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Meditation/Contemplation
(3,115 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Christianity – III. The Religions of India – IV. Buddhism
I. Religious Studies
Meditation is a general term for different, variously contextualized methods of training consciousness that are found in various religions. The term itself originated in the Platonic/Neoplatonic Christian tradition (Platonism, Neoplatonism), where it means “intensively focused thought.” The works of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor as well as Bonaventura and J. de Gerson treat meditation as a stage in the progress of the spiritual life:
lectio –
meditatio – (
oratio) –
contemplatio (see also II below). Another medieval analysis (explicit in Bonaventu…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Buddhism
(10,901 words)
[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Missiology
I. History of Religion
1. The Buddha and his Teaching. Although the biographical dates of the historical Buddha are uncertain, scholars generally put them at 563–483 bce. The Buddha understood his own teaching as a path to redemption, i.e., to liberation from the wretched cycle of rebirths. This teaching (Dharma) is often expressed in a medical metaphor: the Buddha identified the fundamental problem of existence as an illness, found its cause, recognized a possible means of healing it, and proclaimed the remedy. The “Four Noble Truths” (
…
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Religion Past and Present
Enlightenment (Spiritual)
(1,584 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Christian Theology – IV. Buddhism
I. Religious Studies Verbalizing the internal light (Symbols/Symbol theory) of the mysteries and mysticism,
enlightenment denotes salvific knowledge that comes through sudden ineffable existential experience. Interreligious contacts (reception of ancient conceptions of enlightenment in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; modern encount…
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Religion Past and Present
Hīnayāna
(554 words)
[German Version] (Sanskrit: euphemistic trans. “small vehicle”; originally used pejoratively by the adherents of Mahāyāna in the sense of “lesser vehicle”) designates a number of sometimes quite disparate early Buddhist orientations (Buddhism: I, 6). Bareau (1964) proposed adopting the objectively more correct designation “Early Buddhism/Old Buddhism.” The path to salvat…
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Religion Past and Present
Compassion
(1,239 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Christianity – III. Buddhism
I. Religious Studies The term compassion bears Christian connotations: compassion (cf. Lat.
compassio; Gk συμπάϑεια/
sympátheia) refers to the capacity or ability to share concretely in the suffering of others, to sympathize and to draw consequences for one's own behavior. In this regard, the religions answer the question of the appropriate object for compassion – for example all people, only people of a certain group, animals – very differently. Compassion is closely related to active moral love (Love of one's neighbor). From the perspective of moral philosophy, compassion is, thus, the stimulus for any moral behavior (Morality/Immorality). From the perspective of the history of religion, it is not possible to state specifically when in the history of human development the idea of compassion arose and began to be treated as an ethical concept. Only the high cultures and their religions had terms available that relate semantically or are identical to c…
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Religion Past and Present
Monasticism
(13,595 words)
[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Religious Studies – III. Church History – IV. Buddhism – V. India
I. Terminology
Monasticism is a collective term for an alternative way of life, always religiously motivated, that includes asceticism but is also characterized by a more or less radical withdrawal from society (the “world”) as well as from the monastics' own community of faith. The term
monk commonly used in Christianity (from secular Gk μοναχός/
monachós, “solitary,” Lat.
monachus, borrowed by way of a hypothetical 8th-century
monichus* into Old Hig…
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Religion Past and Present
South-East Asia
(1,659 words)
[German Version] comprises the modern continental countries Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Singapore, together with the island states of Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor, and the Philippines. The territory of Malaysia comprises both continental and insular regions (see the map at Asia). In the year 2000, the population was about 522 million; 27.2% were Buddhists, 2% Hindus, 26.8% Muslims, 21.4% Christians (14.7% Catholics), and 22.6% other. …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Monasteries
(3,085 words)
[German Version] I. Comparative Religion – II. Christianity – III. Buddhism – IV. Monastic Law
I. Comparative Religion The term
monastery (or
cloister) derives from the Christian tradition, where it denotes the living and working quarters, relatively secluded from the outside world, of a monastic community leading some type of ascetic life (Asceticism; see II below). In the broader context of other religions, the term is also tied to the context of monasticism. When certain social structures in non-Christian reli…
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Religion Past and Present
Gift
(1,063 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Systematic Theology
I. Religious Studies In the religious studies context, gifts are usually not understood in terms of a present, and such an idea is ¶ based on a misunderstanding (M. Douglas, preface to Mauss, VII). Each gift is one part within a system of reciprocities between those giving and those receiving at the time. Participants in this system may belong to various levels: closer or more distant groups or individuals among the living of varying generations, the dead (ancestors), gods, or divine beings. In each case, the circulation of the most diverse gifts is meant to establish, strengthen or maintain relationships that are characterized by solidarity and so bring about community. Mauss states that in such a system of (exchange) relationships, symbolic assets necessarily circulate together with material ones: movable and immovable possessions, economically serviceable items, acts of courtesy, banquets, rituals, periods of military service, women, children, festivals, markets, and acts of obeisance. The potlatch, as a system of total obligation with an element of competition to the point of exhaustive giving, is described as the most striking form of gift in this sense. The ritual staging of this “institution” is public, ceremonial, regular (periodic), and mandatory for all who are eligible. The completion of the circle is ensured by three aspects: the duty to give, the duty to accept, and the duty to reciprocate. Sanctions are imposed where there is a refusal to meet one of these obligations. Such refusal can even lead to the severance of social relationships and the loss of participation in the community (of values), for the system of circulating gifts circumscribes the extent to which the binding norms are accepted. This concept, which has been endorsed enthusiastically by some, has also been met with antagonism (Testart)…
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Religion Past and Present
Redemption/Soteriology
(10,262 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology All the major concepts in soteriology have biblical roots. Of central importance today is the notion of reconciliation (II), which bridges the theological and secular realms. The original Greek word καταλλαγή/
katallagḗ involves the notion of
exchange, which was early taken to imply that Christ takes the place of the sinner before God, so realizing
atonement…
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Religion Past and Present
Asia
(5,377 words)
[German Version] I. Geopolitical Considerations, Concept – II. History of Religions – III. Modern Asian Religions outside Asia – IV. Christianity
I. Geopolitical Considerations, Concept Culturally, economically, and politically, Asia is extraordinarily heterogeneous. The Islamic states of the Near East with their oil wealth are part of this continent, as are the multireligious societies of South and Southeast Asia, relatively poor in resources, and the countries of East Asia with their extraordinarily dynamic economies (at least through the mid 70s). Equally diverse are the…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Journals, Religious
(4,530 words)
[German Version] I. Religio-Cultural Journals – II. Journals of Religious Studies – III. Christianity – IV. Judaism – V. Islam
I. Religio-Cultural Journals…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociology of Religion
(3,710 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology The sociology of religion studies religion’s social aspects and manifestations, clearly inclu…
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Religion Past and Present