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The collective power of communal worship cannot be underestimated. Anyone who has attended a religious service knows that being surrounded by like-minded individuals helps solidify and focus faith. Prayers for the ill and petitions to God seem more powerful when they are collective. Whether through song, chanting, repetition of prayers, or silent worship, communal worship is the key to communicating effectively with God.
Worshipping with a community enables honesty, humility, and self-awareness. A community of caring people creates social stigmas and other restraints on deviant behaviors. Those deviant behaviors may be sinful and therefore detrimental to spiritual attainment. Similarly, the act of collective worship creates opportunities for intimacy and honesty. Members of the spiritual group can help each other become better people and more valuable members of their community. In the Bible, Jesus played a primarily social role by gathering together disparate people around core spiritual principles. Jesus' disciples became the first Christian community and their story survives as one that offers testimony to the power of collective worship. Jesus could not have delivered his message of love and peace without the aid of his supporters, and his supporters could not have spread that word if they were acting independently.
Religion reminds individuals of their relationship with God. Collective worship helps otherwise self-centered people be reminded of their relatively small stature, of their faults, and of their weaknesses. Being willing to become humble and accept life on life's terms is a religious realization and one that only comes from contact with other human beings.
Religion -- Books of the Old and New Testaments The Bible contains many types of genres, themes, events and characters illustrating the seeds of Christianity in the Old Testament and the Old Testament's fulfillment by Jesus and the young Christian Church of the New Testament. Using the genres of epic and simple narratives, law, prophecy, wisdom, pastoral letters and apocalyptic expression, both Testaments show the struggle of ordinary people trying to
Religion and Society Religion is defined as an organized collection of belief systems, views about the universe, or cultural systems that humans use to relate spiritual and moral values to their lives. Many religions have symbols, traditions, and histories that explain the origin of life, the way the universe works, and the moral, ethical and legal ways to organize human life (De Vries, ed., 2008). While the exact origin of religion
There was no time to allow better preparation of the bread. They had to move out of Egypt in before Pharaoh could realize. The bitter herbs symbolized the bitter life experienced in Egypt. They remained as captives of slavery for many years, and a moment of redemption approached. In the book of Exodus, one sympathizes with the Jews that served life of slavery without freedom. However, one feels delighted because
Both faiths ascribe to a heaven and a hell, belief in angels and the devil. Moreover, Islam and Christianity teach against crimes against humanity to include violence, gambling, adultery, lying, theft and murder. Both teach that children are to respect their parents and husbands and wives are to be respected. Both Islam and Christianity teach against same sex marriage, homosexuality, fornication, and vulgarism. Both teach of modesty in presentation
Religion Vocabulary, Christianity: citing your sources: • Gospel -- pertains to one of the first four books of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), or refers more generally to the life and teachings of Jesus (Babylon) • parable -- a "symbolic story" that teaches a moral or religious lesson (Babylon) • baptism -- initiation into Christianity via ritual submergence in water (Babylon) • trinity -- group of three; in Christianity, referring particularly to
A key celebration in the village invites a festive dance in which the performers fall into a stupor and try to stab themselves with knives (Heinrich, 2005 p. 78). Rituals in life are pertinent events for religious display and artistic expression. Events of puberty, marriage life and burial offer opportunities for Balinese to express their notions regarding statuses, society and the afterlife. The Balinese denomination organizes their faith in a