Today in class, we looked at a PowerPoint about religion:
- Political Alliances
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
- Commonwealth of Nations
- Organization of American States (OAS)
- Christianity
- Number of adherents: around 2.2 billion
- Call them: Christians
- Geographic Location: Europe, the Americas, southern Africa
- Denominations: Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestants (Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterian, Episcopalians, etc.)
- Founder: Jesus Christ (it's Abrahamic in origin)
- Holy book: The Bible, especially the New Testament
- Beliefs: Jesus is both human and divine - the Son of God; he led a virtuous life; he was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected; he ascended into heaven where he reigns with God the Father
- Clergy: the Pope is head of the Church, priests are local authorities
- Islam
- Number of adherents: 1.5 billion (second largest)
- Call them: Muslims
- Geographic location: Indonesia, Middle East, north Africa
- Denominations: Sunnis (75-90%), Shiites (10-20%)
- Founder: Muhammad (570-632)
- Holy book: Qur'an
- Beliefs: monotheistic, Abrahamic Five Pillars (testimony, prayer, alms-giving, fasting, pilgrimage). Muslims see their purpose in life as serving and submitting to Allah (God), and observing Islamic law
- Hinduism
- Number of adherents: 1.1 billion (third largest)
- Call them: Hindus
- Geographic location: India, Nepal
- Holy book: the Vedas - eternal truths revealed to ancient sages; composed in verse form (meant to be sung and easily memorized)
- Founder: no distinct founder - it is a series of intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid, strict set of beliefs - probably the oldest religion, although Hinduism is less a religion than a way of life, or a faith.
- Example: "As a person puts on new clothes and discards old and torn clothes, similarly an embodied soul enters new material bodies, leaving the old bodies"
- In other words… reincarnation
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