LESSON-1-UNDERSTANDING-THE-NATURE-OF-RELIGION.pptx

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding  LESSON 1: UNDERSTANDI NG THE NATURE OF RELIGION At the end of this lesson, you are expected to: 1. Explain the belief system or a worldview, religion, and spirituality 2. Appreciate and under...

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding  LESSON 1: UNDERSTANDI NG THE NATURE OF RELIGION At the end of this lesson, you are expected to: 1. Explain the belief system or a worldview, religion, and spirituality 2. Appreciate and understand the worldview of different religions in terms of their rituals and practices 3. Prepare character sketches of a person who is spiritual but not religious and a person who is religious but not spiritual.  Do you believe in God as our Savior? What is your initial knowledge about religion?  Worldview - which is a collection of beliefs about life and the universe being held by people. Monism Two implications arise from this belief. Firstly, it contends that God is dwelling in the universe as part of it. Secondly, the universe does not exist at all as a reality but only as a manifestation of God.  Polytheism Polytheistic religions that are common among early people recognize many principal gods among whom no one is supreme. These include the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece, and Rome wherein people worship a multitude of personal gods. Monotheism Theism - is defined as “a belief in the existence of one god viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who Agnosticism -Agnostics deny the possibility for man to acquire knowledge of the existence of God. Atheism - disbelief in or denial of the existence of a personal god.  Nature of Religion Religion - may be defined as “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods” Religio (latin word) refers to “something done with overanxious or scrupulous attention to detail” Religare (latin verb) which means “to tie together, to bind fast.”  ORIGIN OF RELIGION 60,000 YEARS - HOMO SAPIENS BURYING OF THE DEADS MATERIALS IN THE AFTERLIFE  THEORY OF RELIGION ANIMISTIC THEORY - Believe in souls or anima found in people NATURE WORSHIP - day and night THEORY OF ORIGINAL MONOTHEISM - one God MAGIC THEORY - people attempted to control nature (rain)  SIGMUND FREUD - a healthy mature person can face problem without the need of God or Religion COMMON CHARACTERISRICS AMONG RELIGION  EXPLORING SPIRITUALITY “Spiritual” being defined as “relating or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things”. Spirituality may be manifested in quite a number of ways. Spirituality is derived from the Latin word spiritus, its verb root is spirare which means “to breathe” literally.  Theology involves the systematic study of the existence and nature of the divine. It deals with the study of the nature and purpose of god that may be undertaken using a particular perspective. Theology is a study, not a formulation of religious beliefs.  Philosophy of Religion deals primarily with issues concerning religion, which includes analysis on the existence of a divine being or on sacred texts. It may involve studying the “concepts and belief systems of the religions as well as the prior phenomena of religious experience and the activities of worship and meditation on which these belief systems rest and out of which they have arisen”.  Spirituality is something an individual can have without being implicated in the ambivalent complexity of human societies and institutions (Grassie 2010). Thus, spirituality can be described as one's integrative view of life and involves a quest for the meaning and ultimate value of life as opposed to an instrumentalist or materialistic attitude to life. Hence, one can be spiritual without being religious.  With this definition, we can appreciate religion as a social reality in at least four respects that we believe many individuals can easily recognize as pertaining to the religious. First, religion is a collective phenomenon. Second, religion is concerned with ordering behavior in relation to the sacred and/or the supernatural. Third, religion involves a body of beliefs and moral prescriptions. Finally, religion expects its followers to follow a set of practices that relate to the notion of the sacred.