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Religious Sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, typically emerging as an offshoot of a larger organization. Originally, the term referred specifically to religious groups that had separated from a main body, but it can now apply to any group that diverges from a larger organization to follow a distinct set of beliefs and practices. Sects often form when there is a perception of heresy either within the subgroup or from the larger group. In an Indian context, sect refers to an organized tradition. Etymology The word ''sect'' originates from the Latin noun ''secta'' (a feminine form of a variant past participle of the verb '' sequi'', to follow) which translates to "a way, road". Figuratively, it signifies a (prescribed) way, mode, or manner. Metonymously, sect refers to a discipline or school of thought as defined by a set of methods and doctrines. The various modern usages of the term stem largely from confusion with the homonymous (but etymol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prevailing Religious Population By Country Percentage
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Prevailing may refer to: *Prevailing winds * Prevailing visibility *Prevailing wage In United States government contracting, a prevailing wage is defined as the hourly wage, usual benefits and overtime, paid to the majority of workers, laborers, and mechanics within a particular area. This is usually the union wage. Prevailing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodney Stark
Rodney William Stark (July 8, 1934 – July 21, 2022) was an American sociologist of religion who was a longtime professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington. At the time of his death he was the Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, co-director of the university's Institute for Studies of Religion, and founding editor of the ''Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion''.Curriculum vitae Baylor University. Stark had written over 30 books, including '' The Rise of Christianity'' (1996), and more than 140 scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as prejudice, crime, suicide, and city life in ancient Rome. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main existing branches of Buddhism, the others being Theravāda and Vajrayāna.Harvey (2013), p. 189. Mahāyāna accepts the main scriptures and teachings of Early Buddhist schools, early Buddhism but also recognizes various doctrines and texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism as original. These include the Mahāyāna sūtras and their emphasis on the ''bodhisattva'' path and Prajnaparamita, ''Prajñāpāramitā''. Vajrayāna or Mantra traditions are a subset of Mahāyāna which makes use of numerous Tantra, tantric methods Vajrayānists consider to help achieve Buddhahood. Mahāyāna also refers to the path of the bodhisattva striving to become a fully awakened Buddha for the benefit of all sentience, sentient beings, and is thus also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia (continent), Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of Atolls of the Maldives, 26 atolls of the Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. Timor-Leste and the southern portion of Indonesia are the parts of Southeast Asia that lie south of the equator. The region lies near the intersection of Plate tectonics, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Asia
South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's population. As commonly conceptualised, the modern State (polity), states of South Asia include Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with Afghanistan also often included, which may otherwise be classified as part of Central Asia. South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Apart from Southeast Asia, Littoral South Asia, Maritime South Asia is the only subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. The British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of Atolls of Maldives, 26 atolls of the Maldives in South Asia lie entirely within the Southern Hemisphere. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theravada
''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhism), Dhamma'' in the Pāli Canon for over two millennia. The Pāli Canon is the most complete Buddhist canon surviving in a Indo-Aryan languages, classical Indian language, Pāli, which serves as the school's sacred language and ''lingua franca''.Crosby, Kate (2013), ''Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity, and Identity'', p. 2. In contrast to Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, Theravāda tends to be conservative in matters of doctrine (''pariyatti'') and monastic discipline (''vinaya''). One element of this Religious conservatism, conservatism is the fact that Theravāda rejects the authenticity of the Mahayana sutras (which appeared onwards). Consequently, Theravāda generally does not recognize the existence of many Buddhas and bodhisattva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Buddhist Monk By Arashiyama
Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspora, Japanese emigrants and their descendants around the world * Japanese citizens, nationals of Japan under Japanese nationality law ** Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan * Japanese writing system, consisting of kanji and kana * Japanese cuisine, the food and food culture of Japan See also * List of Japanese people * * Japonica (other) * Japanese studies , sometimes known as Japanology in Europe, is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japanese language, history, culture, litera ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cult
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. Beginning in the 1930s, new religious movements became an object of sociological study within the context of the study of religious behavior. Since the 1940s, the Christian countercult movement has opposed some sects and new religious movements, labeling them cults because of their unorthodox beliefs. Since the 1970s, the secular anti-cult movement has opposed certain groups, which they call cults, accusing them of practicing brainwashing. Groups labelled cults are found around the world and range in size from small localized groups to some in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists, by contrast, maintain th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eileen Barker
Eileen Vartan Barker (born 21 April 1938, in Edinburgh, UK) is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has written studies about cults and new religious movements. Academic career Barker has been involved with the LSE's sociology department, where she received her PhD, since 1970. In 1988, she engaged in research on the preservation of cultural identity in the Armenian diaspora. In the same year, she founded the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury and financial help from the British Home Office. Barker has held numerous positions of leadership in the academic study of religion. She served as the chairperson of the British Sociological Association's Study Group for the Sociology of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Wallis
Roy Wallis (1945–1990) was a sociologist and Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the Queen's University Belfast. He is mostly known for his creation of the seven signs that differentiate a religious congregation from a sectarian church, which he created while researching the Church of Scientology. He introduced the distinction between ''world-affirming'' and ''world-rejecting'' new religious movements. After publishing his book ''The Road to Total Freedom ''The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology'' is a non-fiction book about Scientology by sociologist Roy Wallis. Originally published in 1976 by Heinemann, it was republished in 1977 by Columbia University Press. The or ...'' (1976), an analysis of the sociology of Scientology, he was harassed by the church both legally and personally. Forged letters, apparently from Wallis, were sent to his colleagues.Stewart Lamont (1986) ''Religion Inc.: The Church of Scientology'' Londo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Road To Total Freedom
''The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology'' is a non-fiction book about Scientology by sociologist Roy Wallis. Originally published in 1976 by Heinemann, it was republished in 1977 by Columbia University Press. The original manuscript was the product of Wallis's doctoral research at Oxford under the tutelage of Bryan Wilson. Wallis, after a review of the original manuscript by Scientology leaders, made edits to about 100 passages before publication. In the book, Wallis first analyzes the degree to which the Church of Scientology views itself as legitimate, as well as to what degree external society regarded the organization as "respectable" or "deviant". Furthermore, he provides a contextual history of the organization, including a discussion of the Dianetics movement founded by L. Ron Hubbard. Next, Wallis discusses the appeal of the Scientology practice of Auditing, and compares this to abreaction therapy. And finally, he examines how Scientology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
