Week 12 Beliefs
Slide 4 Beginning of the mass production of
books
Slide 5 Religion as a global interdependency –
groups
Slide 6 The Role of Religion in Globalisation
Slide 7 Online test for hidden bias
beginning of the mass production of books
Johannes Gutenberg
Gutenberg Bible was printed in Mainz around 1454-5
Current e-books – to - SMS
Religion manifests a culture
Religion is a personal, spiritual attitude. In most cases,
each one's religion is a tradition. One is "born" Christian,
another one Jewish, another one Moslem, most often
according to family roots. But in this multicultural world,
people choose religion apart from their family traditions.
Religious extremism
Religion and Middle Eastern politics
see religion in recent events
continued 15 reasons why Arabs hate the West
Taliban's Appeal
see Global Connections
there are 19 major world religions which are subdivided
into a total of 270 large religious groups, and many
smaller ones.
75% of the adults in both the U.S. and Canada are
Christians.
("The proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as
Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001)
Major Religions of the World
Ranked by Number of Adherents
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.h
tml
Religion as a global interdependency – groups
World Religions
 Missionaries - Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible
 The Catholic Church  Krishna movement – 1960s TM etc
http://www.alltm.org/Maharishi.html
 Sun Myung Moon, The Unification Church, Moonies,
http://www.unification.net/
http://www.unification.org/
 The Baha’is http://www.bahai.org/

read The Struggle Towards Global Consciousness
http://www.bahai.org/article-1-9-1-5.html
 Wiccan, Witchcraft and Pagan knowledge
 Astrology – history 1, 2, 3
 Mysticism as commonality in all religions see
The Role of Religion in Globalisation
nineteenth century, the insecurities produced by the French and the Industrial
Revolutions resulted in the ideologies of nationalism and socialism.
twentieth century, the insecurities produced by defeats in the First World War
resulted in the ideologies of Soviet communism and German National
Socialism.
Previous to the 19th and 20th Century - Protestant Reformation and the Catholic
Counterreformation
the origins of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism (the “world religions”) can be
interpreted as responses and reactions to the deep insecurities produced by
radical social disruptions.
Three Perspectives on Religion
(1) the modernist
(2) the post-modernist
(3) the pre- modernist
World Religions
•Roman Catholic church
•The Hindu Response to Globalization