World Religions - Chapter 1: Beginning Your Study of World Religions
Note: This is a reading guide, not a study guide. Complete it while you read. It directs you to specific passages, keeps you engaged, and helps you gather evidence as you move through the chapter. The goal is comprehension and evidence-gathering, not review.
World religions can involve unfamiliar beliefs, practices, historical developments, texts, and ways of understanding the world. This guide will help you identify the chapter's most important concepts so that by the time you finish reading, you will have a solid grasp of the material and be prepared for the Chapter Quiz.
Step 1: Go to each page indicated. Find the sentence using the opening words provided, then type the entire sentence verbatim into the matching evidence box. Step 2: Answer the review question in your own words using the anchor sentences and the surrounding textbook passage as evidence. No outside research is needed or permitted.
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Question 1
Section:
Coming to Grips with Your Preunderstanding of Religion
Anchor 1 - Page 4: Find the sentence beginning with: “Preunderstanding is the…”
What role does preunderstanding play when an individual encounters a new religion?
Focus Areas for Students: Review the textbook's psychological explanation of how the human mind processes new experiences. Focus on how a person's existing knowledge and past beliefs alter their perception of unfamiliar religious ideas.
Question 2
Section:
The Definition Used in This Book
Anchor 1 - Page 6: Find the sentence beginning with: “Here’s the definition…”
Anchor 2 - Page 7: Find the sentence beginning with: “Second, a pattern…”
What are the main features of the textbook's definition of religion?
Focus Areas for Students: Look closely at the three specific components the author uses to define religion early in the chapter. Consider how belief systems, the concept of the sacred, and the role of community work together.
Question 3
Section:
Why Study Religion?
Anchor 1 - Page 9: Find the sentence beginning with: “The secularization hypothesis,…”
Anchor 2 - Page 9: Find the sentence beginning with: “Religion is strong…”
Why was the twentieth-century “secularization hypothesis” largely discredited?
Focus Areas for Students: Review what earlier philosophers and scientists predicted would happen to religion as science and education advanced. Identify the real-world evidence and global trends that contradicted these historical predictions.
Question 4
Section:
The Six Dimensions of Religion: Cognitive Dimension
Anchor 1 - Page 10: Find the sentence beginning with: “Religions have cognitive…”
Anchor 2 - Page 11: Find the sentence beginning with: “The cognitive dimension…”
What are the main features of the cognitive dimension of religion?
Focus Areas for Students: Review the specific types of knowledge and thinking frameworks that religions organize for their followers. Consider how religions explain the creation of the world, human identity, and the gods.
Question 5
Section:
Theology and Religious Studies
Anchor 1 - Page 13: Find the sentence beginning with: “The second branch…”
Anchor 2 - Page 13: Find the sentence beginning with: “In the Enlightenment…”
What are the main goals and features of the academic field known as “religious studies”?
Focus Areas for Students: Focus on how this academic field approaches world religions from the "outside." Review the goals of objectivity and neutrality that emerged during the Enlightenment.
Anchor 2 - Page 15: Find the sentence beginning with: “He held that…”
How did Sigmund Freud explain the origins and nature of religion?
Focus Areas for Students: Review Freud’s psychoanalytic theories regarding human development and subconscious drives. Note his specific conclusions regarding childhood needs and belief in a divine father figure.
Question 7
Section:
Sociology
Anchor 1 - Page 17: Find the sentence beginning with: “Sociology, the scientific…”
What role does the discipline of sociology play in the study of religion?
Focus Areas for Students: Review what sociologists analyze regarding the mutual relationship between religion and society. Consider Emile Durkheim's theories on how religion impacts group identity and shared moral values.
How does the field of women's studies view the historical relationship between world religions and patriarchy?
Focus Areas for Students: Review the textbook's explanation of how religions have historically upheld male domination. Pay attention to the language used for the divine and the specific limitations placed on female religious leaders.
What are the main features of religious pluralism?
Focus Areas for Students: Review the difference between simply tolerating another religion and actively engaging in pluralism. Consider the role that interfaith dialogue and active cooperation play in this process.
Why is it difficult to isolate the exact causes of religiously motivated violence?
Focus Areas for Students: Review the various underlying factors that motivate violent acts within or between religious groups. Pay attention to how cultural, political, and economic motives often mix with religious ones.
Question 11
Section:
New Religious Movements
Anchor 1 - Page 27: Find the sentence beginning with: “Although these terms…”
Why do contemporary scholars prefer the term “New Religious Movements” (NRMs) instead of older terms like “sect” or “cult”?
Focus Areas for Students: Review how the meaning of words like "sect" and "cult" has changed in modern times. Consider the negative judgments that scholars try to avoid by using the more objective term NRM.
Question 12
Section:
The Six Dimensions of Religion
Anchor 1 - Page 10: Find the sentence beginning with: “Rodney Stark and…”
Why does the textbook describe religion as multidimensional?
Focus Areas for Students: Review the cognitive, ethical, ritual, institutional, aesthetic, and emotional dimensions. Consider why explaining religion through only beliefs, morality, institutions, or emotions would produce an incomplete understanding.