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reli 101 midterm 1
kripal midterm
201
Religious Studies
Undergraduate 2
10/04/2010

Additional Religious Studies Flashcards

 


 

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Term
1532
Definition
the year the Incas in Peru, were destroyed by Spanish Conquistadors, ROman Catholicism was enforced from then on
Term
Akbar
Definition
Mughal emperor who fused Persian-Indian sensibilities inspired him to create a small college of comparative religion at his north Indian court and to establish in 1582 a new universal religion later dubbed the Divine Faith (Din-i-Ilahi)
Term
Akhenaten
Definition
(1375--‐1350 BCE), , previously Pharaoh Amenophis IV, was a visionary Egyptian pharaoh who “reformed” Egyptian religion to focus solely on the sun-god. Aten, suppressing traditional state religion and gods; some have argued that this is not only the birth of monotheism, but that it is also likely the source of Moses, the Egyptian reformer
Term
Apolegetic term
Definition
religious categories that are designed to estalish the superior truths of one's own religious worldview
Term
Arnold van Gennep
Definition
a Belgian anthropologist who observed that many rituals follow a tripartite pattern in which there are components of separation, transition, and reincorporation
Term
Ashrama
Definition
one of four stages in the Hindu age-based social system. The layers consist of students, householders, retirees, and renouncers
Term
Atheism
Definition
the elief that there are no deities
Term
Atman
Definition
soul or self in Sanskrit
Term
Avatara
Definition
an incarnation of God as one of many forms
Term
Aztecs
Definition
society in Valley of Mexico and founded city about 1370 CE; fed sun with blood through up to 20,000 human sacrifices each year
Term
BCE
Definition
“Before Common Era”; a way of structuring time that aligned with the Christian way but is the scholarly attempt to combine both practicality (the commonness of the Christian time system) and objectiveness (changing the name from B.C. “Before Christ” to something more secular)
Term
Bronze Age
Definition
time period (approximately 3300-1200 BCE) marked by use of bronze
Term
CE
Definition
“Common Era”; a way of structuring time that aligned with the Christian way but is the scholarly attempt to combine both practicality (the commonness of the Christian time system) and objectiveness (changing the name from A.D.- “anno domini”/ “year of the Lord” to something more secular)
Term
Calvinism
Definition
a Protestant branch of Christianity that originated with the French theologian-reformer John Calvin [1509-1564]
Term
Canon
Definition
body of Authoritative texts
Term
Celts
Definition
a term no longer used as a cultural marker; had an intense localism in their religions: reported to believe in reincarnation and supposedly were addicted to human sacrifice in larger whicker figures, but both may be projections and/or propaganda; animal sacrifice certainly existed, and probably human sacrifice
Term
Christ of Faith
Definition
The figure of Christ as seen as a in the Bible alone- religious figure who possessed divine traits, rose from the dead and can save souls.
Term
Circumcision
Definition
the cutting off of the prepuce in males or the inner labia in females as a religious rite
Term
Communitas
Definition
an intense community spirit, the feeling of great solidarity and togetherness. Communitas is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together
Term
Confucius
Definition
a chinese scholar-sage and political theorist credited with the founding of Confucianism
Term
Counterculture
Definition
the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Examples include the Romantics, hippies, Vietnam-protestors, etc
Term
Cynic
Definition
Greek philosophy that held that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, and living a simple life free from all possessions. They believed that the world belonged equally to everyone, and that suffering was caused by false judgments of what was valuable and by the worthless customs and conventions which surrounded society. Many of these thoughts were later absorbed into Stoicism.
Term
David Hume
Definition
(1711-1776) England's most eloquent voice / philosopher during the Enlightenment
Term
David Strauss
Definition
Author of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835). He was a pantheist
Term
Deism
Definition
the natural theology that views the universe as a kind of machine with God as its assembler, a God, moreover, who “steps back” and takes no more concern in the world
Term
Dharma
Definition
in Hinduism, cosmic order, the law of existence, right conduct. In Buddhism, the teaching of the Buddha.
Term
Digambaras
Definition
members of a major sect of Jains who followed Mahavira in believing in the virtue of total nudity. Numerous in the south of India
Term
Druids
Definition
were important in Celtic societies and religion, although their teachings and roles are largely unknown
Term
Dumuzi
Definition
Sumerian shepherd who marries the goddess Inanna and is carried off to the underworld; re--‐enacted between king and priestess in sacred marriage ceremony to ensure prosperity
Term
El
Definition
When the Akkadians arose in 2300BCE, they set up the Semitic empire; under them, the Sumerian god Anu became El
Term
Enlightenment
Definition
41. Enlightenment: idea arising in eighteenth-century France, England, Germany, and America that there was only one sure and safe way to guarantee that human beings would arrive at real and reliable truths about the world: human reason. Only reason freed from any and all external authorities, especially religious and political ones, could act as a reliable guide for human conduct and the search for truth.

