Chapter 6 Study Guide on “Religion”
1. What are the two types of religions and what is the difference between them?
2. Identify the three main universalizing religions and accurately describe their origins.
3. Define the three main subgroups of a universalizing religion.
4. What are the three major branches of Christianity AND in what parts of Europe are they practiced?
5. What is the main religion in Great Britain and in South America, respectively?
6. In North America, where do mostly you find Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and Mormons?
7. What are the two main differences between the main branches of Christianity and its smaller branches or sects?
8. Name two smaller branches of Christianity in Africa and in the Caucasus.
9. In what regions of the world is Islam mostly practiced?
10. What are the five pillars of Islam?
11. What are the two branches of Islam?
12. What is the history of Islam in North America?
13. Which European country has the largest number of Muslims?
14. Who founded Buddhism?
15. What are the two main branches of Buddhism?
16. Where are Sikhism and Ba’hai practiced?
17. What are the main ethnic religions and in what parts of the world are they practiced?
18. Rank the top 3 religions of the world (universalizing and ethnic).
19. What is at the center of Hinduism? Confucianism?
20. Is Hinduism monotheistic or polytheistic?
21. What is the Dao according to Confucianism?
22. Where are Daoism and Shintoism practiced? What are the main concepts at the center of each religion?
23. Where are Jewish people clustered?
24. Describe Judaism: mono/polytheistic, main god, holy scripture, central idea of the religion.
25. What is animism, where is it mostly practiced, and why is it in decline?
26. Describe the origin of Buddhism.
27. What is the difference between the two main branches of Buddhism?
28. Why is Hinduism and ethnic religion and what is its central idea?
29. Explain how the three major universalizing religions diffused.
30. Explain why ethnic religions do not diffuse. What is an exception to this?
31. Describe the differences between universalizing and ethnic religions with respect to how they identify holy places,
citing examples.
32. Describe the main difference in the most important holidays between a universalizing and an ethnic religion.
33. What are the places of worship for each universalizing religion?
34. How do different religions dispose of their dead?
35. What are religious settlements?
36. Compare the Palestinian perspective with the Israeli perspective regarding the conflict over the Holy Land.
37. Wars were fought in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 in the land formerly known as Palestine. What country won all four
of these wars? What countries fought against this country in all four wars? Which one of these three countries signed
a peace treaty with the first country named?
38. Compare the impact of Christianity and Islam on the landscape.
39. How do different religions incorporate natural features into their cosmogony?
40. How has the concept of pilgrimage changed in the modern world?
41. How has religion been a source of territorial conflict among people?
42. Explain how universalizing and ethnic religions administer space (autonomy).