REL Final Study Guide PDF

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CH 8- Concepts of the Divine ● Polytheism: belief or worship in more than one God Ex. in prehistoric primal societies (african societies, greek , caveman) Animalistic traditions (african traditions, voodoo, native americans etc.) ● Dualism: belief in co-eternal or co-equal powers Ex. Yin Yang , Zoroastrianism (old religion, monotheistic faith w/ a dualistic cosmogony of good & evil) ● pantheism/ monism ○ The idea that god is in everything ■ Monism → from Greek “single” ■ Indistinguishable ○ Example 1: Greek stoic philosopher – P  antheistic (believed in 1 single reality) à attacked polytheism ■ They identify reality with logos/ reason (identified with ether or fire) ○ Example 2: Hinduism (330 million gods – we have consorts, wives, elements of nature, sons of gods, etc. that are considered gods) Brahman is everywhere omniscient and omnipresent and is eternal ■ One unseen reality that lives in everything ■ Manifests in this world in many ways ■ The gods come from Brahman ● Immanent presence of brahman ■ Brahma à the creator of god and leaves ■ Vishnu à the preserver of the world (makes sure the world keeps going) ● An emanation of Brahma ● He incarnates into different people ■ Shiva → the destroyer of the world ■ Advaita Vedanta: based on the Upanishads (the soul) ● Developed more deeply by philosopher Shankara (788-820 BCE) ● Atman = Brahman ● Everything that we have around us is an illusion (won’t last forever) ○ Ex: the material life → a momentary wave

● Ignorance → wave = ocean (once we realize this, we understand life a different way) ● Maya → the illusion and the way Brahman veils itself ● Brahman is the only thing that is eternal (no beginning and no end), and we can find eternal thing in our soul bc in the end our soul is divine (he is in our soul) ○

You discover your true self and you go to another level

● Monotheism ○ Develops much later than the other elements of religion ■ Kind of like the third dimension à bringing something that is totalldifferent from what you use to do is difficult ○ Creator, infinite being, eternal, omnipotent (all powerful), omniscience (knows everything), omnipresent (present everywhere) ● ● ● ●

Panentheism Henotheism → first practiced in the bible (by the patriarchs) Panentheism Anthropomorphism → the prophets describe a lot of the “likeness of” ○ How to avoid it? Describe God by using negative predicates ○ non-dependent, not-created, nonfinite, etc.

● Religions we covered: ○ Zoroastrianism, hinduism, native religions, basic religions, daoism, gree, judaism, african traditions ● Textbook examples of gods/ goddesses in dif traditions CH 9- Cosmogony, origins of the natural and social order ● Definition: c reation stories ● Types of cosmogony ○ Emergence or procreation from a primal substance/ being ■ Hinduism: primordial sound of OM; lotus flower from lord Vishnu’s belly button ■ Egypt ■ Common theme: a form of emanation of the primal elements or beings from a watery chaos or nonbeing, or from primeval being – a god or being itself ■ Egyptian creation (primal substance – water) ● Maat (feather) – principle the gods had to live by

● Shu (god of the air) & Tefnut ○ Produced other gods (Isi, Osiris, Seth, Thoth, and Nephtys) ● Tears from Tefnut fell into the earth and they became men ○ They forever are to worship the gods and attend the earth and in return the gods will give them what they need ● A common theme in primal societies ■ The Chandogiya and Upanishads (primal being- Brahman) ■ Lord Vishnu is woken by a sound (Om) and a flower grows within him ■ In the lotus flowers comes Brahman (personification within Vishnu) ● Brahman creates the sky, water, and earth from the lotus petals ● When Brahman needs to destroy the world, he becomes Shivu ○ Sexual union of a primal male & female ■ Japan ■ The coming together of the primal opposites – often the earth and the sky ■ The appearance of the elements, the seasons, and the myriad beings that make up the natural environment are the result of the sexual union of a primeval male and female ■ Japanese “Kojiki” and “Nihongi” texts (dominant theme in the Japanese cosmogony) ● Starts off with chaos ● Egg yolk much more complicated is the earth (female) ○ Female = earth and the sky = male ○ Creation by conflict and the ordering of chaos ■ Babylonia: endma elish ■ The union is turbulent and ends in conflict and violence ■ Babylonian epic Enuma Elish – “when on high” (Babylonian creation myth) ● Marduk is placed in the Babylonian pantheon for his creation of humans ● Its focus → establishment of social order ■ Chaos → not always evil or as death and destruction ● Although the Dao cannot be described. We can live in harmony with it

