Religious Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides)

power metaphysics of presence, and other undesirable things, like authority, the scientific worldview, hierarchy, hegemony, and ...

power of its bearer. The accumulation of power constitutes an effective potency, which can benefit an individual or group in an ...

prayer nature implies that power influences things and people by forcing them to move or behave in a certain manner. The dynamic ...

prayer major pollution. Since the place of prayer must also remain clean, wor- shippers must leave their shoes outside of the mo ...

priest Many Christian prayers end with Amen (truly, yes), a Hebrew term con- nected historically with legal disputes and militar ...

priest and education. In some cultures, the office is inherited, as in India, or a person may feel called to the office. The bas ...

prophet PROPHET The most distinctive characteristic between a priest and a prophet is the personal call received by the latter, ...

psychology propagation of God’s message, and intelligence. From the Muslim per- spective, the prophet is endowed with immunity f ...

psychology associates religion with a projection of infantile dependencies onto exter- nal reality. Grounded in his theory of hu ...

purgatory PURGATORY The concept of purgatory, an intermediate place between heaven and hell and the death of a person and the fi ...

purification and it represents the deepest universal truth. Dante’s narrative assumes the form of a personal vision expressed as ...

purification Purification removes the unclean dirt that is equated with pollution. Though they are not simply opposites, in orde ...

rationality RATIONALITY The concept of rationality represents the foundation of much of Western epistemology that can be traced ...

rationality studies by anthropologists such as James Frazer, Edward Tylor, and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. In their studies of technologi ...

reality method of inferential reasoning to support the pluralistic reality. In Indian Buddhism, two philosophical schools – Svāt ...

reality Hinduism, nirvāÏa in Theraväda Buddhism, emptiness in Mahäyäna Buddhism, Buddha-nature in Zen Buddhism, or the Dao in Da ...

reductionism reverts back to non-being and finally returns back to the Dao. In this scheme being and non-being give birth to eac ...

relics different connotation than the English term: śarīra (body, bodily struc- ture) and dhātu (constituent part, ingredient, e ...

revelation In the final way, the stūpa (memorial mound) assumes the charismatic focus. By journeying to a stūpa or temple that h ...

rites of passage Moses. Those not directly receiving the revelation frequently ask for something to authenticate it, which often ...