Question 1: Describe the main characteristics of a religious response to the human search for meaning.
Since the beginning of time human beings have continuously searched for evidence and an explanation to answer the great questions of human experience, Is there a supreme being? Who am I? Why is there evil pain and suffering? And is there life after death? Discovering the meaning of life and a way in which to live it has always been important to human being and religion does this through its characteristics, beliefs and believers, sacred texts and writings, ethics and rituals and ceremonies.
Is there something else out there? Is there a Supreme Being? In order to find out where we are going the human race must establish where they came from and who is the ultimate creator. Religion uses sacred texts and stories to tell the tales of creation of which span quite diverse. This element of religion also relies heavily on the belief of the believers as the only evidence is on texts that have few credible witnesses and this is why belief is such an important characteristic of religion.
Who am I? And why am I here? The search for the purpose of existence. Religion gives meaning to life as it demonstrates human nature and the way in which life should be lived. Ethics is a common characteristic of religion that is used to distinguish boundaries and establish morals to determine what should be accepted and which acts should be looked down upon, punished and not accepted. The Ethics characteristic of religion is the base of the modern worlds entire social system with direct reliance of the characteristic of Rituals and ceremonies, which also plays an important part of putting these ethics to practice. E.g. in Catholicism confession is undertaken as the wrongs c ...