Select two of the major world religious traditions. Summarize the key features of each and contrast them with each other and with the Greek philosophical tradition. Write a report in which you consider the following:
Your report may well include reflection on the role of religious traditions in your own life, but develop your analysis of the issues independently of your own convictions.
Write a 4-page analysis of key features of two of the major world religious traditions.
This assessment allows you to demonstrate your ability to summarize, contrast, and evaluate historical and contemporary elements of world religions.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
Religious traditions are a significant part of any study of the humanities. The Assessment 2 Contextdocument provides a brief overview of some of the major world religious traditions. You may wish to review this document for key concepts and ideas related to this topic.
Like philosophy, religion deals with vital questions about human experience and the guidance of conduct, but its methods and appeals are typically quite different:
Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam are four of the world’s great religious traditions that have persisted for many centuries.
Judaism emerged three thousand years ago with the move from Egypt to Canaan of a group of Hebrew tribes led by Moses, who introduced monotheism, or belief in a single deity. For their descendants, political success or failure was understood as divine reward or punishment. In the centuries that followed, the civilization grew more organized and gradually developed an extensive literature, written scriptures that were interpreted, communicated, and enforced by generations of rabbinical teachers. Liturgical practice included chants, music, responsive reading, and public prayer. Despite their later absorption into Hellenistic societies and later cultures, the Jews have preserved their tribal and religious identity through successive generations.
Buddhism arose during the same period in India, from the life and teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama. Years of spiritual searching and meditative practice led him to believe that life involves suffering that can be escaped only by cultivating humility, selflessness, and nonattachment. Variations on Buddhist teachings spread throughout India, Tibet, China, and Japan.
Christianity combined elements from messianic Judaism, mystery cults, and Hellenistic culture to fashion an ethical faith system that emphasized compassion and forgiveness. Jesus himself was a gifted teacher who enriched and expanded traditional concepts from scripture but attracted crowds whose instability threatened authorities from the Roman Empire. After his death, the apostle Paul developed a theology of sin and redemption, expressed in writings that soon became the core of Christian scriptures, known as the “New Testament.” Eventually, the movement was accepted by the Roman Empire and became an official part of culture in Western life. Its worship incorporated Jewish elements along with the ritual celebration of Jesus’s death through the Eucharist.
Islam was founded by an Arab merchant named Muhammad who saw himself as the fulfillment of a tradition ranging from Abraham through Moses and Jesus to his own conception of the relationship between the community and the one God, Allah. The recitation of his teachings, recorded in the Qur’an, was shared with other people throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and much of the world. During several centuries of stagnation in the West, Islamic scholars preserved, communicated, and extrapolated from the classical period’s achievements in philosophy, science, and medicine.
The following e-books or articles from the Capella University Library are linked directly in this course:
A Capella University library guide has been created specifically for your use in this course. You are encouraged to refer to the resources in the HUM-FP1000 – Introduction to Humanities Library Guideto help direct your research.
The resource listed below is relevant to the topics and assessments in this course. Unless noted otherwise, this material is available for purchase from the Capella University Bookstore. When searching the bookstore, be sure to look for the Course ID with the specific –FP (FlexPath) course designation.