BASICS OF WORLD RELIGIONS
Religion is a fundamental element in understanding the culture of a group of people. Religion combines history, geography, faith, and politics. Geographers find the tension in scale between globalization and local diversity especially acute in religion for a number of reasons:
1. People care deeply about the religion and draw from religon their core values and beliefs
2. Some religions are actually desigend to appeal to people throughout the world: UNIVERSALIZING RELIGIONS
3. Some religions are actually designed to appeal to people in geographically limited areas: ETHNIC RELIGIONS
4. Religious values are important in understanding not only how people identify themselves, but also the meaningful ways that they organize the landscape.
5. Migrants take their rleigon with them to new locations, but while migrants typicaly leanr the language of the new location, they reatin their religion.
WORLD RELIGIONS
World religions have shaped culture in many areas and has also created cultural conflict in some areas of the world. Understanding the similiarities and differences of world religions will help spread the message of tolerance and lessen the debate between world religions.
Many of the world religions are seperated into different parts based on different beliefs, faiths, stories, prophets, and geography. A BRANCH is a larage and fundamental division within a religon. A DENOMINATION is a division of a branch that unites a number of local congregation in a single legal and administrative body. A SECT is a reliatively small group that has broken awa;y from an established denomination.
Examine the maps of the various World Religions. What are some of the factors that have caused the religions to be practiced where they are today?