a. In England, the Enlightenment found its most eloquent voice in the thoughts of the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776); in France, in the satirist Voltaire (1694-1778); in America, in the pamphleteerist, political theorist, and provocateur Thomas Paine (1737-1809); and in Germany (really Prussia), in the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
Term
Enlightenment
Definition
41. Enlightenment: idea arising in eighteenth-century France, England, Germany, and America that there was only one sure and safe way to guarantee that human beings would arrive at real and reliable truths about the world: human reason. Only reason freed from any and all external authorities, especially religious and political ones, could act as a reliable guide for human conduct and the search for truth.

a. In England, the Enlightenment found its most eloquent voice in the thoughts of the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776); in France, in the satirist Voltaire (1694-1778); in America, in the pamphleteerist, political theorist, and provocateur Thomas Paine (1737-1809); and in Germany (really Prussia), in the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
Term
Epic of Gilgamesh
Definition
an early piece of literature that probably predated the writing of Genesis and that includes a flood story
Term
Euhemerism
Definition
 the theory that the gods had originally been human beings who were worshipped in their own lives for their accomplishments and later, after their deaths, were divinized as local gods; advanced originally by Euhemerus (c. 330-260 BCE)
Term
FWJ Schelling
Definition
(1775-1874) a German idealist active during the Renaissance
Term
GWF Hegel
Definition
(1770-1831) a German idealist active during the Renaissance
Term
Gautama Buddha
Definition
Indian wisdom teacher and founder of Buddhism
Term
Hammurabi's code
Definition
an ancient Sumerian "law book" inscribed on a piece of black basalt around 1780 BCE
Term
Heresy
Definition
opinion held that is different from orthodoxy
Term
Herm
Definition
the Roman/ Greek god Hermes was a phallic god, associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. Herms were a bust of Hermes' head, usually with a beard, sitting on the top of a pillar with male genitals adorning the base, and they were used as boundary markers on roads and borders
Term
Hindutva
Definition
the term used to described movements advocating Hindu nationalism
Term
Holocaust
Definition
A period of history in which eleven to seventeen million people, mostly Jews, lost their lives in the gas chambers, human ovens, and labor prisons of the Nazi concentration camps
Term
Hunting/Gathering societies
Definition
ancient societal structure in which groups of people sustained themselves through hunting and gathering wild plants, as opposed to farming
Term
Idealism
Definition
a philosophical position that privileges Mind as the ultimate nature of reality. Hegel developed a version of idealism that asserted that a universal Mind or Spirit (Geist) is being increasingly revealed and actualized through the history of human civilization, culture, philosophy, and religion

