Belief System or Worldview

 a particular way of ordering the realities of one’s world

Different kinds of belief systems or worldviews:

(a) Monism (all is one)/(there is no real distinction between god and the universe);
(b) Polytheism (many Gods);
(c) Theism /Monotheism (one God);
(d) Atheism (no God)
(e) Agnosticism (god cannot be known)
Religion
 is the pursuit of transformation guided by a sacred belief system
 an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group
of gods
The Latin origins of the word religion:
 religio refers to “something done with overanxious or scrupulous attention to detail”
(Bowker 1997).
 religare which means “to tie together, to bind fast.”
 Relegere (to rehearse painstakingly, as in the case of collective rituals)
Name of Social Scientist, Background and View on Religion
Edward Burnett Taylor (1832-1917)
 English anthropologist; founding figure of the science of social anthropology
 the belief in spiritual beings
James George Frazer (1854-1941)
 Scottish social anthropologist; one of the founding figures of modern anthropology
 a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to control and
direct the course of nature and of human life
Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski (1884-1942)
 an eminent 20th-century Polish anthropologist
 a body of self-contained acts being themselves the fulfilment of their purpose; an affair of
all, in which everyone takes an active and equivalent part
David Ëmile Durkheim (1858-1917)
  French sociologist; father of sociology
 a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things
Elements of Religion
(a) it reflects an effort to elevate their whole self to a higher dimension of existence,

(b) a framework of transcendent beliefs,

(c) text or scriptures,

(d) rituals, and

(e) sacred spaces

Spirituality
 is one’s integrative view of life
 it involves a quest for the meaning and ultimate value of life as opposed to an
instrumentalist or materialistic attitude to life.
 derived from the Latin word spiritus, its verb root is spirare which means “to breathe”
literally
Elements of Spirituality
(a) holistic;
(b) quest for meaning;
(c) quest for sacred;
(d) suggests a self-reflective existence

Theology
 involves the systematic study of the existence and nature of the divine.
 is a study, not a formulation of religious beliefs

Philosophy of Religion
 deals primarily with issues concerning religion, which includes analysis on the existence
of a divine being or on sacred texts
 is not a branch of theology but a branch of philosophy
ACTIVITY

Match Column A with Column B. Write the letter of the correct answer on the blanks provided.

Column A Column B

1. a belief in the existence of one God

a. theology
viewed as the creative source of the human
race and the world

2. relating or affecting the human spirit or

b. agnosticism
soul that is one’s personal integrative view
on

3. the belief that there is only one God who c. polytheism

could have designed and created the
universe

4. the belief in many principal gods among d. theism

whom no one is supreme

5. the belief that there is no genuine

e. worldview
distinction between God and the universe
f. monism
6. denial of the existence of God

7. the belief that God's existence is

unknown and unknowable g. monotheism

8. an organized system of beliefs,

ceremonies, and rules used to worship a
h. atheism
god or a group of gods
i. religion
9. a collection of beliefs about life and the
universe held by people

10. the systematic study of the existence j. spirituality

and nature of the divine