INTRODUCTION TO WORLD

RELIGIONS AND BELIEF

SYSTEMS (IWRBS) LESSON 2
GRADE 11- ST. THOMAS MORE AND ST, THOMAS AQUINAS
PREPARED BY: MR. MAETHEL ANGELO S. SORIANO
OPENING
PRAYER
OPENING
PRAYER
 OBJECTIVES

At the end of the lesson, the students must be able to:

 Analyze the interconnectedness of geography, culture and
religion.
 Analyze the influences of religion to culture and society and;

 Observe the continuous influences brought by these

concepts in every facet of our life.
 STUDENT ACTIVITY

“In your words or opinion, how influential religion

is to society?”
• Click the Padlet link in the chat box and use it to place
your answer to the question above. You have 3-5
minutes to do the task. Then type “done” in the chatbox
when you are done doing the task in Padlet.
 RELIGION

• It is the relationship between

humans and that which they regard
as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual,
divine or worthy of special
reverence.
• It rooted from a latin word “Religio”
which means to something done with
overanxious or scrupulous attention
to detail.
 GEOGRAPHY

• Deals with studying the lands

and features of the earth.
• Also study of earth and its
people.
 • The relationship between religion and geography
can be termed as Religious Geography by
which geographical ideas are influenced by
religion such as early map-making, and biblical
RELIGION AND geography that developed in the 16th century to
identify places from the Bible.
GEOGRAPHY • Spreading the faith has been shaped by
geographical context. For example, for the Jews
the land of Canaan, is the land promised to them
by their God Yahweh through Abraham
WESTERN AND EASTERN RELIGIONS AND
THEIR ORIGINS
• Do you know that major religions of the world have their
origins in Asia? Asia is the largest and most populous
continent and the birthplace of many religions including
Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism,
Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and
Zoroastrianism.
 WESTERN AND EASTERN RELIGIONS AND
THEIR ORIGINS

• Some of them spread in other grounds like Europe hence they were
branded as Western Religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
• Those that remained in Asia are called the Eastern Religions which are
Hinduism, Buddhism, , Taoism, Shintoism to name a few.
 WESTERN AND EASTERN RELIGIONS AND
THEIR ORIGINS

• There is a significant disparity between Western and Eastern religions

in terms of belief systems, worldview and philosophy about life.
• The mindset of the West is different from the mindset of the East. It is
possible that the difference in mindset is brought by geographical
influence.
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN
WESTERN AND
EASTERN
PARADIGMS
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WESTERN AND EASTERN
PARADIGMS
• Let us look at the specific characteristics between the western
(occidental) and eastern (oriental) paradigm as discussed by
Christine Carmela R. Ramos in her book, “Introduction to the
Philosophy of the Human Person.” 2016. In gist the disparity of
mindset can be summarized as follows;
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WESTERN AND EASTERN
PARADIGMS

WESTERN (OCCIDENTAL) EASTERN (ORIENTAL)

• Religion and Philosophy are different
disciplines
• Mindset is linear which means there is a
beginning and end.
• Speculate and theorize, no application to
life is necessary
• Religion is philosophy and philosophy
is religion
• Mindset is circular. The end conjoins the
beginning in a cyclic manner
• Acceptance of the validity of intuition
and mysticism
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WESTERN AND EASTERN
PARADIGMS
• Western minds were influenced mainly by the Greek culture
spreading through the Roman Empire which was termed Hellenism
or the influenced of Greek culture among the Romans. Then the
Roman Empire extended all over Europe which was termed as the
western hemisphere of the globe.
 SACRED PLACES

• Religious experiences and the belief in religious meanings

transformed physical spaces into sacred places.
• The Hindus consider the Ganges river as sacred, the Jews consider
Mt. Sinai as holy. Temples, churches and mosques are some of the
sacred places for Buddhists, Christians and Muslims respectively.
 SACRED PLACES

