NCEA L1 Religious Studies cheat sheet

Religious and Spiritual Worldviews Across Time and Humanity

• Worldview: the set of beliefs, values and assumptions through which a person or community interprets reality, including what is ultimate, what is human, and what is good.

• Religious worldview vs spiritual worldview: a religious worldview is usually tied to an organised tradition, shared texts, rituals and community authority; a spiritual worldview may be individual, eclectic or outside formal institutions.

• Key analytical categories for comparing traditions: beliefs about the sacred/ultimate reality, human nature and purpose, origins (cosmology), ethics, afterlife or destiny, sacred texts, rituals, and authority structures.

• Māori worldview (te ao Māori) concepts frequently referenced: whakapapa (genealogical connections linking people to ancestors and the natural world), tapu (sacred restriction), noa (the ordinary/neutral state), mana, and kaitiakitanga (guardianship). Many Māori hold these alongside or within Christian affiliation, so 'either/or' framing is inaccurate.

• Pacific and other indigenous worldviews commonly emphasise interconnection between people, land and ancestors, oral transmission of knowledge, and communal rather than purely individual responsibility.

• Major tradition markers: Judaism (Torah, covenant, monotheism); Christianity (Bible, Trinity, incarnation); Islam (Qur'an, Five Pillars, tawhid); Hinduism (Vedas, dharma, karma, moksha, diverse deities); Buddhism (Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, nirvana, anatta); Sikhism (Guru Granth Sahib, one God, service).

• Secular and humanist worldviews are also worldviews: they typically locate meaning and ethics in human reason, evidence and wellbeing rather than in a deity, and are studied on the same comparative basis.

• Change over time: traditions adapt through reform, migration, colonisation, translation of texts, and encounter with science; the same tradition can look different across cultures and eras, so avoid treating a tradition as static or uniform.

• Insider (emic) vs outsider (etic) perspectives: the study of religion describes and analyses beliefs without judging their truth; the terms 'cult' and 'myth' carry loaded connotations and should be used carefully ('myth' means a foundational sacred narrative, not a falsehood).