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About the Authors

Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman write a nationally syndicated newspaper column on faith and values and host their own cable television program, The God Squad. They appear regularly as religion consultants for many television and radio programs, including the syndicated radio show, Imus in the Morning. Their children’s book, How Do You Spell God? was made into an animated children’s special for HBO and won the Peabody Award. They also have written Where Does God Live?, Lost and Found: A Kid’s Book for Living through Loss, and Bad Stuff in the News. At the foundation of their literary and media efforts is the central fact that Rabbi Gellman is a working rabbi and Monsignor Hartman a working priest.

Rabbi Marc Gellman: Rabbi Gellman has written two volumes of modern Bible interpretations (midrashim) for children: Does God Have a Big Toe? and God’s Mailbox. He also has written Always Wear Clean Underwear: And other ways your parents say “I love you,” and And God Cried, Too: A Kid’s Book of Healing and Hope. Rabbi Gellman is the senior rabbi of Temple Beth Torah in Melville, New York. He is also a past president of the New York Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Gellman holds an earned doctorate in Philosophy from Northwestern University. He is married to Betty Schulson and has two children, Mara and Max.

Monsignor Thomas Hartman: Monsignor Hartman’s books include The Matter of Life and Death: Surviving Loss and Finding Hope and Just a Moment: Life Matters with Father Tom. Monsignor Hartman directs the diocesan television station, Telecare, for the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York, and celebrates Mass at Holy Trinity High School and St. Vincent de Paul Church. Monsignor Hartman holds an earned Doctorate of Ministry degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, California.

Dedication

We thought about dedicating this book to Don Imus, who definitely believed from the beginning that we were dumb enough to write it.

We thought about dedicating this book to all our friends who have not seen much of us during the past year and have had to endure our quoting from obscure Taoist sources at dinner parties.

Finally, we decided to dedicate this book to the teachers of religion everywhere on earth. Each day, they awaken to teach that life is more than getting and fighting. Each day, they try to awaken in us the better angels of our nature. Each day, they try to make the world better than it was yesterday according to a vision of the truth that will never die.

Authors’ Acknowledgments

No matter how much we knew — and we didn’t know nearly enough — there was no way for us to truly understand the deep meaning of every faith on planet Earth. Therefore, we truly and deeply thank all those whose wise contributions helped turn our minds and hearts to new understandings of ancient and modern faiths and whose editorial advice kept this book under 1,000 pages. We thank Tracy Barr; and also thank Fay Shapiro, Tracy Boggier, Kathleen Nebenhaus, Michelle Hacker, Patricia Yuu Pan, Michael Kelly, Marla Selvidge, William Young, Jamsheed Choksy, Kristin Cocks, Christine Beck, Diane Steele, Joyce Pepple, and Kevin Thornton.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Publisher’s Acknowledgment Tracy Barr, Consultant

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Acquisitions Editor: Tracy Boggier

Editor: Mike Kelly

Senior Copy Editor: Patricia Yuu Pan

Editorial Supervisor: Michelle Hacker

Technical Editors: Marla J. Selvidge, Ph.D., Central Missouri State University William Young, Westminster College Jamsheed K. Choksy, Indiana University

Cover Photos: © ADAM SMITH/Getty Images © Corbis © PictureQuest

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Nancee Reeves

Layout and Graphics: Scott M. Bristol, Joyce Haughey, Barry Offringa, Jacque Schneider, Betty Schulte, Mary J. Virgin

Proofreaders: Laura Albert, John Greenough, Andy Hollandbeck, Aptara

Indexer: Aptara

Special Help: Christine Beck

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Brice Gosnell, Publishing Director, Travel

Suzanne Jannetta, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Executive Director of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : In the Beginning: Religion Basics

Chapter 1: Holy Smoke! Defining Religion

Religion: A (Relatively) Quick Definition

Acting It Out: Religion and Rituals

Ethically Speaking: Religion and Ethics

Why People Flock to Religion

Comparing Religion with Philosophy and Spirituality

Chapter 2: Four Big Mysteries and a Couple of Recent Conundrums

Why Are We Here?

How Should We Live?

What Happens after We Die?

Why Does Evil Exist?

Religion, Science, and a Basic Mystery: Who Creates Life?

Chapter 3: The God Questions: Does He Exist and What’s He Like?

The Proof Is in the Pudding

The Nature of the Divine

Introduction

M ost people have had some contact with religion. Many of us have grown up as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or something else entirely. Our parents or grandparents raised us up in some religion or another. The holidays of some religion were probably our holidays; the beliefs, our beliefs; the foods, our foods. All that raising up makes it easy for us to understand religion because we already know a lot about it from our own lives. Others of us haven’t grown up in any religion at all but have run into it, in some form or another, most of our lives.

What makes religion familiar also makes it strange. Many of us grew up doing religious things without really understanding what we were doing. Many of us grew up understanding our own religion but were clueless about the religions of our neighbors. Some of us grew up without any religion and kind of feel left out and maybe even skeptical of the whole religion thing.

Whether you’re a believer or not (or want to be or not), religion affects your life. Your religion, your neighbor’s religion, the religions within your culture, the religions in other cultures that interact with your culture—they all play an important role in how people view the world and their place in it and how they interact collectively and individually with other people. Religion For Dummies can help you understand what you’ve been doing all your life and what folks in other religions have been doing all of theirs.

About This Book

This book covers a lot of stuff about religion, but you don’t need religious training to read it. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about religion at all. This book gives you easy-to-understand information about various religions of the world and makes that information easy to find. It’s a no-holds-barred reference that you can jump into and out of at will—just choose a chapter and enjoy, or go to the table of contents or the index to find the information you need.