a. A number of scholars have explained in great detail how the German philosopher, and indeed the Romantic movement as a whole, drew on both the earlier mystical strands of German mysticism, embodied best in figure like the medieval monk and preacher Meister (or “Master”) Eckhart (1260-1328) and the shoe-maker mystic Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), as well as on various Hermetic strands of thought and imagination
Term
Immanuel Kant
Definition
1724-1804 enlightenment
Term
Inanna
Definition
Sumerian love/war goddes
Term
Incas
Definition
Latin American society existing from 1200--‐1532 in Peru, were destroyed by Spanish Conquistadors and had Roman Catholicism enforced from then on
Term
Iron Age
Definition
Time period (approximately 1300 BCE) marked by use of iron and steel as most advanced technology
Term
Ishtar
Definition
When the Akkadians arose in 2300BCE, they set up the Semitic empire; under them, the Sumerian goddess Inanna became Ishtar
Term
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Definition
(1749-1832) a German idealist active during the Renaissance
Term
John Calvin
Definition
(1509-1564) a French theologian who was active during the Protestant Reformation
Term
John Wycliffe
Definition
(c. 1324-1384) probably the first man to try to translate the Latin Bible into the language of the people, in his case English; posthumously disgraced by the church for doing so
Term
Kabir
Definition

 

  1. (1440-1518 CE) a fifteenth-century Indian poet who attempted to sing his listeners out of the religious ideas that made normative discrimination based on religious beliefs possible, particularly between Hindus and Muslims

 

Term
Karl Marx
Definition
(1818-1883): Inspired by Hegel’s evolutionary view of history, advanced his own theory of history, whereby different socio-economic arrangements (how things are produced and sold toward the production of wealth and the stratification of society into “classes”) produce different forms of human consciousness, which in turn produce different socio-economic practices, which in turn produce different forms of consciousness, and so on
Term
Lao-Tzi
Definition
a Chinese nature mystic credited of Daoism
Term
Literalism
Definition

  1. any approach to a scriptural text that locates its primary sense in the “literal” meaning of words

Term
Lower Paleolithic
Definition
Time period (before 30,000 BCE)characterized by:
a. -hunter gatherers
b. -pre-human hominids
c. -cross symbol, dividing the universe into four quarters
d. -Siberian peoples move to the new world 60k years ago
i. -others move to Australia around 30k years ago
Term
Mahavira
Definition
a great Jain teacher who abolished the distinctions of the caste system and tried to spread his teachings among the Brahmins. He starved himself to death at the age of 72 after having spent his last years completely naked
Term
Marisilio Ficino
Definition
(1433-1499) an Italian scholar who translated the Corpus Hermeticum or The Books of Hermes, a book influential on the humanism movement, for a wealthy patron.
Term
Marxism
Definition
(called “dialectical materialism” by Marx):.argues that human consciousness and economic activity make each other up, that they cannot be separated. A form of materialism to the extent that it expresses the philosophical position that there is only matter; there is no such thing as spirit, soul, or Mind. Marxism views religion as essentially a form of “false consciousness,” that is, it is an illusion that encourages people to focus on non-existent fantasies (like “heaven” or “God” or “salvation”) and so prevents them from tending to the real material and economic structures that keep them oppressed
Term
Maya
Definition
society existing 300--‐900CE in Central America; religion was characterized by human sacrifice of the beating heart- rain gods or Chacs preferred child sacrifices. Teotihuacan in Valley of Mexico about same time—a theocracy fell to invaders around 700CE
Term
Meister
Definition
Master, medieval monk or preacher. cited often in IDealism and German mysticism
Term
Moksha
Definition
liberation from samsara. Perfection of spiritual insight experienced by an enlightened soul after the physical body has died
Term
Myth
Definition
"a foundational story that grounds a particular worldview or culture"
Term
Neblim
Definition
the prophetic section of the Hebrew scriptures
Term
Neo-Platonists
Definition

  1. the followers of the philosophy of Plato in the Common Era who developed his ideas in new directions, largely under the influence of Plotinus