● When things need to happen it will happen, if things need to change they will change (we need to adapt – we can’t change its course) ○ Creation by a divine craftsman ■ Bible- 1st story: creation ex nihilo (creation from nothing). Gives notion of time & punishment for sin ■ Bible 2nd story: androgynous being ● Traditions that reject cosmogonies ○ Jainism & buddhism: knowing cosmology won’t help you fulfill your purpose/ reach enlightenment so there’s no point in stressing where we came from ● Founder of jainism: ● Cosmogony today ○ Anthropic principle: recognition of fine tuning,requires to explain our world as we know it. -

“Since we are here,then it happened” Designed Need for metaphysical explanation

○ Creation science: creationists> scientists view of evolution have gaps,raising questions on gradual development of new ways of life ○ Intelligent design (ID) ■ After objections to scientific creation ■ ID affirms evolution ■ There is an intelligent designer behind every system with a purpose in mind ● Textbook Theologians of the early Church and Egypt CH 10- views of the human problem ● What's the human problem: the suffering we have to endure ● Suffering (where it stems from, how one needs to react) according to ○ Judaism ■ Stems from: 1) ignorance of right path & so ppl suffer for their misconduct. React by: stop doing the wrong thing, do what god wants you to do instead 2) bcs you're a good person & god is using you as an example for others. React  by: endure  it & later teach others about it ○ Christianity

■ Stems from: 1) punishment for sin. React  by: repenting 2) as disciplinary action. React by: confronting the punishment & understanding the reason for it ■ Put faith in christ to overcome ○ Islam ■ Stems from: 1) punishment for sin 2) as a test or trial react  by: alleviating when possible or enduring when necessary ■ Responses ● 1) active: do good to cancel out the evil you’re suffering for ● 2) p assive: accept god’s will, have faith and stick thru it. Endure ○ Objectivism ■ Ayn Rand said Stems from: humans bring suffering on themselves ■ Human goal is to live happy by living moral life by using reason. Moral guidelines: don’t take what you don’t deserve, develop sense of self sustainability (true happiness → thru own works), respect the rights of others ■ Optimistic: ppl can live independent, rich, fulfilling life ● Different ways of seeing human problem ○ Stoicism: suffering caused by ignorance, solved by correctly understanding the nature of the situation & adapting to the situation ■ Goal: to live in accordance with reason or nature in a rational way ● The problem: ignorance ■ Goodness is living in accordance with Nature to be in accord with Divine Reason ■ Happiness can’t be found in the pursuit of pleasure bc pleasure means the rule of passion over reason à it’s a moral virtue ○ Buddhism: goal: to find liberation from suffering ■ 4 noble truths ● 1) Dukkha: life in the universe guarantees suffering, little/ big ● 2) Suffering is caused by craving (tanha), insatiable longing, desire or attachment ● 3) Suffering stops when attachment/ desire/ craving stop ● 4) Noble 8 fold path (all about doing things right) ○ 1) right understanding of impermanence (nature of things) ○ 2) right thought/ motives

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3) right speech (how you talk about self/ others) 4) right action 5) right livelihood 6) right effort (don’t be lazy, do things timely) 7) right mindfulness 8) right meditation techniques

● Textbook The human problem according ○ Christianity ○ Confucian sages ■ Confucius believed that the solution to the incessant strife was a return to the Golden Age, to the social rites and the values of the earlier Chou rulers who Confucius taught ■ A society perseveres in the lives of those in authority and is thereby passed on to others as a “pattern of prestige” ■ Cure to the human problem → lies in education ■ Follow antique ways → modifies social conduct ■ Learning → the  imitation of exemplary models ○ Marx- w  e are alienated and unhappy because in an industrial society, our work and what we produce is alien to us ○ Freud → h uman unhappiness is brought about the conflict between the individual's drive to express his/her libidinal and erotic energies and frustrating demands of society that thwart those drives CH 11- theodicy, encountering evil ● Def of theodicy: Explanations or legitimations of evil ○ Comes from theos  that means God and dike  that means justice ● Types of theodicy (characteristics & examples) ○ Mystical participation ■ Mysticism: a loss of self in mystical participation in the Divine, or absorption in a larger spiritual reality) ■ Ex: carrying the cross – you put your faith in Christ and he suffered carrying it but you do it together as a community ■ The idea that you identify with a bigger or broader society or a mystical person ■ All your sufferings are minimized bc there is a greater society around you ■ Common in primal society à when something happens to one member the community comes together to grief ■ Personal suffering minimized à continuing prosperity of the calm

