Dec 5th HG Class

Dec 5th HG Class

Today's class, we finished talking about Cultural Characteristics and we started to talk about "Five Major Religions in the World" These are what we did today in the class.

Christianity

• Number of adherents: around 2.2 billion (largest in the world)
• Call them: Christians
• Geographic Location: Europe, the Americas, Southern Africa
• Denominations: Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestants ( Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, many more)
• Founder: Jesus Christ (it's Abrahamic in Origin)
• Holy Book: Bible, Especially the new Testament
• Beliefs: Jesus is both human and divine - the Son of God; he led virtuous life; he was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected; he ascended into heaven where he reigns with God the Father
• Clergy: The Pope is the 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; written 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
• Ex)"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"