• There are plenty of geographical places that are considered holy or

sacred because of religion.
• The interplay of geography and religion not only highlights the role
of religion in affecting landscape changes and in assigning sacred
meanings to specific places, but also acknowledges how religious
ideology and practices at specific spaces are guided and
transformed by their location.
 EXAMPLE OF RELIGION CHANGES
LANDSCAPE OF A GEOGRAPHIC
LOCATION AND CONTEXT

• The picture is the Regina Rica. It used to be a

mountainous, serene, and peaceful location very close
to nature overlooking Laguna lake. Now it is
transformed into a pilgrimage site especially for
Catholic Christian believers.
• This is a concrete example of how religion changes
the landscape of a geographic location and context.
Filipinos are very religious people and their
dependence to God can be traced to the numerous
sacred images and places around the country. Regina
Rica in Tanay, Rizal is just one of them.
 THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Geography is the study of earth and its people. Its features are things
like continents, seas, rivers and mountains
• Religious Geography by which geographical ideas are influenced by
religion such as early map-making, and biblical geography that
developed in the 16th century to identify places from the Bible.
• Western religions – are religions that flourish in the Western
hemisphere of the globe or sometimes called the Occidental religions
like Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
 THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Eastern Religions are religions from the Eastern hemisphere which are
also called the Oriental religions that include Hinduism, Buddhism, ,
Taoism, Shintoism to name a few.
• Sacred places - is a place that is thought of as sacred (or holy) to a
particular religion. Every one of the world's major religions has sacred
sites.
 THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Paradigm – is a worldview, belief or a model of thought.

• Hellenism - is the term used to describe the influence of Greek culture
on the entire Roman Empires. The Hellenistic period covers the period
of Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in
323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire
THE SYMBIOSIS OF
RELIGION & CULTURE
 WHAT IS CULTURE?

• Culture is “a whole way of life” The way we think, act or speak. It is

“ordinary.” Culture can be also dynamic, it can be shared, learned,
transmitted from one generation to another, adaptive and integrated.
• As defined by UNESCO “ The whole complex of distinctive spiritual,
material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a
society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters,
but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being,
value systems, traditions and beliefs.”
 ETHNOCENTRISM

• Ethnocentrism is a belief in the superiority of your own culture.

It results from judging other cultures by your own cultural ideals.
• Ethnocentrism is linked to cultural blind spots. Blind spots occur
when we fail to attribute differences between our behaviours
and beliefs and those of others to differences in cultural
schemas.
 CULTURAL RELATIVISM

• Cultural relativism refers to not judging a culture to our

own standards of what is right or wrong, strange or
normal.
 MULTICULTURALISM

• Multiculturalism, the view that cultures, races, and

ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups, deserve
special acknowledgment of their differences within a
dominant political culture.
 RELIGION AND CULTURE

• What is the role of culture in the development of religion? The evolution of

culture is simultaneous with the evolution of man. As man progresses
from homo habilis to homo sapiens, from Old Stone Age to New Stone
Age then to Iron Age, Industrial Age and Technological age, significant
changes in the way human acts, lives, or use tools have been observed.
• This is true in all dimensions of human life including religion. It was
believed that man’s consciousness of the divine can be traced back to the
time of the Neanderthals.
 RELIGION AND CULTURE

• Lawrence McKinney observed that, “the discovery of bear skulls with

unusual markings indicates the basis of a primitive religion while
others, noting the existence of flower petals and pollen in ancient
burial sites, have speculated on the possibility of Neanderthal
funeral rites.
• The reality of death developed into a cultural funeral rite as a way of
respecting the dead. This reality is taken seriously by religion and sought
divine aide to solve the riddle of life.
 RELIGION AND CULTURE

• Our experience of the Covid-19 pandemic can attest to this. The sight of
people dying left and right in hospitals, coffins paraded in the streets
and millions of people all over the world struggling to survive from this
malady triggered humans to depend on some divine power to intercede.
The pandemic as of June , 2020, hit a record high of almost ten (10)
million people affected all over the world and hundreds of thousands of
deaths. Since no vaccine is in sight, posts in Facebook, messenger,
Instagram, Twitter and even mainstream media are all dominated by
God-related shares in a form of prayers and pleas for divine intervention
 RELIGION AND CULTURE