Term
Neolithic Time Period
Definition
Time period (approximately 10,000-3,000 BCE) characterized by:
a. -stone objects no longer chipped but ground and polished
b. -shift from hunting to agriculture and producing
c. -melting of ice age
d. -civilizations arise in Middle East, SE Asia and Central America
e. -horse domestication 900 BCE in Middle East
f. -maize around 5000 BCE
g. -inhumation (body burial), like a seed
h. -goddess figures and serpents as sexual/ fertility symbols
i. -bull as a fertility symbol
j. -megaliths in Europe
k. -Pyramids in Egypt and Mayan
l. -the centrality of the sacred kings, priestly hierarchy, rituals and sacrifices, sky as associated with Gods or God
Term
Norse
Definition
Scandinavian Viking culture from 800--‐1000 CE; what we know about their religion is from later Christian and Arabic writers; the god Thor was central for sure, particularly for the common people; Odin was king of the world and patron of warriors; Loki was the trickster; Frejya was the Lady; cosmology consisted of an immense Yggdrasil cosmic tree supporting nine different worlds, each populated by different beings: giants, elves, gods, dwarves, etc; there was conflict between the worlds
Term
Olmecs
Definition
Latin American society that existed 1200--‐500BCE on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. They built carefully-planned temple communities and their religion seems to have been focused on the jaguar in many forms
Term
Orthodoxy
Definition
what a religion considers correct teaching
Term
Othopax
Definition
religious elements that places emphasis on right action or practice rather than right belief.
Term
Pantheism
Definition
the positition that "all is god" (pan-theos)
Term
Pico della Mirandola
Definition
(1463-1494 CE): Italian philosopher who wrote one of the era’s most famous essays, his "Oration on the Dignity of Man" (1486 CE). He wrote of the unimaginable powers of human nature, which he suggested resides in a third space between the natural and supernatural worlds. Positioned thus, human nature is capable of creating and recreating itself anew without end, essentially that there is no single way to be human, and to be human is to be potentially divine.
Term
Polemic term
Definition
religious categories that are designed to criticize, subordinate, or argue against another religious world view
Term
Projection theory
Definition
A theory that says the gods are "projected," like a movie, out of the human brain and its fantastic ability to tell itself stories or myths
Term
Purity Codes
Definition
the ways in which a religious system controls people and implicitly and explicitly values some individuals over others many times based off of arbitrary ideas about cleanliness
Term
Race
Definition
a social category describing ones membership into a group defined by culture, ethnicity, language, and/or social practices
Term
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Definition
a 19th century author who fathered the transcendentalist movement
Term
Renaissane Humanism
Definition
fifteenth and sixteenth century intellectual movement centered in Italy that valued scholarship, language study, the arts, and particularly the ancient Greek and Latin classics in order to begin developing a worldview that could celebrate the human being as the unique pinnacle of God's creation
Term
Revalation
Definition
making something known to the public through direct or indirect contact with divinity or a supernatural power
Term
Romantic Movement
Definition
a movement in response to the cold rationality of the Enlightenment that stressed poetic, religious, and visionary human experience; sought to combine the “reason” of the Enlightenment with a renewed “faith” in the poetic powers of the human being
Term
Sacred Marriage
Definition
a Sumerian ritual in which a king and a priestess get married to reenact the marriage of the shepherd Dumuzi and the war goddess Inanna. The latter figures got carried off to the underworld after marriage because it was one between a divine figure and a mere mortal
Term
Sallekhana
Definition
the Jain religious ritual of voluntary death by fasting
Term
Samsara
Definition
the cycle of birth and death followed by rebirth applied both to individuals and to the universe itself
Term
Samuel Coleridge
Definition
an English romantic poet
Term
Scripture
Definition
a portion of a religious canon that is thought to be authoritative within a particular tradition, often because it is thought to be the word of the divine
Term
Seed:soil
Definition
the agricultural metaphor for the roles of men and women in procreation
Term
Shvetambaras
Definition
members of Jain sect who rejected the Digambara value of total nudity
Term
Sikhism
Definition
a monotheistic Indian religion proclaimed by Guru Nanak that includes a theology that acknowledges the reality of reincarnation, insists on the equality of all human beings, and opposes the Hindu caste system
Term
Sikhism
Definition
