omnipotent. (p. 217). “Everything was saturated with spiritual significance,” he notes (p.…
Molloy, M. (2010). Experiencing the world’s religions: Tradition, challenge, and change (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.…
Religion is one of the pillars of society. It can be used to rule the common with fair and just practice or it can be used for a rulers own self-improvement and greed. Many times over the course of world history religion is misconstrued and leads individuals to believe self-interrupted version of its holy text. Two of the most prominent religions in world history Islam and Christianity were used to empower those in high authority. This point is made clear with the documents discussed, and show readers that religion is nothing more than tool for the intellect to take advantage of the common masses of society.…
axis-mundi: A universal center , connects and supports the heavens and the Earth, religious man seperates the world according to Axis Mundi…
Although religions today take on many shapes and forms, and may seem so dramatically different from each other, in order to study and understand these religions, their similarities must be identified. This paper will first present a definition of religion that will connect to all religions at the simplest base. Then this paper will examine the common practices and experiences that are present in both the primary religions of the world, as well as the indigenous religions. Finally, this paper will discuss the issues that are critical to the academic study of religions.…
According to the linguistic roots of the term religion re-, means “again” and lig-, means “join” or “connect”. The word religion proposes the joining of the human world to the sacred world (Molloy, 2010). In my personal point of view religion is very important because it allows us to believe that there is a God who loves us and wants us to be happy. There are different types of religions and none of them are wrong if they lead people to a life of love, joy, compassion, and service. The question of why religions exist is evidently because it serves as human needs (Molloy, 2010). One of the first needs of humans is having a meaning when it comes to dealing with our mortality. It is very common that as individuals we try to look for a purpose of why different situations happen in life especially when we have no control over them. The religion we belong to can give us comfort to some level in our life. There are some elements known to involve a religion regardless of which one it is which will be discussed in this paper. Also this paper will mention the relationships with the divine, sacred time, sacred space or the natural world, and the relationship with each other.…
This paper is intended to show how religion is perceived to have several common elements but in essence that is not a true statement based on the terminology used to describe “religious practices”. People believe that typically religions have overlapping themes such as: higher powers to worship, followers, codes of conduct or morals, and a place of worship, however not all do. Because the term religion arose in western society it mainly only focuses on western culture and may not fully encompass the beliefs of different cultures in other parts of…
Religion has and always will be one of the major forces that drives and has constantly shaped our world. Throughout the centuries wars have been fought, laws have been created, countries and towns have been built and demolished all to protect or to make known a religion. In this paper I will examine the characteristics of the three major Western religions of the world including Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The origin of all three religions will be covered as well as there view of God and several conflicts they have. Several beliefs such as judgment and the trinity will also be examined..…
Religion marks the cultural landscape by churches and mosques, cemeteries, shrines, statues, symbols, the way people dress and the personal habits of people.…
Sacred space and making the world sacred, is an extract from theorist Mircea Eliade’s 1987 book The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion. Mircea Eliade’s argument is that there is no such thing as a homogeneous space, even for the non-religious man. He presents this argument that all religions share something in common, by identifying the difference between the sacred and the profane it gives us a meaning of life. According to Eliade, “Where the sacred manifests it-self in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence,” this manifestation can occur in the form of a hierophany or a theophany; both allow us to identify our axis mundi or absolute fixed. Hierophany being the manifestation of the holy and theophany means manifestation of God or the divine into the mundane world. To support his argument, Eliade presents us with his five key points regarding religion. To the religious man, religion differentiates between sacred and profane space through hierophany and theophany. Second, as presented in creation stories it has the ability to orients us; allowing us to identify our place in the cosmos. “Life is not possible without and opening toward the transcendent; in other words, human beings cannot live in chaos”. According Elaide, the religious man hungers after the transcendent and for that reason he needs an axis mundi; a sacred world center that permits him to communicate with the divine. His fourth key point is the consecration of sacred space, for the religious man it is the repeating of the cosmogony in the name of their God. In his final key point Eliade compares and contrasts the religious man and the modern man. According to him, “religious man can live only in a sacred world…it is there that he has real existence,” for that reason he hungers after the transcendent. According to Eliade, non-religious man on the other hand leaves us disoriented about our existence. Their idea of a sacred space differs from that of the religious man;…
Several people find Mircea Eliade’s view on religion similar to Emile Durkheim’s, but in truth, it is similar to Tylor and Frazer’s. One of Eliade’s major works was The Sacred and the Profane. In his writings he explains that his understanding of religion are two concepts: the sacred and the profane. The profane consists of things that are ordinary, random, and unimportant, while the sacred is the opposite. The sacred “is the sphere of supernatural, of things extraordinary, memorable, and momentous” (Pals 199). When Durkheim mentioned the sacred and the profane, he was concerned about society and its needs. In Eliade’s view, the concern of religion is with the supernatural. To Eliade, the profane doesn’t hold as much meaning as the sacred. He describes profane as vanishing and fragile, while the sacred as eternal and full of substance. He does not try to explain away religion and reject all reductionist efforts. Eliade only focuses on “timeless forms.” He says they reoccur in religions all over the world, but he ignores their specific context and dismisses them as irrelevant. He also ties religion to archaic people whom he defines as, “those who have lived in the world of nature,” (Pals 198) or those who have hunted, fished, and farmed routinely. Archaic people want to live life in the model of the divine because they have a deep longing for paradise, and to be close to God. Also, Eliade is an admirer of how myths tell the stories of not only gods but also on the struggles of life. He says that humanity is forming a new belief system in which the belief is of whether or not there really is a God. Eliade states that because of this theory, we must learn to live without the sacred. Eliade certainly has an interesting approach on religion.…
In this initiation the Kurnai have a formal way of bringing a man's son into the…
[ 9 ]. Armstrong, 25; Michael Malloy, Experiencing the World’s Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and Change (California: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1999), 119.…
Islam is an Abrahamic religion followed predominantly by those living in the Middle East and northern parts of Africa. The Arabic word “islam”, or “surrender” in English, encompasses what all Muslims are expected to do--surrender to Allah and his will. The teachings of Allah through Muhammad are known as the Qur’an. To Muslims, these teachings are a way of life that reaches past being a moral code for the individual and into the social aspects of their society.…
There are many unique religions of the ancient world, each with their own different origins. Although, because of the interactions of people through trade and other influences, many similarities between religions were brought up. Many of theses religions shared common traits and beliefs such as monotheism, religious ceremonies, and prophets. But, there were few religions that were set apart from other religious influences either geographically or mentally. Although monotheism was a popular belief, few people attempted to change into worship of a single god, but were rejected. Some may not have even involved gods, but simply relied on moral conduct or on an all powerful “spirit”. These, and other topics, will be described to show the similarities…