○ future/ this world ■ You’re recompensed in the future but in the same world ■ The rapture – the apostle Paul promised this miracle to Christians ● The end of the world ● Is when good people who are alive and left will be caught up together with those who have been resurrected ● The dead in Christ will also be resurrected from the dead to meet the Lord ● Will take place when it’s time for God to restore everything à Christ must remain in heaven till then ● Its eminent and it's coming soon → people will know when turbulent times occur ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Postponed into the future realized on this earth Imminent à coming soon and total Early Israel Son of man, Kingdom of God on earth Millenarian ● Revolution à just rewarded, unjust are put down ● Popular at times of natural disaster/ social upheaval

■ Millerites ● He believed the world would end on October 22, 1844 ● As date approached, true believers prepared to meet God (abandoned their business and threw away their money) ● Day of October 22 believers woke to a world unchanged ● It was all an interpretation of Biblical readings ○ Other-wordly ■ You’re recompensed in another world like heaven (next world) ■ The idea that you get recompensed for all your sufferings on Earth in Heaven ■ Common in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and some Mahayana schools ■ Compensation for present suffering à in a life after death ● Ex: Shi’ite ‘passion play’ of Hussein ○ ○ ○ ○

The commemorate the massacre of the prophet Muhammad They commemorate Imam Hussein (event in Iraq) The whole idea is to suffer the same way Hussein suffered It’s okay to suffer bc you’re doing it for the cause and you’ll be recompensed in the after life

● Martyrdom – Ashura ○ Dualistic ■ Two opposing forces and one of them is evil ■ Not a prevalent in modern world religions ■ All evil and suffering created by satanic forces that now rule this world ● Ex: Zoroastrianism ● Mandaeans → gnostic sect who believed in the world of light and world of darkness who lived in constant battle ○ People pick a side ○ Targeted by Iraqis ○ Don’t accept converts à traditions are disappearing ○ Karma-samsara ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The action and the consequence of the action There’s evil bc you do bad things so bad things will happen to you Max weber believes it’s the most rational Classical Indian theodicy Doctrines of Dharma ● Also, Buddhism (Samsara- your duty is to escape the wheel and the only way is through karma) and Jainism ● Liberation = Moksha

■ You come back into the world until you learn what’s the right thing to do ■ Dharma in Hinduism – one’s duty ● Ex: Bhagavad Gita ○ “it’s your duty to kill” ■ We have no one to praise or blame for our successes or for our misfortunes and suffering ○ Monotheistic ■ Problem → there’s one super power that has the power of doing and knowing everything so why doesn’t God stop evil? ■ How do you justify evil if you have one god that is powerful? ■ Story of Job ● Satan tests Job’s faith to God ○ Kills his children, servants, and everything he owned ○ Job did not blame God for the struggles

■ Then Satan brings sickness in him to test him once again ○ Job did not blame God yet again ○ Job wants to know why the Lord sickened him ■ Lord says if he dares to accuse God of evil ■ There are things you don’t understand, that you can’t question, and that all men and women will never be equal to God ■ Job asks for forgiveness and prays for his friends ○ God gives Job twice as much as he had ■ Disturbing story bc God puts Job through all of this for no reason ○ ○ ○ ○

He picked Job to test his strengths You suffer bc you’re good – Judaism Game between God and Satan Story gives us different types of theodicies

○ Protest (example of proponent) ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Story of Job Story of Holocaust survivor (Elie Wiesel) God needs to be put in trial to take responsibility Still believing in God but need answers God can’t be exonerated bc of human free-will God is guilty and share responsibility for evil

○ Free will defense ■ Started by philosopher John Hick ■ World was not created for man's pleasure; includes danger, hardship, etc. ■ “A perfect world” à doesn’t let you develop as a human being (human qualities) ■ Non-believer à not created by a perfect benevolent being ■ God’s intention not to construct a paradise à a “soul-making” place à theodicy of “soul-making” ● By seeing other people suffer and share your suffering ■ Free will → doing evil has to be an option for man, or he is not truly free to do good ● If there are no consequences, you can’t become a better person

○ Process Theodicy ■ Created by Charles Hartshorne and North Whitehead ■ All reality → process and change, including God ● All matter is connected ■ A social process à world composed of entities that respond to and are responded by free activities of other entities ■ Nothing, including God, can wholly determine the being of others ● Everything is a process ■ The evil in this world has nothing to do with god à decisions other than God’s own ■ God cannot eliminate evil but can minimize it while maximize possibilities for good ■ What you do may influence how God acts ○ Textbook ■ Taborites, Free Will defense, Process Theodicy CH 12- Ethics, foundations of moral action ● ● ● ●

