“Windows To Spirituality”
Academic Study Of New Religious Movements The academic study of new religious movements is known as New Religions studies (NRS). The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology. Eileen Barker noted that there are five sources of information on new religious movements (NRMs): the information provided by such groups themselves, that provided by...
Celtic Mythology Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure. For Celts in close contact with Ancient Rome, such as the Gauls and Celtiberians, their mythology did not survive the Roman Empire, their...
Outline Of Historical Religions This article is the Outline of Historical Religions. Enjoy…! Historical religions of the ancient world shared many of the same patterns with each other even though the cultures may never have had any contact with each other. Such as Prehistoric religion, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ancient Mesopotamian Religion, Brahmanism, Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, Inca...
Iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style. The word iconography comes from the Greek εἰκών (“image”) and γράφειν (“to write” or to draw). A secondary...
Veneration Of The Dead The veneration of the dead, including one’s ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. Some groups venerate their direct, familial ancestors....
Vietnamese Folk Religion Vietnamese folk religion or Vietnamese indigenous religion (tín ngưỡng dân gian Việt Nam, is the ethnic religion of the Vietnamese people. About 45.3% of the population in Vietnam are associated with this religion, making it dominant in Vietnam. Vietnamese folk religion is not an organized religious system, but a set of local...
Dravidian Folk Religion The early Dravidian Folk religion refers to a broad range of belief systems which existed in South Asia before the arrival of Indo-Aryans. Scholars do not share a uniform consensus on early Dravidian religion but many scholars associated it with Neolithic societies of South Asia which was later assimilated...
Separation Of Church And State The separation of church and state is a philosophic and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state (with or without legally explicit church–state separation) and to disestablishment,...
Outline Of Hinduism The following Outline of Hinduism is provided as an overview of, and topical guide to, Hinduism. Hinduism is a predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Its followers are called Hindus, who refer to it as Sanātana Dharma (a Sanskrit phrase meaning “the eternal law that sustains/upholds/surely preserves”), amongst many...
Buddhist Mythology Buddhist mythology is centered around the life of the Buddha. This is told in relatively realistic terms in the earliest texts, and was soon elaborated into a complex literary mythology. The chief motif of this story, and the most distinctive feature of Buddhist myth, is the Buddha’s renunciation: leaving his home...
Sectarianism Sectarianism is a form of prejudice, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group. Common examples are denominations of a religion, ethnic identity, class, or region for citizens of a state and factions of a political movement. The ideological underpinnings of attitudes and behaviours labelled as sectarian...
Criticism Of Christianity Criticism of Christianity has a long history stretching back to the initial formation of the religion during the Roman Empire. Critics have challenged Christian beliefs and teachings as well as Christian actions, from the Crusades to modern terrorism. The intellectual arguments against Christianity include the suppositions that...
Argument From Poor Design The argument from poor design, also known as the dysteleological argument, is an argument against the existence of a creator God, based on the reasoning that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God would not create organisms with the perceived suboptimal designs that can be seen in nature. The argument is structured as a basic modus...
Apocalypse An apocalypse (ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis, “an uncovering”) is the disclosure or revelation of knowledge. In religious and occult concepts an apocalypse usually discloses something hidden, or provides what Bart Ehrman has termed “a vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities”. Historically, the term has a heavy religious connotation as commonly seen...
Book Of Revelation The Book of Revelation (often called the Revelation to John, Apocalypse of John, the Revelation from Jesus Christ from its opening words, the Apocalypse, The Revelation, or simply Revelation) is the final book of the New Testament, and consequently is also the final book of the Christian Bible. Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine...
Catholic Church And Islam Relations between the Catholic Church and Islam deal with the current attitude of the Catholic Church towards Islam, as well as the attitude of Islam towards the Catholic Church and Catholics, and notable changes in the relationship since the 20th century. Second Vatican Council and Nostra aetate The...
Islamic Culture Islamic culture and Muslim culture refer to cultural practices common to historically Islamic people. The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to the early Umayyad period and the early Abbasid period, were predominantly Arab, Byzantine, Persian, and Levantine. With the rapid expansion of the Islamic empires, Muslim...
Muslims Muslims are people who follow or practice Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their holy book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet and messenger Muhammad. The majority of Muslims also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad (sunnah) as recorded in traditional accounts (hadith). The derivation...
Islamic Holy Books Islamic Holy Books are the texts which Muslims believe were authored by God through various prophets throughout humanity’s history. All these books, in Muslim belief, promulgated the code and laws that God ordained for those people. Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God to mankind...
Omnipotence Omnipotence is the quality of having fully unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to God or deity of their faith. In the monotheistic philosophies of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one of God’s characteristics among many, including omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence. The presence of all these properties in...
