EXAMS - RELIGION - ANCESTORS OF THE WEST
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Created by:
sabrina__scott on March 28, 2012
Subjects:
freshmanexams - world cultures
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11 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Ahura Mazda | The Wise Lord, the one true God worshiped by Zarathustra and later by Zoroastrians. |
| anthropomorphic | Of human form, characteristic of the deities of ancient Greek and later Roman religion. |
| Avesta | The sacred text of Zoroastrianism, which includes the very old hymns known as the Gathas, along with more recent material. |
| ethical dualism | The belief in universal forces of good and evil; Zoroastrianism's most distinctive feature. |
| Gathas | Seventeen hymns attributed to Zarathustra that constitute the oldest and most important portion of the Avesta. |
| mystery religions | A diverse group of beliefs and practices of ancient Greek and Roman civilization that included initiation into a specific community, a personal encounter with the deity, and hope for spiritual renewal and a better afterlife. |
| numen | The ancient Roman concept of supernatural power, possessed in abundance by the gods; also believed to inhabit a wide variety of things and places, as well as human beings. |
| numina | Plural of numen. The supernatural powers that were the ancient Roman equivalent of deities. |
| Orphism | An ancient Greek religion named for the legendary musician and singer Orpheus, which incorporated a myth of Dionysus, emphasized an ascetic lifestyle, and included belief in reincarnation, or the transmigration of the soul. |
| pantheon | A group of deities recognized by a society, such as the Olympian pantheon of the ancient Greeks. |
| Platonic dualism | Plato's highly influential perspective that true reality consists of eternal and perfect Forms, or Ideas, and that the material, bodily world is an imperfect reflection of the world of Forms, dependent of them for all its qualities. |
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