Publisher's Synopsis
Introduction Religion is a crucial part of what is often called human culture, a term referring to the total context of symbols, images and concepts that shapes human worldview of the world. Books, music, paintings, political ideas, marriages, funerals, school systems, social clubs all are part and parcel of human culture. The purpose of such diverse elements is to help humans to understand their world, to live in it as creative and productive people, and to contemplate how and why they live and what their lives are for. Religion is deeply concerned with these questions of making sense and meaning. Because of this, the study of religion is likely to require the same interpretative techniques that humans use in examining and understanding other aspects of culture. Religion can be looked at from the outside, men can count people who attend church, describe the shape of religious buildings, and list the names of gods and devils that are worshipped or feared. But practicing the religion can provide them with a very full understanding of the purpose of religion at a deeper level. Therefore, they need to look at religion from the inside, searching for the meanings provided by religious symbols, asking about the inner experiences of the believer, looking for the interpretations given to the words, sounds and shapes. 1 Historically, there have been various kinds of religions and cultures in human history. Some religions no longer exist in the modern world. Many religions still exist nowadays, and they have millions of followers such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and so on. When societies exhibit religious diversity, it means that human beings have different kinds of ideas, attitudes and understandings toward the universe, life, death, and ways of life. Long-developed traditional and historical religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc., have their own belief forms and spiritual frameworks.2 Furthermore, the expansion of religions through missionary movements and traders has increased the interaction between each faith. Currently, some religions are trying to understand the core conceptions of,