a religion that developed in North India in the fifteenth century CE as a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam
Term
Skeptic
Definition
one who rejects the notion that anything can be certain. Subscribers to this position posit no certain truths about the world
Term
Society of Friends
Definition
the formal name for the Quaker Church
Term
Stoic
Definition
someone who believed that the world order reflects divine intelligence – logos present in all of creation. Humans can attain virtue by exercising courage and self-control
Term
TOrah
Definition
In Hebrew, "the Law". Also used, more loosely, to refer to the entire set of Hebrew scriptures
Term
The book of the dead
Definition
the name given to various collections of spells buried with the dead of ancient Egypt to assist their souls through judgment
Term
Thomas Paine
Definition
(1737-1809) germany philosopher enlightenment
Term
Thor
Definition
the norse god of thunder and lightning. he wields a great hammer and is the son of mother earth. his wife, Sif is a corn goddess. he is associated with agriculture and protects Midgard against the giants
Term
Tirthankaras
Definition
a human being who achieves enlightenment (perfect knowledge) through asceticism and who then becomes a role-model teacher for those seeking spiritual guidance.
Term
Toltec
Definition
a civilization thriving around 980 CE in north-central Mexico. The fifth ruler fled to the Yucatan and built Chichen Itza. This civilization practiced human sacrifice
Term
Transcendentalism
Definition
an American movement that locates divinity in nature and in the democratically shared "transcendental" spirit of the human being, sometimes called the Over-Soul
Term
Upanishads
Definition
he last books of the Indian Vedas which were written in Sanskrit between 800 and 400 BCE. They develop the concept of Brahman as the holy power released in sacrifice to the point where it becomes the underlying power of the universe. The soul, Atman, is identified with the holy power, Brahman. There is content showing how contemplation can lead to oneness with Brahman.
Term
Varna
Definition
the main division of Hindu society into four social classes: scholars, warriors, artisans and merchants, and laborers.
Term
Vedas
Definition
scriptures which express the religionj of the Aryna peiople of India. They are composed of hymns, ritual guidelines, and cosmological speculations. There are four sections, each geared at discussion around a different area of religious undertaking.
Term
Voltaire
Definition
(1694-1778) french, satirist, enlightenement
Term
Walt Whitman
Definition
a transcendentalist poet-prophet who wrote ecstatic poetry. He is the author of Leaves of Grass and Democratic Vistas
Term
Western Esotericism
Definition
the study of religious movements claiming some secret or special knowledge of the divine, which often goes against or counters the assumed religion of the land (hence the need for secrecy)
Term
William Blake
Definition
(1757-1827)Lived in the eighteenth century, just after the French and American revolutions, both of which were key inspirations for him. Blake was also an early and quite radical comparativist. Blake believed that "As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various)." He also expressed the even more radical idea that the real origin—or what he called the One of all Religions—is not some particular deity or philosophical idea, but "the true Man . . .being the Poetic Genius," arguing that “…men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast,” yet also arguing that the human is also, in some real sense, “divine.”
Term
William James
Definition
(1842-1910): one of America's most important and original thinkers. He was one of the chief inspirations of the modern study of religion, particularly in its psychological modes and its emphasis on mysticism. In his classic The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), he effectively showed how the religious experiences of crisis, conversion, and mystical ecstasy could be understood through the workings of the human psyche, but he also wondered out loud if there was not a "door" somewhere deep in the subconscious of that psyche that opened out into other dimensions and other forms of consciousness, into a More, as he put it
Term
Yggdrasil
Definition
the great ash tree which unifies the creation according to norse mythology. The tree holds together the nine worlds of giants, dwarfs, humans, light elves, dark elves, Aesir, Vanir, the dead, and the home of the world-destroyers. It is a tree of knowledge that is simultaneously being created and destroyed.
Term
ahimsa
Definition
the Indian virtue of non-violence. It applies to the harming of any living creature and hence to vegetarianism
Term
animal magnetism
Definition
a medical movement originating in the late eighteenth century that posited the existence of cosmic energies or "magnetic" forces in the human body as the ultimate source of healing
Term
anthropomorphism
Definition

