Intro to World Religion

1. Module 2
Historical And Geographical Contexts Of
The Different Religions
Prepared By: Romeo G.Punelas, Jr., LPT

2. Part 1:
Religion and Geography

3. What is GEOGRAPHY?
Geography is the study of earth and its people. Its
features are things like continents, seas, rivers and
mountains.
The relationship between religion and geography can
be termed as Religious Geography. Spreading the faith
has been shaped by geographical context.

4. The Cradle Of Religions
•Asia is the largest and most populous continent
and the birthplace of many religions including
Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism,
Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto,
Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.

5. Western Religions VS Eastern Religions
• Some of them spread in other grounds like Europe
hence they were branded as Western religions like
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
• Those that remained in Asia are called the –Eastern
Religions which are Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism,
Shintoism to name a few.

6. Western Religions VS Eastern Religions
• There is a significant disparity between Western and Eastern
religions in terms of belief systems, worldview and
philosophy about life.

7. Sacred Places
• Religious experiences and the belief in religious
meanings transformed physical spaces into sacred
places.(Serapio, 2016)
• The interplay of geography and religion not
only highlights the role of religion in affecting
landscape changes and in assigning sacred
meanings to specific places, but also acknow-
ledges how religious ideology and practices at
specific spaces are guided and transformed by
their location (Kong, 1990).

8. Part 2:
Religion and Culture

9. What is Culture?
• Culture is “a whole way of life”, the way we think, act or
speak. It is “ordinary.” (Williams, 1958). It can be also
dynamic, it can be shared, learned, transmitted from one
generation to another, adaptive and integrated
(Bodley,1999).
• It is the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material,
intellectual and emotional features that characterize a
society or social group. It includes not only the arts and
letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the
human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
(UNESCO)

10. Ethnocentrism vs Cultural Relativism
• If you consider your own culture as superior from the
rest, then your belief is termed as ethnocentrism. On
the other hand, if you are open minded towards other
culture without judging them and respect the diverse
culture around you then you believe in cultural
relativism.

11. Multiculturalism
• According to Harrison (1994) multiculturalism is a
theory about the foundations of a culture rather than
a practice which subsumes cultural ideas. In a broader
sense, the term is often use to describe societies
which have many distinct cultural groups, usually as a
result of immigration. (Vega, et al, 2009)

12. Religion and Culture
• It was believed that man’s consciousness of the divine
can be traced back to the time of the Neanderthals.
Lawrence McKinney observed that, “the discovery of
bear skulls with unusual markings indicates the basis
of a primitive religion while others, noting the
existence of flower petals and pollen in ancient burial
sites, have speculated on the possibility of
Neanderthal funeral rites (McKinney,1994).

13. Religion and Culture
• The reality of death developed into a cultural funeral
rite as a way of respecting the dead. This reality is
taken seriously by religion and sought divine aide to
solve the riddle of life.

14. Roles of Religion on Culture
• Among the many functions of religion identified by Calderon
(1998) are the following:
• 1. Religion serves as a means of social control.
• 2. It exerts a great influence upon personality development.
• 3. Religion allays fear of the unknown.
• 4. Religion explains events or situations which are beyond
the comprehension of man.
• 5. It gives man comfort, strength and hope in times of crisis
and despair.

15. Roles of Religion on Culture
• 6. It preserves and transmits knowledge, skills, spiritual and
cultural values and practices.
• 7. It serves as an instrument of change.
• 8. It promotes closeness, love, cooperation, friendliness and
helpfulness.
• 9. Religion alleviates sufferings from major calamities.
• 10. It provides hope for a blissful life after death.

16. Roles of Religion on Culture

17. Ecumenism
• Ecumenism- is a movement or tendency foward worldwide
Christian unity or cooperation. The ecumenical movement
seeks to recover the apostolic sense of the early church for
unity in diversity seeks to recover the apostolic sense of the
early church for unity in diversity, and it confronts the
frustrations, difficulties, and ironies of the modern pluralistic
world. It is a lively reassessment of the historical sources and
destiny of what followers perceive to be the one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ.
(www.britannica.com/topic/ecumenism).