The following are the questions for the mid-term exam activity option for Fall 2007. Be sure to note that there are three sections to the exam. You must answer a total of 3 questions, one of which must come from each of the 3 sections (Section I, II, and III).

Section I: Introductory materials. Write an essay that adequately answers one (1) of the following questions:

1. Your suitemate recently watched a PBS special on religion. That special interviewed experts who argued that religion provides order for human beings. This order is cosmological, moral, and social. One expert noted, "Religion provides the coherence between the world view and ethos of a culture or group." Your suitemate is puzzled and so s/he comes to you for help in understanding what the experts meant. What would you say? (In your answer, be sure to make the connections between culture (worldview, ethos, and social structure) and the experiential, mythical, doctrinal, ritualistic, ethical, and social dimensions of religion. Moreover, put it in context by picking one of the religious traditions discussed in the text, Illustrated Guide to World Religions).

2. A friend of yours is angry with his religion professor. The professor asked each student to define religion and your friend wrote, "Religion is believing in one personal God." The professor suggested that your friend's definition was too narrow and exclusive: not only did it exclude many religious traditions, it only focused on one dimension of religious experience. Your friend says his religion professor is wrong. Do you agree? (In your answer, be sure to include discussion about defining religion, the dimensions of religion, as well as the various ways of understanding the Sacred.)

Section II:  Ritual and Ethics.  Write an essay that adequately answer one of the following questions:

1. You are home on Fall Break and your high school social studies teacher asks you to come to her class to give a brief presentation. They are studying Native American cultures and the students want to know more about the vision quest ritual as a rite of passage. What would your presentation include? (In your presentation, include some discussion of the type of ritual the vision quest embodies, the various phases of rites of passage, and how the vision quest ritual embodies each phase.)

Section III: Religious Language and Ritual. Write an essay that adequately answer one of the following questions:

1. Your younger sister comes to you confused about God. She tells you that her religious education teacher uses various ideas to speak about God. Sometimes, she calls God, "our father," sometimes, "our mother," and sometimes, "our king." Your sister wants to know how God can be all these things. What would you say to her? (In your answer, discuss the nature of religious language, especially language about the Sacred, as metaphor and how it makes what is unfamiliar, familiar. Also, include some discussion about the culturally conditioned nature of language.  Moreover, put it in context by picking one of the religious traditions discussed in the text, Illustrated Guide to World Religions, and that tradition's conception of the sacred.)

2. Alice, a friend of yours, has just been reading Genesis 1-3 and says to you, "I have a hard time understanding the Bible. First, it tells me that God created everything in 6 days just by saying it, and that human beings were the last things made. Then it tells me that God created Adam first, put him in some garden, and let him name everything, including his wife. Then, they both ate a piece of fruit, sinned, and work and relationships became painful. What are these chapters trying to tell me?" How would you respond? (In your answer talk about the nature of myth and the mythic character of these chapters, as model of and model for reality. Moreover, discuss the different understandings of God, humanity and their relation with one another.)