the universal tendency of human beings to imagine their deities in human (anthropos) form (morphos), and more especially in their own particular ethnicities and local appearances

Term
asceticism
Definition
a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals
Term
bhakti
Definition
love of, or deotion to, God. It is one of the paths to union with God. Worshippers form a sort of personal relationship with God
Term
biblical literalism
Definition
reading the bible in a literal way
Term
brahman
Definition
in Hinduism, the divine abosolute reality
Term
canon
Definition
the authoritative collection of books that would be the true plumbline or measure of an orthodox or "straight faith"
Term
church fathers
Definition
intellectuals writing from the second to fifth centuries who developed the unsystematized stories and wide-ranging teachings of the New Testament into a systematic and coherent theology
Term
class
Definition
the place of an individual or group in a hierarchical social system, usually determined by wealth, education, and status
Term
class
Definition
a social category describing ones membership into a group defined by socioeconomic status or "place" in society
Term
constructivism
Definition
the related position that all forms of human experience, including religious experience, are best understood as "constructed" through these same local contexts and processes
Term
contextualism
Definition
the position that all human behavior and experience is best explained and interpreted through its local linguistic, cultural, and political contexts
Term
cultural anthropology
Definition
the study (logos) of human nature (anthropos) through the analysis of culture, social practices, symbols, rites, and so on
Term
culture
Definition
the entire network or web of institutions, laws, customs, symbols, technologies, and arts that constitute the life of a particular society
Term
dalits
Definition
the lowest level of the Hindu caste system. the Untouchables
Term
dao
Definition
a chinese term meaning "way" or "path"
Term
diffusion theory
Definition
the idea that a religious complex in one place came from another, and that religious ideas and practices in general tend to “spread out” through migration, trade, war, and other human activities that involve travel
Term
doctrine
Definition
literally, "teaching," that is, a teaching that is central to a particular religious tradition 
Term
entheogen
Definition
a plant or chemical substance—preferably taken in a ritual or sacramental context—that catalyzes or occasions (-gen) the experience of the divine (theos) within (en-)
Term
ethnocentrism
Definition
the conviction that one’s own way of life or “people” (ethnos) constitute the center of things
Term
fundamentalism
Definition
a way of being religious that relies on literalist readings of a scriptural text that is considered infallible or inerrant ("without error") in order to return to what are imagined to be the original and pristine "fundamentals" of the faith, that is, a set of doctrines or teachings that are held to be the center of the faith (the “fundamentals,” of course, are different for every fundamentalism).

