Lesson 1: Introduction to World Religions

It asserts that there is no genuine distinction between god and the universe.

• Polytheism

• Monotheism

• Atheism

• Monism

These were common among early people recognize many principal gods among whom no one is supreme.

• Agnosticism

• Monotheism

• Polytheism

• Monism

They claim that there is only one God who could have designed and created the universe or may have directed all events that led to the creation of everything.

• Monotheism

• Polytheism

• Agnosticism

• Atheism

It is an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods.

• spirituality

• religion

• rituals

• mass

The theory wherein primitive people believe in souls or anima found in people (seen in dreams) and in all of nature.

• Nature- Worship Theory

• Theory of Original Monotheism

• Animistic Theory

• Magic Theory

According to this theory, human beings first developed their religions from their observations of the forces of nature.

• Theory of Original Monotheism

• Animistic Theory

• Magic Theory

• Nature- Worship Theory

In Australia and Africa, basic cultures held a common belief in a distant high god, that originally there had been one great God above all others, and that he may have been the creator of the world or the father of the many lesser deities.

• Magic Theory

• Nature- Worship Theory

• Theory of Original Monotheism

• Wish Fulfilment Theory

according to him there were no gods and that belief in gods was simply wish fulfilment.

• Ludwig Andreas Von Feuerbach

• Karl Heinrich Marx

• Sigmund Freud

• Wilhelm Schmidt

Austrian neurologist and founder father of psychoanalysis- He said that religion originated from the guilt that individuals supposedly feel in hating their fathers

• Karl Heinrich Marx

• Sigmund Freud

• Ludwig Andreas Von Feuerbach

• Friedrich Max Müller

German philosopher and sociologist- He believes that religions were developed by the few as a means to control the masses and suppress revolution as a result of the continuing struggle between classes.

• Sigmund Freud

• Ludwig Andreas Von Feuerbach

• Karl Heinrich Marx

• James George Frazer