Religions: Key Elements Essay

The importance of religions related to their spiritual and ethical messages is held to a high degree of importance. The importance of religions related to their cultural contributions to the arts and the humanities is also held to a high degree of importance. The importance of religions related to their alliances with political and economic institutions is held to a high degree of importance because the authority and power of the ruler and of the priest reinforced one another and religion reinforced the powers of legislation as well as those of administration. The difference between studying a religion and studying about a religion is that when someone studies a religion, they believe in the beliefs and values of that religion and are studying it to become a better person in that religion. When someone studies about a religion, they don’t necessarily follow that religion and are studying about it to strictly get information. That compares to the difference between theologians and of historians by being the same. Hinduism is especially related to the land of India by almost all Hindus living in India or are of Indian descent, and places visited by gods and by saints, as well as places of great natural sanctity in India have become shrines and pilgrim destinations. The key turning points in the evolution of Buddhism were having a founder, renouncing the hereditary caste system, and renouncing the supremacy of the brahmin priests. The key elements in the competition between Hinduism and Buddhism are the Hindus believing in the caste system and brahmin priests, Buddhism having a founder, a set of originating scriptures, and an order of monks. Both religions and governments have been historically interdependent. The geographical distributions of Hindus is across the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia. The geographical distributions of Buddhists is from Buddha’s home region in the Himalayan foothills throughout India and in most of east and southeast Asia. The relationship between Buddhism and Confucianism in China and Japan is that they have differences, but the two world perspectives seem to have reached a mutual accommodation. The Judaism of the prophets differed form the Judaism of the Torah by the prophets telling of things that happened later and the Torah being about older events. They are similar because of the overall message they taught. Exile forced the Jewish people to restructure their religion in order to survive by them establishing the principal contours of Jewish diaspora. The reasons for Christians and Muslims to treat their Jewish minorities respectfully were because it was what they believed and they were also trying to convert them to their religion. Their reason for being spiteful toward their Jewish minority were that the Jewish people would not convert to their religion. The elements from Judaism that were incorporated into Christianity were the belief of a monotheistic God and the TaNaKh as the Old Testament in the Bible. The elements from Judaism that were not incorporated into Christianity were the diaspora and minority concepts. St. Paul took the original teachings and organization created by Jesus and built them into the Christian Church by formulating a new concept of â€Å"original sin† and redemption from it. According to Paul, those who believed in Jesus Christ and accepted membership into the new Christian community would be forgiven of their sins by God and would be â€Å"saved. † Christianity began in Judaea and became the dominant religion in Europe. The key steps in making and consolidating that geographical move was the missionary journeys of Jesus himself and of his prophets.