Deck 10: Religion

Question 1

The Taoist doctrine of wu wei roughly translates as

A) "do without doing."
B) "enlightened one."
C) "from nothing."
D) "unmoved mover."

Answer 1

A

Question 2

In Buddhism, the exercise that allows for loss of all consciousness of ego is called

A) nirvana.
B) meditation.
C) enlightenment. d moksha.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Islamic art takes the form of

A) calligraphic mosaics and elaborate architecture.
B) Gothic cathedrals.
C) sculpted figures from stories from the Qur'an.
D) challenging, unorthodox poems.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The god Vishnu's role in the pantheon of Hinduism is to

A) maintain all that exists in the visible universe.
B) pass judgment on human sin.
C) influence aspects of nature and human behavior.
D) balance creation and destruction.

Question 5

Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost are two great literary works that

A) suggest frustration with an indifferent God.
B) depict belief in many gods.
C) explore important religious questions.
D) challenge religious orthodoxy.

Question 6

Martin Luther was a major figure in

A) the Protestant Reformation.
B) the inquisition.
C) medieval Christian philosophy.
D) early Christian doctrine.

Question 7

The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is an account of

A) how the belief in an all-good God creates problems.
B) how evil entered the world.
C) the covenant between God and God's creation.
D) how God provides salvation to humans.

Question 8

Which major philosopher from the Middle Ages blended Aristotle's logic with Christianity?

A) Socrates.
B) Muhammad.
C) Augustine.
D) Thomas Aquinas.

Question 9

In Islam, the fasting period that commemorates the communication of the Qur'an to Mohammed is

A) Mecca.
B) Sufi.
C) Brahma.
D) Ramadan.

Question 10

Aristotle's Unmoved Mover is the

A) cold and lifeless universe.
B) cause of the first effect.
C) ordered universe.
D) first instance of monotheism.

Question 11

Although the two religions are similar in important ways, Islam and Christianity differ because

A) Islam has an afterlife, but Christianity does not.
B) Christianity has a holy book, but Islam does not.
C) Christianity stresses forgiveness of sin, while Islam stresses moral perfection.
D) Christianity is monotheistic, and Islam is polytheistic.

Question 12

The first five books of the Hebrew Bible are called the

A) Torah.
B) Gospels.
C) Qur'an.
D) Talmud.

Question 13

The ancient Greeks' gods and goddesses

A) controlled certain aspects of nature and life.
B) were influenced by Egyptian notions of divinity.
C) had total control over the fate of humans.
D) were uninvolved in the affairs of mortals.

Question 14

The belief that it is impossible to know whether God exists is called

A) dharma.
B) agnosticism.
C) enlightenment.
D) atheism.

Question 15

The book of Job in the Hebrew Bible deals with the

A) cumulative moral consequences of our actions.
B) concept of an afterlife.
C) origins of human beings.
D) problem of human suffering.

Question 16

What is the technique an atheist would be likely to apply the following the statement "There is an afterlife":

A) creatio ex nihilo.
B) The problem of good and evil.
C) reductio ad absurdum.
D) pragmatism.

Question 17

Both Hinduism and Buddhism share the belief that suffering

A) results from the accumulation of misdeeds.
B) can be avoided through right living.
C) is the nature of existence.
D) came into the world due to human sinfulness.

Question 18

The first philosopher to address questions of Christianity such as ex nihilo, evil, and predestination is

A) Martin Luther.
B) Carl Sagan.
C) Augustine.
D) Thomas Aquinas.

Question 19

Almost all Native American religions believe in

A) the sacred nature of the earth.
B) the Great Spirit.
C) that life is suffering.
D) a universal soul.

Question 20

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass shows the influence of the

A) Christian idea of ex nihilo.
B) pragmatist ideas of Charles Pearce.
C) Islamic idea of service to Allah.
D) Indian idea of Brahman.

Question 21

How do yin and yang work together in Taoism?

Question 22

Compare how Buddhism or Hinduism understands human behavior and misbehavior to the way Judaism and Christianity understand them.
I. Explain the Hindu concepts of reincarnation and karma or the Buddhist paths to enlightenment and nirvana.
II. Explain the concepts of punishments in this world and the afterlife from Judaism and Christianity.

Question 23

Describe how agnosticism and atheism challenge the certainty of religion.
I. Describe agnosticism's appeal to the unknowable nature of reality.
II. Describe both informal and formal responses to belief in divinity and the pragmatist response.

Question 24

Compare how the Book of Job handles the problem of suffering and evil with the way the Christian philosopher Augustine does.
I. Explain Job as experiencing undeserved misfortune at the hands of a mysterious God.
II. Explain Augustine's concept of free will and of predestination as ways of understanding the nature of God.

Question 25

What is materialism?

Question 26

What is syncretism?

Question 27

What is pragmatism?

Question 28

How does Aquinas's argument for the existence of God take up the problem of the unmoved mover introduced by Aristotle?
I. Explain the problem of causation in Aristotle.
II. Describe how Aquinas's five tenets for the existence of God respond to this problem.

Question 29

What is predestination?

Question 30

Compare how the polytheism of the Greeks compares to that of the Egyptians and Hindu religion. Discuss the Greek gods' and goddesses' role in nature and human lives. Discuss similarities to the Egyptian system, including the idea of rulers as gods. Finally, discuss the roles of Diyaus Pita, Privithi, Indra, and Varuna in human lives.
I. For the Greeks, the importance lies in the intervention of deities in the lives of humans and in the gods' limits in doing so. Individual gods were mythically responsible of specific aspects of human lives.
II. For the Egyptians, rulers were intermediaries between gods and humans. Rulers themselves were considered divine. Out of this divinity whole cultures and civilizations emerged.
III. The divinities of Hinduism are far less involved in the lives of humans. They represented forces of creativity, destruction, and preservation. The continuous balancing of these forces leads to the central idea that life is in constant change or fluctuation.