Report: The Religiousness of Planet Earth

Secularisation theory has argued that modernisation has undermined religion. The importance of science and technology on economic development and rational worldview on which they depend on are seen as destroying the belief in supernatural. However religion can contribute to development, but most recently sociologists have examined what role religion may play in development in today’s globalising world.

As time has progressed, religious scrutiny has expanded. Systems of faith are often written off as fruitless, but religion holds strong purposes. Cultures have religion to explain surroundings, unite individuals, and provide hope.

This paper has presented a definition of religion, as well as an examination of its parts to determine if the definition is adequate to apply appropriately. Secondly, this paper has examined several practices and experiences common to both major religions of the worlds, as well as indigenous religions. Lastly, the key critical issues of the study of religions and reasons for their consideration have been identified and discussed.

When discussing faith is it important to look at the word closely and understand its meaning. The basic definition of faith is “confidence or trust in a person; and belief that is not based on proof” (Random House… 693). Whether someone puts their faith in a person or a religious being, faith can be simplified as having

Most of the human ‘Homo sapiens’ is born into a religion. That religion could be Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Atheism, etc, a set of beliefs which someone inherits from his family, and till the death, that man will likely stay with his or her religion because almost every human has tendency to be religious. On the other hand, the reality of the religion does not matter to him unless someone conducts any investigation to get to the religious truth. In the essay ‘Homo religiosus,’ Karen Armstrong says that, today’s religious followers accept the religion into which they were born, without doing the hard work required. This means that someone follows his ancestor’s religion from the beginning for his life and he or she is not able to prove his ancestors were wrong because he or she has faith in his own religion. Faith is the main concept of the religion because people have deep faith in their own religion. In addition, faith is nothing but mere fantasy and faith has no basis in reality. Therefore, people have no ability to conduct investigations to find out the religious truth. In addition, elements and places of religion vary from religion to religion. Religion is one of the most prehistoric institutions which have been noticed to practice in any society past and present even in the ancient world where cave paintings were popular. Institutions, like politics and entertainments, have been greatly influenced by the religious faith. The truth of religion might give

For purpose of this essay, religion will be defined as a collection of institutional beliefs and customs concerning humanity and the purpose of the universe [1]. Key beliefs within religion that will be explored, as well as there relation to reason, are:

Faith is a state of mind through which goals, desires, plans and purposes are interpreted into spiritual equivalent and transferred it to infinity intelligence. Everything can be achieved if you believe in yourself.

Religion is a species-specific human universal phenomenon, complex, full of paradoxes, and found in all cultures. Social scientists and anthropologists since the late 17th century have attempted to rationally answer questions about religion, and while we can't evaluate the veracity of religion’s claims, we can attempt to understand its functions.

Faith is the belief in a person, thing, or idea without concrete evidence of its certainty. Although in some arenas, such as science, it is looked down upon, faith is ever presence in people's lives. It takes faith to belief that a chair will support one’s weight. It takes faith to belief that others will fulfill their promises and responsibilities. John Donne, Robert Fink, and Annie Dillard are three authors who use faith as a topic for one of their works.

Since the dawn of time, religion has been the staple of humanity. It has been our explanation for the unexplainable, as well a way for us to form a community with those around us. Due to the natural diversity of humans, a varied set of separate religions has formed throughout the world. Religions continue to adapt and inspire each other, however, they all have their differences, as well as internal differences through the observations of each believer.

Religion is a fundamental element of human society. It is what binds a country, society or group of individuals together. However, in some instances it destroys unity amoungst these. Religion is a belief in a superhuman entity(s) which control(s) the universe. Every religion has its differences but most strive for a just life and the right morals. The three major groups are the primal regions which consist of African, Aboriginal and Native American religions, Asian which consist of South Eastern Asian religions and Abrahamic religions which consist of Middle Eastern religions. The foci of this essay are the differences between the Abrahamic religion, Christianity, and the Asian region Buddhism as well as making reference to the Islamic

The definition of faith from Merriam-Webster dictionary is the complete trust or confidence in someone or something, and the strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

In a multicultural world where language, traditions and culture differ from country to country there is one thing that may be deemed to be true and this is that religion is the centre point for most of them. So then what exactly is religion? And how can you define it? In this paper I will be analysing and considering the different definitions that have been proposed by Victoria S. Harrison in her article “The pragmatics of defining religion in a multi-cultural world” and what I consider to be the most applicable definition of religion to date, though there may not be one. Firstly before we can analyse a text we must first understand what the author or publisher of that particular text is trying to bring forward. In Harrison’s

Religions on earth takes such a wide variety of forms that it would be impossible to summarize them all, and even though not all of them believe in a personal God, Deity or Supreme Being, they all have their own scared texts or writings that they believe to be divinely inspired, such as the Bible, Qur'an or Bhagavad Gita. In addition, they all have prophets, mystics, teachers and holy men like Moses, Jesus, Mohammad and Buddha who are thought to have been sent to earth to show humanity the proper path to enlightenment, salvation and morality. All of the prayers, rituals and symbols used by these religions are also too numerous and varied to list. Their prophets, teacher and sacred writings also explain certain metaphysical and epistemological issues such as the origins of life and the universe, why evil and suffering exist in the world, and how to attain salvation, heaven or Nirvana after death. Some like Buddhism and Hinduism maintain that the soul exists through many lifetimes in various forms, while Christianity, Judaism and Islam believe that the soul only exists in the body once, and then spends eternity in heaven or hell. Finally, religion and morality are also used a means of social control on earth, to instill certain norms of behavior on their young and society in general, deviations from which are punished.

Somewhere in the flotsam of celestial material that makes up the arms of the Milky Way is a little planet called Earth. Home to roughly seven billion people, Earth plays host to a race that is both incredibly sadistic and unspeakably noble. One facet of this dichotomy stems from a concept known as religion. Religion is a set of spiritual beliefs shared by a group of people.