Three Kinds of Knowledge

Three Kinds of Knowledge

• Cultural Awareness, Self-Help, and Critical Cultural Knowledge are the three types.

Cultural Awareness Knowledge

• Involves recognizing and appreciating the values, worldviews, and practices of other cultures.
• Aims to increase cross-cultural empathy, dialogue, and understanding.
• Seeking this knowledge can lead to increased cross-cultural empathy, dialogue and understanding.

Self-Help Knowledge

• Provides insights into truth, reality, and meaning.
• Encompasses philosophy, practice, training, or spirituality.
• Can be illuminating and directly transferable to one's own life.
• It may lead to a better understanding of one's own meaning, purpose, beliefs, practices, values, ethics, etc.

Critical Cultural Knowledge

• Involves advanced understanding through analysis of how religious believers represent themselves.
• It's the most analytical type of knowledge.

Four Categories of Understanding

• Description, Interpretation, Explanation, and Creative (or Aesthetic) are key methods of understanding.

Descriptive Understanding

• Carefully describing something without predetermined analysis.
• Requires suspending judgment and careful observation/recording of data.
• Neutral and fact-oriented.

Interpretive Understanding

• Pays close attention to the "insiders' view of things".
• May include historical, linguistic, or cultural analysis.
• Tries to understand a subject from the insiders' point of view in deep ways.

Explanative Knowledge

• Social scientific approach that may question "insiders' claims".
• Uses analysis to make judgments about origins, social dynamics, and historical contexts.

Creative Understanding

• Also called aesthetic or poetic understanding.
• More open and artistic.
• Seeks to understand religions through religious arts or creating original works exploring religious themes.

Aesthetic

• Artistic concepts about judgment of what is beautiful and good.
• Important for understanding religious expression (architecture, arts, music, etc.).
• Secular ideas about art evolved from religious and philosophical ideas about truth, beauty, and the sacred.

Cosmogonic Myth

• Stories about the beginning of human society or creation of the world.
• Examples include Genesis, Hesiod's Theogony, and the Hindu story of Cosmic Egg.

Ethics

• How humans make choices, decisions, and concepts of right and wrong (morals).
• Concepts of good and evil affect understanding of what is moral or ethical.
• Rules of conduct, laws, and ethical action often evolve from religious understandings of what is wholesome vs. harmful.

Liminal

• An "in between state" where rituals transform people from one state to another.
• Baptism in Christianity or monks taking vows in Buddhism are examples.

Myth

• Stories expressing the most important values of a religious tradition.
• Can be fictional, factual, symbolic, or allegorical. The literal truth may or may not be important.
• Stories often talk about sacred beings or planes of existence and guide people to ultimate peace or salvation.

Path of Transformation

• Ways people "perform" beliefs and practices to change into a better person.
• Some believe in divine power, others in personal change through practices.

Religious Traditions

• Practices, scriptures, stories, and moral values passed down that often lead to social institutions.
• Change over time, but maintain a connection to their past.

Rites of Passage

• Special rituals practiced at crucial life stages like birth, puberty, marriage, and death.
• Some religions have many more rituals and initiations.

Rituals

• Repeated or choreographed behaviors guided by religious teachings.
• Examples: prayer, sacrifice, pilgrimage, festivals, worship services, etc.

Sacred Space

• Places with a special connection to ultimate reality.
• May be natural settings or built by religious communities.
• Approached through special rules and thought to be empowered with sacred energy or meaning.

Sacred Story

• Any kind of story (non-fiction or fiction) providing guidance and meaning.
• Help people develop religious identity and provide a guide for life.

Sacred Time

• Special occasions where important religious stories may be reenacted or celebrated.
• Examples: Passion Play in Christianity or Rama Plays of Hinduism.

Sacred, the Sacred, the Holy, Divine Reality

• Whatever people experience as ultimate reality or truth.
• May be personal ("God") or a "Spiritual Force".
• Mysterious and evokes strong feelings and provide the ground or foundation of value, meaning, good, evil, etc.

Symbols

• Artifacts, diagrams, words, etc., that promote feelings/meanings related to the Sacred.
• One object or idea that represents another; often in a compressed way.
• Can be very simple or artistically complex.

Transformation

• Change, liberation, salvation, reaching an ideal or whole state are religious concepts.
• This is about the ideal state of one's religious tradition; the "goal" of religious life.

Understanding

• Coming to grips with or gaining insight into another person's life or beliefs.
• Requires connecting them to one's own experience through sympathy, empathy, and thought.

Worship

• Ritual practices often at special times and places.
• Practice is used to teach, celebrate, or direct attention toward the most important or ultimate values.

Insider/Outsider Perspective

• Looking from the inside (insider perspective) or outside.

Cultural Awareness Knowledge (Detailed)

• Recognizing and appreciating the values, worldviews, and practices of other cultures.
• Aims to foster cross-cultural empathy, dialogue, and understanding.
• Learning about Diwali in Hindu culture or Ramadan in Islam helps build bridges.

Self-Help Knowledge (Detailed)

• Provides insights into ultimate truths, reality, or what is most meaningful.
• Includes philosophy, practice, training, or spirituality applicable to one's life.
• Studying Buddhist meditation might help someone find personal peace and enhance their beliefs and values.

Critical Cultural Knowledge (Detailed)

• Advanced skills in analyzing how religious believers represent themselves and their beliefs.
• Focuses on understanding the complexities of religious identities and expressions.
• Examining how different Christian denominations interpret the Bible reveals theological perspectives and cultural influences.
• These types of knowledge are essential for a comprehensive understanding of religions and their cultural contexts.
• They help promote empathy, personal growth, and critical thinking.

Descriptive Understanding (Detailed)

• Involves carefully describing religious phenomena without predetermined analysis.
• Requires a neutral stance, focusing on observation and recording of data.
• Describing the rituals of a religious ceremony without interpreting their meaning.

Interpretive Understanding (Detailed)

• Seeks to understand religious phenomena from the "insiders' view".
• Involves deep engagement with the beliefs and practices of adherents, often incorporating historical, linguistic, or cultural analysis.
• Interpreting the significance of religious symbols within their cultural context.

Explanative Knowledge (Detailed)

• Uses social scientific analysis to understand origins, dynamics, and historical contexts.
• Involves a critical perspective, questioning "insiders' claims" and making judgments.
• Analyzing the social functions of religious institutions in a particular society.

Creative Understanding (Detailed)

• Also known as aesthetic or poetic understanding and is more open and artistic.
• Involves appreciating religious arts or creating original works that explore religious themes.
• Understanding a religion through its sacred music or creating a poem inspired by teachings.