Definition of e thics Definition of r eligious ethics Sources of religious ethics Types of ethics ○ Ethics of obligation (characteristics & ex) ■ Teleological -

“consequentialism” telos: end or goal Logos:discourse Jeremy Bentham: ‘the greater good for the greater number” Utilitarian philosophy-research based approach

■ Deontological -

Deon: Duty Immanuel Kant Focuses on the action itself Ex. right act might be on in which consequence might not be the best. People follow their rules and do their duty

○ Ethics of virtue/ cardinal virtues ■ Traits of a saint/ sage/ religious founder - Does not set general principals Good character traits Ideal moral ● Sources and Norms of Moral authority (characteristic and examples given) ○ ○ ○ ○

Cosmic or natural law Moral exemplars/ prophets Ethics of Divine Command Examples in each one ■ ■ ■ ■

bodhisattva Gandhi Deborah the Dao

● Textbook ○ Thomas Aquinas- Roman catholic leader; Moral law is God’s divine plan for human begins ○ Men Tzu- (Mencius) Second sage; Humans are born with an innate “child-like heart” called hsin  meaning “heart-mind” ○ Examples in Islam ○ Reform JudaismCH 13- soteriology, ways & goals of salvation & liberation ● Ways of salvation ○ ○ ○ ○

Faith devotion Action & obligation Meditation & insight ■ Types of yoga & main characteristics -Yoga-union -purpose: to increase sattvic (state of balance.purity,wisdom and peacefulness) 1. Karma Yoga-path of right action

● Luther- Bothered by penance and repentance ● Calvin- god already determined fate

● Amida buddha -

Metaphor- enlightenment in everyday life

● Concept of salvation -

Process of being delivered,redeemed or liberated An essential goal of religion Religion > “vehicle” to salvation and liberation

○ What humanists think ab it & when it happens ○ Afterlife treatment of body -treatment of death> important in afterlife -EX. Afterlife in egypt: Pyramid texts- important to understand religion Recorded in interior burial rooms of the pyramid of Unas Provided a combination of rituals,hymns,prayers incarnations ● ● ● ●

Book of the dead- last judgement of Osiris

Textbook The way of action and obligation, Concepts of Heaven and Hell, Judaism, Psychoanalysis

CH 14- secularization: new religious revitalization movements & contemporary religious fundamentalism ● Definition & characteristics of f undamentalism ● Def of s ecularization- separation of church and state ex given in class: 1648> peace of westphalia ● Jihad, religion’s growth, the quran & jihad, ISIS ● Textbook ○ ○ ○ ○

Wahhabism Bin laden Islamic opinion on modernization Ayatollah

● Khomeini ● Ex given of fundamentalist group ● Secularization refers to any behavior separate from religious behavior

● Most notable secular act in the United States was removing prayer in schools (1962-1963) ● Secularization in Roman Catholics is disapproving ● Fundamentalism oppose modernism; resist threats to their traditions; the pure traditions was given by God (God’s word basically); tend to focus their anger on one thing, group, person ● In the Qu’ran, there are two types of Jihad: Greater (struggle against one’s lower self); Lesser (external efforts to protect the way of God; supports both a passive and active believer) ● Jihad is not for personal gain but for the community ● Jihadist believe that the future of the world will become Islamic Quiz for chapter 8 & 9 The name of God in Zoroastrianism is A  hura Madza According to the textbook, who was the most important of the Egyptian goddess? I sis What tradition was given in class as an example of Dualism? Z  oroastrianism Which of the following can NOT be described as an animalistic tradition? Buddhism *Ashera is the consort of Shiva False, Parvati The example given on the textbook of the interaction between Uranus and Gaea in Greek mythology is an example of what type of cosmogony? Sexual union of primal male and female It is believed that the first two chapters in Genesis were written by two different sources in two different times True The Japanese “Kojiki” and “Nihongi” texts are an example of creation by emergence or procreation from a primal substance or being F  alse, The Sexual Union of a Primal Male and Female This is not a science, but rather a religious belief of a very specific kind. C  reation Science *Examples of creation by Sexual Union of a Primal Male and Female can be found in all of these traditions EXCEPT: Zoroastrianism Which two religions reject cosmogonic speculation? J ainism/Buddhism Creation ex nihilo is associated with all the following religions except: Hinduism The textbook states that the Egyptian accepted different accounts of creation, with no need to reject any: T  rue

Quiz chapter 10 & 11 The book states that Confucian sage Hsun Tzu traced the human p...