Religious Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides)

faith thirsty. These forms of self-mortification are believed to make a suppli- cant weak and pitiable before the spirits, who a ...

faith coerce God, and he instead preaches about the necessity of justification by faith in order to be saved. Over the course of ...

festivals the bodhisattva Amitābha, into which a person strives to be reborn by means of a combination of performing good deeds ...

festivals newly created and rediscovered and which functions as an annual renewal of society. Within cross-cultural contexts, fe ...

fire FIRE The discovery of this element in prehistoric time, which is probably acci- dental, enabled pre-historic humans to make ...

food is instructive because it defines the unity of a family, although fire is also an ambivalent, dangerous, and unpredictable ...

food and a part of, the highest reality or Brahman. In addition, food forms one of the five sheaths of the self. In ancient Indi ...

gender proper bodily balance, which can, however, be corrected by fasting; in many religious contexts fasting makes the soul dom ...

gifts pre-understanding of sex that they interpret through their grasp of gen- der. Judith Butler argues that gender precedes se ...

gifts karma produced by positive deeds, for their generosity that can benefit them in a future life. They received greater merit ...

gifts does not mean for Mauss that a gift is never free; it does, however, suggest that, by fulfilling the obligation to give, i ...

goddesses impossible in another sense related to its three conditions of donor, gift, and donee. These three conditions of the g ...

goddesses with corn, beans, and squash, that clothe them and which they protect. The corn goddess functions, for instance, in th ...

gods within a culture and the acknowledgement of the powers of goddesses that influences male attitudes towards women. Nonethele ...

gods Although he is often called Grandfather or Father, Wakantanka is usually not personified, although aspects of it are embodi ...

grace does not exist without its light, Śiva cannot exist without Śakti, a form of divine consciousness and creative power of th ...

harmony person’s free will and freeing it from its bondage to sin; it also possesses the ability to heal people. Augustine disti ...

harmony A similar concept is found in Zoroastrianism as Asha (truth, order of things, true order, or cosmic force) that function ...

healing and mother of everything because everything owes its existence to it. Because the Dao, representing a union of being (it ...

healing or moral concerns, healers often function as religious specialists, such as the shaman, spirit medium, priest, or other ...