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Theology and Religion

Table of contents

Theology and Religion at University of Oxford

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: humanities
University website: www.ox.ac.uk
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Definitions and quotes

Religion
There is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. It may be defined as a cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, world views, texts, sanctified places, prophesies, ethics, or organizations, that claims to relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements.
Theology
Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries.
Theology
Theology recognizes the contingency of human existence only to derive it from a necessary being, that is, to remove it. Theology makes use of philosophical wonder only for the purpose of motivating an affirmation which ends it. Philosophy, on the other hand, arouses us to what is problematic in our own existence and in that of the world, to such a point that we shall never be cured of searching for a solution.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, In Praise of Philosophy (Chicago: 1963), p. 44.
Theology
The common root of modern science and Christian theology was Greek philosophy. The historical accident that caused the Christian religion to become heavily theological was the fact that Jesus was born in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire at the time when the prevailing culture was profoundly Greek.
Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006).
Religion
For the majority of English people there are only two religions, Roman Catholic, which is wrong, and the rest, which don't matter.
Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget (1953). London: Rupert Hart-Davis, p. 128.
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