a. -fundamentalism as a broad-based modern Western movement was born as a response to and rejection of the critical study of religion, and especially the professional study of the Bible
Term
gender
Definition
the modal model of what it means to be a man, woman, or some third gender in a particular culture or subculture
Term
gender
Definition
a social category differentiating between groups of people based on their maleness or femaleness
Term
gender equity
Definition
the ethical principle that the genders should be treated equally
Term
gentile
Definition
not jew
Term
gnostics
Definition
Jewish and Christian communities whose emphasis on personal and direct mystical knowing (gnosis) did not always sit well with the bishops and churches
Term
guru nanak
Definition
(1469–1539 CE) literally, “Spiritual Teacher Nanak.” Inspired by both Kabir and Sufi mysticism, he would proclaim a God who united Muslim and Hindu alike in a bold new theology that insisted on the equality of all human beings, acknowledged the reality of reincarnation or rebirth, and strongly opposed the Hindu caste system. And so was born a new religion called Sikhism
Term
heretic
Definition
a person who, instead of submitting to the authority of a tradition, willingly chooses to believe something else
Term
historical-critical method
Definition
a way of reading a religious text by contextualizing it as a historical product of a particular time and place
Term
humanists
Definition
avid students of Western mysticism and magic whose primary method was to focus on the human being as a kind of mirror that reflects the deepest secrets of both the universe and the divine; the historical origin of our own “humanities”
Term
humanities
Definition
all those fields of study within a modern college or university that focus on the nature and construction of meaning, value, beauty, and narrative in the history of humanity as these have been crystallized in fields like philosophy, religion, literature, and art. Put more technically still, the humanities are all those forms of modern thought that assert that reality is not just made up of matter, numbers, objects, and causality (which is what the natural sciences assert), but also of experiences, meanings, values, words, subjects, and stories. Put most technically, the humanities constitute the study of human consciousness encoded in human culture
Term
indulgence
Definition
a kind of promissory note that the faithful would purchase in order to shorten a loved one's stay in purgatory
Term
initiation
Definition
a set of formalized activities and teachings through which a person's social or religious identity is transformed
Term
insider-outsider problem
Definition
Certain insights into religious systems are generally unavailable to the believers themselves, so determined are their thought processes by religious ideas and practices, part of whose very purpose is to conceal all sorts of things (often the very things scholars like to study) in order to justify their own “obvious” truths. Moreover, within any particular community or tradition there is always an elaborate system of subtle, and not so subtle, practices and values that largely determine what ideas seem plausible, even thinkable, and to whom. Conversely, we also know that certain insights into religious systems are generally unavailable to outsiders who have not fully internalized the languages and ritual forms of the religious complex being studied. Life is short, our cultural and linguistic experiences are always limited, and hence it is impossible to know a religious or cultural system the way someone who was raised in it knows and feels it
Term
jain
Definition
a member of the jain tradition
Term
jihad
Definition
in islam, the "holy war" to be waged against infidel or non-believer considered to be one of the five "pillars" of the religion
Term
jina
Definition
Jainn religious teachers who have attained enlightenment and omniscience by conquering samsara
Term
karma
Definition
the moral law of cause and effect. every action has inevitable consequences which attach themselves to the doer requiring reward or punishment
Term
liminal
Definition
the “in between” phase of a ritual process in which the individual is removed from his or her world to undergo some sort of change. It is a neither-nor and a both-and state, a place of intentional confusion and profound ambiguity
Term
linguistics
Definition
the scientific, comparative study of languages in an attempt to understand their deep or universal structures
Term
martin luther
Definition
(1483-1546) a German monk and reformer who had strong opinions about the role of the Catholic Church in people’s religious lives
Term
materialism
Definition
the philosophical position that there is only matter; there is no such thing as spirit, soul, or Mind
Term
max muller
Definition
(1823-1900) author of the Sacred Books of the East translation series, which ran to fifty volumes between 1879 and 1910
Term
method
Definition
"path to follow"
Term
methodology
Definition
the method or "way" (hodos) "after which" (meta-) one follows to get to where one is going
Term
mleccha
Definition
in early Indian traditions, a person who is in no way a part of the cultural system or orthodox tradition, a "foreigner"
Term
modernity
Definition
faith in the pursuits of science, progress, and universalism
Term
monotheism
Definition
the worship of one god
Term
mysticism
Definition

religious traditions that emphasize some "hidden" or "secret" (Greek: mystikos) communion, even complete identity, between the human and the divine

