LESSON 2:
HISTORICAL AND
GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXTS
OF THE DIFFERENT
RELIGIONS
PART 1:
RELIGION AND
GEOGRAPHY
What is GEOGRAPHY?
• Geography is the study of earth and its people.
Its features are things like continents, seas,
rivers and mountains.
• The relationship between religion and
geography can be termed as Religious
Geography. Spreading the faith has been
shaped by geographical context.
THE CRADLE OF RELIGIONS
is the largest and most
populous continent and the
ASIA
birthplace of many religions
including Buddhism,
Christianity, Confucianism,
Hinduism, Islam, Jainism,
Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism,
Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.
Western Religions VS Eastern Religions
• 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 Religions VS Eastern Religions
There is a significant disparity between Western and
Eastern religions in terms of belief systems, worldview
and philosophy about life.
SACRED PLACES
• Religious experiences and the belief in religious
meanings transformed physical spaces into sacred
places.(Serapio, 2016)
• 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 (Kong, 1990).
Part 2:
Religion and Culture
WHAT IS CULTURE?
• Culture is “a whole way of life”, the way we think, act or
speak. It is “ordinary.” (Williams, 1958). It can be also
dynamic, it can be shared, learned, transmitted from one
generation to another, adaptive and integrated
(Bodley,1999).
• It is 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.
(UNESCO)
ETHNOCENTRISM VS CULTURAL RELATIVISM
If you consider your own culture as superior from the
rest, then your belief is termed as ethnocentrism.
On the other hand, if you are open minded towards
other culture without judging them and respect the
diverse culture around you then you believe in
cultural relativism.
MULTICULTURALISM
According to Harrison (1994) multiculturalism is a
theory about the foundations of a culture rather than
a practice which subsumes cultural ideas. In a
broader sense, the term is often use to describe
societies which have many distinct cultural groups,
usually as a result of immigration. (Vega, et al, 2009)
RELIGION AND CULTURE
It was believed that man’s consciousness of the
divine can be traced back to the time of the
Neanderthals. 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 (McKinney,1994).
RELIGION AND CULTURE
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.
Roles of Religion on Culture
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 allays 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.
Roles of Religion on Culture
Among the many functions of religion identified by Calderon
(1998) are the following:
6. It preserves and transmits knowledge, skills, spiritual and
cultural values and practices.
7. It serves as an instrument of change.
8. It promotes closeness, love, cooperation, friendliness and
helpfulness.
9. Religion alleviates sufferings from major calamities.
[Link] provides hope for a blissful life after death.
Roles of Religion on Culture
ECUMENISM
is a movement or tendency forward worldwide Christian
unity or cooperation. The ecumenical movement seeks to
recover the apostolic sense of the early church for unity in
diversity 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.
([Link]/topic/ecumenism).