Each chapter is divided into sections, and each section contains information that helps you understand some part of religion, including topics such as,

The basic beliefs of different religions.

The ideas and values that many religions share.

The ways that people express their faith.

You also get all sorts of interesting tidbits about the cultures that religions come from.

Conventions Used in This Book

This book is straightforward. No fancy stuff here. The one thing that may throw you for a loop, though, the first time you see it, is how we designate years. You’re probably used to seeing dates designated by the abbreviation A.D., which means Anno Domini (Latin for “In the year of Our Lord”) or B.C. (before Christ). This dating system is fine, but it makes sense only to people who use the Christian event of Christ’s birth to mark time—a thing that religions other than Christianity don’t do. Therefore, in this book, we use the corresponding—but non-denominational—abbreviations C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before Common Era). These designations refer to the same dates: 1959 A.D. is the same as 1959 C.E., for example; and 913 B.C. is the same as 913 B.C.E.

Foolish Assumptions

In writing this book, we made some assumptions about you:

You want to know more about religion, whether you’re a member in a religion or not.

You’re curious about religion the way you’re curious about how penguins live. You’re mildly interested, but it’s not a really big thing in your life. On the other hand, you may want to understand your own religion better.

You know someone who grew up in a religion different from yours and you want to know more about that religion.

You may want to find a religion to belong to, and you’re not sure which one is right for you or how to get hooked up.

You want to understand why religion, which is supposed to be good, seems to be at the heart of so much conflict.

How This Book Is Organized

We set up this book so that you can easily skip around. Just find something you were wondering about and go straight to it. To help you find the information that you want, this book is organized into six parts, each covering a particular topic. Each part contains several chapters relating to that part.

Part I: In the Beginning: Religion Basics

This part gives you the basics on several religions, explaining the religions’ fundamental beliefs, important rituals, and holy books. This is the place to start if you want an overview of what draws people to religion, what makes a religion a religion, and how religions answer life’s big questions.

Because religions offer a worldview for believers, outlining their place in the universe and their obligations to the Divine, this part also examines how religions have been used to spark conflict and justify atrocities.

Part II: Religious Beliefs

This part is devoted to some of the most important beliefs of the world’s religions and how these messages are shared. In this part, we also look at the different kinds of spiritual beings that supposedly inhabit the earth and heaven so that, if you bump into one, at least you’ll be prepared.

Part III: Religious Rituals

This part presents some of the rich variety of religious rituals that give color and taste, holidays and songs, structure and traditions to the world’s religions. Some of the rituals are private devotions; others are meant to be performed in a group of believers. These rituals, both public and private, are what many people think of when they think of religious traditions.

Part IV: Religious Ethics

Religious ethics are the values (or morals) of a religion. Many people call them virtues. Whatever you call them, they’re the behaviors that spring from religious beliefs. In this part, we examine some of the main ethical teachings of the world’s religions. We also cover some of the hot topics of our time and look at how religions—most of which are ancient—are dealing with issues of the modern age.

Part V: All (Other) Things Holy

This part fills in the pieces—beyond beliefs, rituals, and ethics—that give every religion its form and substance. In this part, you can find information about the sacred texts, holy people and places, and houses of worship of the world’s religions.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Every For Dummies book has a Part of Tens, and this one is no exception. Want to find fun and easy info about religions? This part is the place to go. Here, we include descriptions of ten jobs or vocations associated with the world’s religions and regale you with ten great religious stories.

Appendix

Whereas this book arranges information by topic—rituals, beliefs, houses of worship, and so on—the appendix arranges information by religion, giving you a brief description of what several major world religions are all about. It describes core beliefs, major customs, and how you can give them money . . . (just kidding!).

Icons Used in This Book

To help you find information you’re interested in or to highlight information that’s particularly helpful, we’ve used the following icons:

You find this icon next to important information that you’ll want to remember.

This icon appears next to information that you may find interesting but can skip without impairing your understanding of the topic.

This icon highlights issues and problems that all—or many—religions face and deal with.

This icon highlights more detailed, but essential, information about a topic. If you skip this, you’ll miss something important.

This icon points out passages that came lock, stock, and barrel, from the world’s holy books.

Where to Go from Here

Religion For Dummies is like a spiritual buffet. You can sample faiths from all over the world. Just jump in where you want, read as much (or as little) as you want, and jump back out. This book is designed so that you can use it as a reference, flipping here and there willy-nilly. Of course, if you prefer, you can start at the beginning and read through to the end. We can’t promise you much of a plot, but we can promise you a lot of good information.

Just decide what you want to know and head to that place. If you’re not sure where to begin—or want a general overview before you delve into specific topics—why not start at the beginning? It’s as good a place as any.

Part I

In the Beginning: Religion Basics

In this part . . .

Part I eases you into thinking about what makes something a religion and includes a section on how religions answer the biggest questions of life. We take on many of the big questions about Ultimate Reality, including the problem of proving the existence of gods and goddesses, and defining the nature of the Divine. In addition, we expose the problems that arise when a great and good religion is perverted, distorted, and twisted into a teaching of hate.

Religion For Dummies^®

About the Authors

Dedication

Authors’ Acknowledgments

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: In the Beginning: Religion Basics

Part II: Religious Beliefs

Part III: Religious Rituals

Part IV: Religious Ethics

Part V: All (Other) Things Holy

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Appendix

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I

In the Beginning: Religion Basics

Religion For Dummies®

About the Authors

Dedication

Authors’ Acknowledgments

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: In the Beginning: Religion Basics

Part II: Religious Beliefs

Part III: Religious Rituals

Part IV: Religious Ethics

Part V: All (Other) Things Holy

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Appendix

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I

In the Beginning: Religion Basics

Religion For Dummies^®