WACE Religion Life ATAR flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Substantive definition of religion

Defines religion by its content, usually belief in a god or the supernatural. Tillich's version calls religion ultimate concern, which can include secular commitments.

Functional definition of religion

Defines religion by what it does socially, such as uniting people around sacred things. Durkheim's model treats cohesion and moral community as the defining feature.

Smart's seven dimensions

Analytical framework covering ritual, experiential, narrative, doctrinal, ethical, social and material dimensions. It allows comparison of traditions without ranking them as more or less religious.

Sacred and profane

Durkheim's division of the world into set-apart, awe-inspiring sacred things and ordinary profane things. Ritual and purity rules maintain the boundary between them.

Monotheism and polytheism

Monotheism affirms one god; polytheism affirms many. Related terms include henotheism, which worships one god while acknowledging others, and pantheism, which equates god with the universe.

Covenant in Judaism

The binding agreement between God and the people of Israel, traced to Abraham and renewed at Sinai. It grounds law, identity and obligation, marked by circumcision and Sabbath observance.

Five Pillars of Islam

Shahada (declaration of faith), salat (prayer), zakat (almsgiving), sawm (fasting in Ramadan) and hajj (pilgrimage). They structure Sunni practice and express submission to God.

Four Noble Truths

Buddhist teaching that suffering exists, arises from craving, can cease, and is ended by the Eightfold Path. They form the diagnostic framework of Buddhist soteriology.

Dreaming in Indigenous spirituality

An ongoing creative and lawful order, not merely a past era. It links people to Country through kinship and totemic responsibility, transmitted by story, song and ceremony.

Kashrut

Jewish dietary laws distinguishing permitted from forbidden foods and governing preparation. They mark covenant identity and are interpreted as ethical discipline or holiness practice.

Sacraments

Ritual actions believed to convey divine grace, such as baptism and Eucharist. Traditions differ on their number and efficacy, with most Protestants recognising two.

Primary and secondary texts

Primary texts are scripture or foundational sources; secondary texts are commentary, law codes or creeds interpreting them. Authority usually depends on how the two relate.

Halakha

Jewish legal tradition derived from Torah and elaborated through rabbinic interpretation. It governs daily life, and principles such as pikuach nefesh allow overriding law to save life.

Maqasid al-sharia

The higher objectives of Islamic law: protecting religion, life, intellect, lineage and property. Scholars use them to reason about cases not settled explicitly in the Qur'an.

Agape

Unconditional, self-giving love central to Christian ethics. It is presented as the norm for conduct, including toward enemies, and grounds both natural law and situational reasoning.

Ahimsa

The principle of non-harm found in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions. Its strictness varies, and it is linked to compassion, intention and the effects of one's actions.

Hermeneutics

The theory and method of interpretation. Literal, historical-critical and allegorical readings of the same passage can produce different ethical conclusions.

Rite of passage

A ritual marking a change in status, analysed by Van Gennep as separation, liminality and reaggregation. Examples include initiation, marriage and funeral rites.

Liminality and communitas

Turner's terms for the transitional ritual stage and the egalitarian bond formed there. Ordinary hierarchy is suspended, then restored on reaggregation.

Numinous experience

Otto's category for encounter with the holy as mysterium tremendum et fascinans: overwhelming, awe-inspiring and attractive. It is felt rather than argued.

Mystical experience

An experience of union, absorption or deep insight, often described as ineffable and noetic. It is central to contemplative traditions across several religions.

Symbol and multivalence

Symbols such as the cross, lotus or crescent carry several meanings at once. Their meaning is learned through a tradition's narratives and rituals, not fixed by appearance alone.

Collective conscience

Durkheim's term for shared beliefs and sentiments binding a society. Religious ritual renews it, and its symbols make group identity emotionally tangible.

Protestant ethic thesis

Weber's argument that Calvinist discipline and this-worldly asceticism supported rational capitalist behaviour. Religion is treated as a cause of social change, not only a reflection.

Routinisation of charisma

Weber's account of how a founder's personal authority becomes institutional office, law and hierarchy after the founder's death. It stabilises a movement and can also freeze it.

Secularisation thesis

The claim that modernisation, pluralism and rationalisation reduce religion's public authority. Critics point to persistent religiosity and to desecularisation in some regions.

Inculturation

Adaptation of a religious tradition to a local culture, such as language, music and art in worship. It aids relevance but can provoke disputes over orthodoxy.

Fundamentalism

A modern movement asserting strict adherence to selected foundational teachings in response to pluralism and perceived decline. It typically involves boundary-marking and literalist reading.

Natural law

An ethical framework holding that reason can discern moral norms from human purpose and design. Aquinas develops it as participation in eternal law, applied to concrete cases.

Sanctity of life

The belief that human life has intrinsic value not reducible to usefulness. It typically grounds opposition to euthanasia and shapes arguments about abortion and embryo research.

Just war criteria

Conditions limiting the use of force, including legitimate authority, just cause, proportionality, last resort and discrimination between combatants and non-combatants. They also govern conduct within war.

Conscience

The capacity to judge the moral quality of one's own acts. Aquinas treats it as reason applying principles; Newman stresses its authority; Freud reads it as internalised social authority.