Discover the origins and traditions of world religions! With so many religions in the world, it isn't always easy to recall each faith's key influences, spiritual figures, and dogmas. Written in easy-to-understand language, Religion 101 offers a fascinating--and memorable--glimpse at the sacred stories, traditions, and doctrines that have influenced today's most popular religions. From Jesus and the Four Noble Truths to the Buddhist Wheel of Existence, this book provides you with thought-provoking insight into the customs and beliefs of common faiths like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. Inside, you will also discover hundreds of important religious facts, illustrations, and thought puzzles that you won't be able to find anywhere else. So whether you're looking to unravel the mysteries of existence and meaning, or just want to find out what Kabbalah is all about, Religion 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.

"I can't imagine a college student—skeptic, doubter, Christian, struggler—who wouldn't benefit from this book." —Kevin DeYoung For many young adults, the college years are an exciting period of selfdiscovery full of new relationships, new independence, and new experiences. Yet college can also be a time of personal testing and intense questioning— especially for Christian students confronted with various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. Drawing on years of experience as a biblical scholar, Michael Kruger addresses common objections to the Christian faith—the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible. If you're a student dealing with doubt or wrestling with objections to Christianity from fellow students and professors alike, this book will equip you to engage secular challenges with intellectual honesty, compassion, and confidence—and ultimately graduate college with your faith intact.

Many people search for spiritual meaning, hope, comfort, and inner peace in their personal lives. The most common path to spirituality around the world is through religion. Although the variety of religions may seem endless, many similarities exist among the major religions of the world, including the belief in one or more gods and the honoring of rituals, stories, ceremonies, codes of conduct, and doctrines, or sets of teachings. In this well-balanced report, respected authors Margaret O. Hyde and Emily G. Hyde take an honest look at religion in the lives of young people. This book explores the many different religions around the world, from the ten most common religions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Baha’ism, Confucianism, Jainism, and Shintoism—to modern expressions of spirituality and more. It also offers fascinating information on a field of research known as neurotheology, the study of the neurobiology of the brain and religion. Scientists are learning more about where in the brain religious thoughts take place and what it means to be human.

Free of clichés or rhetorical arguments, a primer on Christian apologetics tackles vital questions people of all ages and beliefs are asking, presenting evidence from the world, history, and lives of people who have been changed by something bigger than themselves. Original.

What is the relationship between women and secularization? In the West, women are abandoning traditional religion. Yet they continue to make up the majority of religious adherents. Accounting for this seeming paradox is the focus of this volume. If women undergird the foundations of religion but are leaving in large numbers, why are they leaving? Where are they going? What are they doing? And what's happening to those who remain? Women and Religion in the West addresses a neglected yet crucial issue within the debate on religious belonging and departure: the role of women in and out of religion and spirituality. Beginning with an analysis of the relationship between gender and secularization, the book moves its focus to in-depth examination of women's experiences based on data from key recent qualitative work on women and religion. This volume addresses not only women's place in and out of Christianity (the normal focus of secularization theories) but also alternative spiritualities and Islam, asking how questions of secularization differ between faith systems. This book offers students and scholars of religion, sociology, and women's studies, as well as interested general readers, an accessible work on the religiosity of western women and contributes fresh analyses of the rapidly shifting terrain of contemporary religion and spirituality.

Religion plays a central role in human experience. Billions of people around the world practice a faith and act in accordance with it. Religion shapes how they enter the world and how they leave it - how they eat, dress, marry, and raise their children. It shapes their assumptions about who they are and who they want to be. Religion also identifies insiders and outsiders, who has power and who doesn't. It sanctifies injustice and combats it. It draws national borders. It affects law, economy, and government. It destroys and restores the environment. It starts wars and ends them. Whether you notice it or not, religion plays a role in how billions conduct their lives. We are called, then, to understand this important factor in human life today. Beginning with the first signs of religion among ancient humans and concluding with a look at modern citizens and global trends, leading scholar Thomas Tweed examines this powerful and enduring force in human society. Tweed deftly documents religion as it exists around the world, addressing its role in both intensifying and alleviating contemporary political and environmental problems, from armed conflict to climate change. Religion: A Very Short Introduction offers a concise non-partisan overview of religion's long history and its complicated role in the world today.

This volume presents multidisciplinary perspectives on the role of cultural values and religious beliefs in adolescent development.