• The church has to adjust to the new culture. This is how

culture influences religion and vice versa. There are
certain periods in history that the intermarriage between
culture and religion, the latter dominates in shaping the
way of life of the people.
 AMONG THE MANY FUNCTIONS OF RELIGION
IDENTIFIED BY CALDERON (1998) ARE THE FOLLOWING:

• 1. Religion serves as a means of social control.

• 2. It exerts a great influence upon personality development.
• 3. Religion always fear of the unknown.
• 4. Religion explains events or situations which are beyond the comprehension
of man.
• 5. It gives man comfort, strength and hope in times of crisis and despair.
• 6. It preserves and transmits knowledge, skills, spiritual and cultural values
and practices.
 AMONG THE MANY FUNCTIONS OF RELIGION
IDENTIFIED BY CALDERON (1998) ARE THE FOLLOWING:

• 7. It serves as an instrument of change.

• 8. It promotes closeness, love, cooperation, friendliness and helpfulness.
• 9. Religion alleviates sufferings from major calamities.
• 10. It provides hope for a blissful life after death.
 RELIGION AND CULTURE

• The functions show that religion penetrates the whole dimension of one’s
life and society even to non-believers.
• As history goes by, the perspective of religion changes. Religion today is
used as a weapon not of oppression but of compassion and solidarity
with the poor. From the perspective of Christianity, this is the original
intention of the founder, Jesus Christ. The Bible, the sacred book of the
Christians is very specific that Christ’s leaning is towards the poor and
the oppressed.
 RELIGION AND CULTURE

• Historically, in 313 AD, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of

Milan, which accepted Christianity: 10 years later, it became the official
religion of the Roman Empire.
• The sudden shift of attitudes and lifestyles among the Christians was
observable among which; a) being powerless, they become powerful; b)
being persecuted, they become persecutors.
• The development of religion is influenced by the cultural milieu where it
belongs
 ECUMENISM

• Ecumenism- is a movement or tendency toward worldwide Christian unity or

cooperation.
• The ecumenical movement seeks to recover the apostolic sense of the early
church for unity in diversity, and it confronts the frustrations, difficulties, and
ironies of the modern pluralistic world.
• It is a lively reassessment of the historical sources and destiny of what
followers perceive to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus
Christ.
 ECUMENISM

• Mahatma Ghandi said “Nobody in this world possesses absolute truth.

This is God’s attribute alone. Relative truth is all we know.”
• Today, ecumenism is not only exclusive among Christian churches but it
extends towards other religions through the principles of “unity in diversity”
and “many paths yet only one destiny.” Ecumenism simply means that no
religion possesses the whole truth as Gandhi reiterates.
 THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Culture – is the whole way of life. It is ‘ordinary” according to Raymond Williams which
means all we do from sunrise to sunset is part of our culture.
• New Normal Culture-is a deviation from the “normal” way of life to the “not normal” due to
the Covid-19 pandemic. It is more of awareness and prevention against the pandemic which
includes social distancing, wearing masks and washing of hands or using alcohol to avoid the
virus.
 THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Ecumenism- is a movement or tendency toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation

• Renewal - Second Vatican Council, also called Vatican II, (1962–65), 21st ecumenical council
of the Roman Catholic Church, announced by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959, as a
means of spiritual renewal for the church and as an occasion for Christians separated from
Rome to join in a search for Christian unity
 ASSESSMENT FOR LESSON 2

• 1. Go to your google classroom and answer the

assessment given in google form (can be answered after
the class) and read the instructions carefully.
2. Answer it as best as you can
3. Provide a copy or a screenshot of your answers.
ASYNCHRONOUS ACTIVITY

• Pointers to review for your Prelims

• Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 topics can be found in the
powerpoint presentation.