Elements of Religious Traditions

Elements of Religious Traditions

REL /133

University of Phoenix

July 28, 2011

Elements of Religious Traditions

Religion comes in a number of varieties. What one group of people believes will find another believes something completely different. With all the various religious rituals and beliefs it is hard for anyone to understand all the customs and worship. Humans are constantly striving to find a sense of tranquility and harmony and searching for what will give them that sentiment and understanding. People bring thoughts from the religion they are brought up or predisposed too. under or from the principal religion of their circle. For example they may think that all religion has a sacred book, worships a heavenly being, or that it has a set of commandments (Molloy & Hilgers, 2010). Religion has eight elements, belief system, community, central myths, rituals, ethics, characteristics emotional experiences, material expressions, and sacredness (Molloy & Hilgers, 2010). Each religion has its own belief system and thoughts. It is no surprise that each religion characterizes in a different way the nature of sacred reality, the cosmos, the natural world, time and human purpose. Religions also vary in their way of thinking toward the role of words in conveying the sacred in their connections to other customs.

Some religions speak of the sacred as transcendent, existing primarily in a space further than the everyday world. In other religions whereas sacred reality is spoken of as being immanent that is, it is within nature and human beings and can be encountered as energy or holiness. Occasionally the sacred is looked at as possessing personal qualities, while elsewhere it is seen as an unfriendly entity (Molloy & Hilgers, 2010).

A number of religions see the earth as being started by an intellectual, personal Creator who keeps on guiding the world according to a cosmic layout. Other religions see the world as being everlasting with having no start or ending. At one end of the spectrum, several religions or religious schools view nature as the realm of wicked forces that must be conquered. For them, natural world is disgusting and contaminating (Molloy & Hilgers, 2010). Another end of the scale as in Daoism and Shinto, the natural world is considered to be holy and needs no change. Other religions, such as Judaism and Islam, take a center ground, holding that the natural world came from a divine act however human beings are called upon to continue to form it (Molloy & Hilgers, 2010).

Religions that give emphasis to creation, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have a tendency to see time as being linear, moving in a straight line from the start of the earth to its end. Because it is limited and unrepeatable, time is important; however, in Buddhism time is recurring. Within a number of religions, human beings are piece of a grand divine plan even though every person is distinctive, individual meaning comes from the cosmic layout. The cosmic layout can be seen as a tussle between the power of good and evil with human beings at the heart of the platform with the power of good and evil at work inside