Term
new testament
Definition
a collection of books making up the second half of the Christian Bible
Term
old testament
Definition
the first half of the Christian Bible, originally the Torah
Term
paranormal
Definition
similar to “psychical” but appearing a bit later, around 1901, usually suggested some kind of mind-to-matter phenomenon
Term
paul
Definition
was an apostle and Jewish rabbi who never met the historical Jesus (the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified by the Romans), but composed many of the key ideas that would come to define Christianity after a visionary encounter with a being of light he experienced as the resurrected Christ (“Christ” is Greek for the Hebrew “Annointed One” or “Messiah”—it was a religious title, not a last name)
Term
perennialism
Definition
the conviction that the different major religions all point to a single mystical truth or core that perennially reappears in every age
Term
physhical
Definition
a term coined in 1871 referring to alleged powers of telepathy and telekinesis
Term
plausibility
Definition
the perceived likelihood of an idea being right or wrong
Term
polytheism
Definition
the worship of many god
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prehistoric
Definition
before written history
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primary texts
Definition
historical documents written from within a particular tradition or movement discussed above
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profane
Definition
the ordinary or non=sacred
Term
protestant reformation
Definition
roughly 2 century time period in European history -- very roughly the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- when numerous scholars, monks, priestss, reformers, and activists began to "protest" what they perceived to be political abuses and falsehoods of the Roman Catholic CHurch
Term
psychedelic
Definition
mind-manifesting states
Term
puja
Definition
refers to temple worship in Hinduism and to the keeping of rights and ceremonies prescribed by the Brahmin
Term
purgatory
Definition
the middle realm of afterlife where souls were believed to go if they were not sufficiently ready for heaven ut not sufficiently corrupt for hell
Term
quakerism
Definition
a tradition that was founded by the charismatic preacher George Fox [1624-1691] and named for the way the early Friends “quaked” or shook in worship. It emphasized every individual’s direct access to a transcendental Inner Light
Term
rabbi
Definition
a Jewish teacher-scholar who interprets the scriptures for the needs and nuances of each new generation of the community
Term
race
Definition
the assumed, and largely constructed, identity of a person or group based on skin color or physical features
Term
reflexivity
Definition
unique, human ability to think about thinking, reflect on reflection (the metaphor of the mirror again), become aware of awareness, and so free consciousness from the ruts of society and ego
Term
religion
Definition
a structured system of beliefs, rituals, and myths that are part of an individuals worldview
Term
scriptures
Definition
any set of writings believed to be revealed or divinely inspired by a particular community or tradition
Term
secondary text
Definition
an essay or book written about a tradition or movement, either from the inside or the outside
Term
secular
Definition
generally means some version of being "not religious"
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sex
Definition
the biological distinction between male and female
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sexual orientation
Definition
the specific ways a person’s sexual desires are oriented or directed toward a particular kind of sexual object or objects
Term
shoah
Definition
the Hebrew word for the Holocaust
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sola scriptura
Definition
a rallying cry of Protestant reformers, literally meaning, "only the scriptures"
Term
spiritualism
Definition
the practice of communicating with the dead through mediums
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spirituality
Definition
relating to ones recognition or understanding of a non-physical spirit
Term
sufi brotherhoods
Definition
  1. mystical order of Islam. Their “universalistic”, highly-syncretic doctrines made them very successful in spreading Islam to many regions.
Term
sumerian
Definition
someone belonging to the civilization of Sumeria, which existed in southern Mesopotamia during the early bronze age
Term
syncretism
Definition
the religious practice of creatively and selectively combining elements from different religious traditions in order to form a new religious complex, practice, or idea
Term
theism
Definition
the belief in one supreme god who is both transcendent and involved in the workings of the universe
Term
theology
Definition

literally, a rational explanation (logos) of God (theos); today understood as the intellectual discipline that attempts to relate and synthesize the logical, philosophical, and scientific conclusions of human reason to the divine revelations of a particular faith

Term
theory
Definition
a new perspective through which some particular object of study takes on entirely new meanings
Term
thirds
Definition
modes that break the simple binarisms of traditional categories for sex, gender, etc.
Term
upanishads
Definition

  1. the "secret doctrines" that developed in India around the sixth and fifth centuries before the Common Era; considered to be part of the Vedas

Term
vedas
Definition
the ancient Sanskrit texts widely considered to be the font and origin of what would later become classical Hinduism
Term
vernacular
Definition
"language of the people," any language spoken by common people
Term
victro turner
Definition
an American anthropologist who further refined the work of arnold van gennep by looking at the "liminal" quality of the transition period in many rituals
Term
william Wordsworth
Definition
(1770-1859) an english romantic poet
Term
yoga
Definition
a way to union with god in Hindu philosophy. In the Bhagavad Gita there are three paths to spiritual fulfillment: jnanayoga (path of knowledge/wisdom), karmayoga (path of work/action), and bhaktiyoga (path of devotion)
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