The 6 dimensions of Religion

The common ground of religions in the world is that they claim the existence of god/gods who holds the power beyond human ability. Each religion explains its existence in their own unique ways and implement it to people’s lifestyle. The film, 330 Million Gods, seeks to understand the Hinduism way of explanation. This documentary mainly focuses on the Hindu concept of divine, religious practices, and the stages of life. Also, the documentary illustrates how Indian lifestyle blends into its religion in the big cities – city of Benares and rural areas – village of Bhith Bhagwanpur. The most interesting points of this film presents to me are the idea of many gods with different sets of ability, how the Hindus practice the religion, and the concept

Religious experience is a very important concept for those who believe that way to know God is to experience Him. There is a spiritual, mystical dimension to all the world religions – in fact, the Eastern religions rely

When looking at smarts six dimension of religion in comparison to the study of indigenous religions I found that some of the dimensions clearly applied, some did not and other seem to be an antagonist of the dimensions. The doctrinal did not seem to be as important to indigenous religions In the sense the relationship to divinity and their self’s. The mythological dimension was seen as fairly the same, most stories were passed down through word of mouth but there were definite and lasting myths of creation and other religious traditions present throughout indigenous religions. The third dimension appeared to transform into the concept of “taboo” in indigenous religions. The concept of taboo is when something in a specific religion is so powerfully

According to Ninian Smart, the seven dimensions of religion include practical and ritual, emotional and experiential, narrative and mythical, ethical and legal, doctrinal and philosophical, social and institutional, and material. The practical and ritual dimension involves rituals and practices that provide spiritual awareness of adherents. The emotional and experiential dimension includes the life changing experiences that either the leaders or followers of a religion go through. Narrative and mythical dimension are the stories and past records that preserve tradition and culture in the religion. Ethical and legal dimension of the religion are basically the codes of behavior that are followed

Since the beginning of time humans have endeavoured to explain the causes and reasons behind their existence. As a result of this thirst for knowledge many different beliefs and values have been formulated with the aim of explaining this age-old question. Most of these beliefs are prevalent today in the form of institutionalised religions. In order to gain an understanding of the word 'religion', we need to fully analyse and compare the components of religions in order to gain a more cultivated understanding of this enigmatic term. An extremely valuable way of classifying religion and its many aspects is through the Seven Dimensions, developed by Ninian Smart. (See Appendix 1) These dimensions explore the many aspects of religion in a

The monotheistic religion of Judaism is a very complex and in many cases, strictly traditional way of life for over 13 million people all around the world. Many of their core beliefs are very similar to Christianity; however, an abundance of their rituals and practices are unlike any other religion. Even after visiting a Jewish Synagogue it is still difficult to mentally grasp and have a true understanding of everything Judaism stands for. Because of the many traditions and beliefs Judaism possess, it is not easy to define. The seven dimensions of religion created by the world renowned religious scholar Ninian Smart helped establish a simple way to break down and describe the essence of faith for any

Ethical dimension are the key elements, values and behavior to any religion. It provides the link between beliefs and actions someone chooses. Religious ethics are patterns of action that a religion follows.

Arabia to Islam. All practicing Muslims accept belief in the ‘Six Articles of Faith’ and are

Throughout human history people have sought experiences that somehow transcend every day life. Some sort of wisdom that might progress their knowledge of self and of the world that they live in. For some reason they believed that the tangible world just could not be all there is to life. Some believed in a greater force that controlled them, some believed of invisible beings that influenced their lives, some of an actual other world that paralleled their own. Many of these people also believed that it was possible to catch a glimpse of these forces, beings, or worlds through a variety of means that propel individuals into altered states of consciousness. These techniques include

These 7 features include the Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimension, Narrative or Mythological Dimension, the Ethical and Legal Dimension, the Practical and Ritual Dimension, the Experiential and Emotional Dimension, the Social and Institutional Dimension and the Material Dimension. These dimensions collaborate with each other to form the basis on which a ritual lies. In the Catholic sacrament of confession, these dimensions all play an important part which contributes to the outcome of the ritual. The Doctrinal and Philosophical dimension describes the dimension which incorporates the intellectual components of religions. The Narrative or Mythological dimension is the dimension which makes up the stories of religions, for example the story of creation or dreamtime stories. The Ethical and Legal dimension concerns what is good and bad, and what you must do if you do something against the religion. The Practical and Ritual dimension is what the adherents of a religion do as a part of the religion, such as prayer and ritual. The Experiential and Emotional dimension focuses on the subjective and emotional side of the religion or what happens on the inside. The Social and Institutional side of the religion is how people’s interactions are planned within the religion. The final dimension, Material, is the physical forms of the religion, such as a church or a statue. Although these 7 dimensions aid the process of determining whether or not an action is a ritual, confession is

Then and now religions shared common dimensions that provide society with a doctrine, narrative, ethics, ritual, experience and a social institution. These six dimensions that Ninian Smart derived spell out the framework for comparative study of religions1. The six dimensions hold true when comparing the daily routine Roman religious thought to modern Christianity. Interwoven into the core of both cultures is a strong unifying spirit that built a strong communal bond for its people.

The eight wars of religion escalated thought-out 36 years, with intermittent interruptions. The Protestant progressing originated in Northern Europe in the early 16th century. but escalated in the 19th century. It began as a reaction to the Medieval Roman Catholic doctrine and practices. After a procession of European religious wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and especially in the 19th century, it spread throughout the world. Wherever Protestantism arose, it altered the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the area The wars would end with the Edict of Nantes an edict that ingrained a limited tenacity. Frances struggle with religious turmoil between Catholics and Protestants was an ongoing crisis, however, the Spaniards belief in religion provided vast support to the moral code and allowed the police authoritative power of the state to loosen its grip on the community. History shows that atheistic, totalitarian states used force rather than religion to enforce obedience to government tyranny1 .

Prior to understanding and describing religious experiences, it’s important to define the terms and typology of religious experiences. A point of contention for theologians is whether or not mystical or out-of-body experiences are religious in nature. To understand what the role religion plays in these experiences, for this context, you must define and understand what religion is and the major components that make it up. James states that religion “cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name” (35). If you were to ask someone about the essence of an object or a concept, different people would provide various components or parts of it. You would end up of with a list ranging from objective and subjective responses, but it would provide a better understanding of it because, like religion, no one thing or person can be summed up in a sentence or a word.

All through history, religion and what God someone follows has drastically affected their lifestyle by affecting their political statuses. The way someone lived was determined by what religion they followed politically,economically and socially. Most colonies official religion was Anglican/Church of England or Christianity but some did not have an official religion which created problems. The slaves that were forcefully immigrated to the colonies were not able to practice their own religion because some owner were extremely religious and other were not able to connect to their God or Gods. American history demonstrate that religion and the God someone followed had drastic effects with politics by not being able to be part of it, economy by not being able to own any land and make money for himself , and society by not being about to join any communities or organization extremely affected slaves to reach true happiness in the place they call home.

When discussing religion, many people have different perspectives about religion beliefs and how to approach it. Religion is grouped in different sections such as, religion and spirituality, religion and philosophy, and religion and politics. Religion has many different views from different cultures because everyone approaches it differently with different beliefs also. To make something religion, is to have some type of belief in God, but everyone’s belief is different depending on the culture someone is located in. In society back then and today, religion has no set essence of a definition because of the different aspects people group religion in. This paper will explain the different aspects of what people believe constitutes different types of religion.