The Insider's Guide To Website Protection
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
What is Religion
The belief in the existence of God or gods and the activities that are connected with the worship of them.
Religion can also be defined as "A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny"
Definitions by academics and others:
Dr. Irving Hexham of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, has assembled a list of definitions of religion from various authors and theologians. A few are:
William James: "the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto."
Alfred North Whitehead: "what the individual does with his own solitariness."
George Hegel: "the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind." 1
In 1995, subscribers to the newsgroup "alt.memetics" attempted to define religion.
Scott Hatfield: Religion is "a behaviour, process or structure whose orientation is at least partially supernatural."
One subscriber quoted H.L. Mencken 2: Religions' "...single function is to give man access to the powers which seem to control his destiny, and its single purpose is to induce those powers to be friendly to him."
Jerry Moyer: "Religion is a system of beliefs by which a people reduce anxiety over natural phenomena through some means of explication." He also cited a quotation from the writings of Paul Tillich: "Religious is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern" 3
Clifford Geertz defined religion as a cultural system:
"A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." 4
Joel Elliott, has published a slide set on "Defining Religion," 5 which cites:
B. Malinowski: "relieves anxiety and enhances social integration."
Robert Bellah: "a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence."
David Carpenter has collected and published a list of definitions of religion, including:
Anthony Wallace: "a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature."
Hall, Pilgrim, and Cavanagh: "Religion is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them."
Karl Marx: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." 6
Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred:
"Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization." 7
Paul Connelly also defines religion in terms of the sacred and the spiritual:
"Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses." 8
He defines the sacred as:
"The sacred is a mysterious manifestation of power and presence that is experienced as both primordial and transformative, inspiring awe and rapt attention. This is usually an event that represents a break or discontinuity from the ordinary, forcing a re-establishment or recalibration of perspective on the part of the experiencer, but it may also be something seemingly ordinary, repeated exposure to which gradually produces a perception of mysteriously cumulative significance out of proportion to the significance originally invested in it."
He further defines the spiritual as:
"The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions."
Religion can also be defined as "A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny"
Definitions by academics and others:
Dr. Irving Hexham of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, has assembled a list of definitions of religion from various authors and theologians. A few are:
William James: "the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto."
Alfred North Whitehead: "what the individual does with his own solitariness."
George Hegel: "the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind." 1
In 1995, subscribers to the newsgroup "alt.memetics" attempted to define religion.
Scott Hatfield: Religion is "a behaviour, process or structure whose orientation is at least partially supernatural."
One subscriber quoted H.L. Mencken 2: Religions' "...single function is to give man access to the powers which seem to control his destiny, and its single purpose is to induce those powers to be friendly to him."
Jerry Moyer: "Religion is a system of beliefs by which a people reduce anxiety over natural phenomena through some means of explication." He also cited a quotation from the writings of Paul Tillich: "Religious is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern" 3
Clifford Geertz defined religion as a cultural system:
"A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." 4
Joel Elliott, has published a slide set on "Defining Religion," 5 which cites:
B. Malinowski: "relieves anxiety and enhances social integration."
Robert Bellah: "a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence."
David Carpenter has collected and published a list of definitions of religion, including:
Anthony Wallace: "a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature."
Hall, Pilgrim, and Cavanagh: "Religion is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them."
Karl Marx: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." 6
Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred:
"Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization." 7
Paul Connelly also defines religion in terms of the sacred and the spiritual:
"Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses." 8
He defines the sacred as:
"The sacred is a mysterious manifestation of power and presence that is experienced as both primordial and transformative, inspiring awe and rapt attention. This is usually an event that represents a break or discontinuity from the ordinary, forcing a re-establishment or recalibration of perspective on the part of the experiencer, but it may also be something seemingly ordinary, repeated exposure to which gradually produces a perception of mysteriously cumulative significance out of proportion to the significance originally invested in it."
He further defines the spiritual as:
"The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions."
what isTradition
Tradition is defined as a belief, custom or way of doing some thing that has existed for a long time among a particular group of people.
Traditions are the things that make each person, family, town or country different from one another. They can be the everyday unnoticeable kind, or they can be the extravagant ones that happen on special occasions.
Traditions are the things that make each person, family, town or country different from one another. They can be the everyday unnoticeable kind, or they can be the extravagant ones that happen on special occasions.
what is culture?
culture can be define as beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular coutry, group or organization.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)