Culture & Vocabulary: Major religions of the world - Videos

Learn about the major religions of the world. I will teach you about the beliefs and practices of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. These are the four religions in the world with the most followers. We will talk about the history, prophets, rituals, gods, differences, and similarities between all of these religions. You will not only learn about major world cultures, but we will also look at plenty of English vocabulary related to religions. Bonus: I will share with you my own religious beliefs. This lesson is meant for educational purposes, not debate. So watch with an open mind, and then do the quiz at https://www.engvid.com/culture-vocabulary-major-religions/ to see how much of the material you understood and remember.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, guys. I got a secret to tell ya. Do you have a religion? Yeah? Most people do. I don’t. I am what is called “agnostic”. “Agnostic” means I do not believe in a god. Do you want to turn the video off because you’re offended by my religious views? Go ahead, but you’re going to miss a great lesson on religion.

My whole point of this educational video, if you will, is to preach tolerance. Because guess what? You have a religion, I have a religion-no I don’t-and other people will have a different religion than you, especially when you’re travelling. So, let’s say that you leave your beautiful house and your beautiful country, and you come to another country. Guess what? There are going to be people that don’t have the same religion as you, and you get to respect them, and hopefully they get to respect you. Unfortunately, the world has kind of turned against us. Thank you, media, for making all religions a point of war; which it shouldn’t be, because most religions should teach love. Oh. Where did that go wrong?

So, what I want you guys to understand is that I don’t have a religion, I don’t want to have a religion, and it’s my choice; as is it’s your choice to have your religion. But respect goes a far way. So, let’s dive right into religion. What is it?

The cool thing is when I was researching this is the dictionary didn’t really have a distinct definition of “religion”, but it said this – it said: “Religion is a cultural system of designated behaviours”-so how you act in your culture-“practices”-so things that you do; no matter what your religion is-“and world views”. So, this means how religion sees other issues in the world. You with me so far? So, religion has nothing so far to do with anything that is violent or bad; it has to do with someone’s opinion of a culture.

We have two words to start off. The first one is “atheism”. “Atheism” means that you do not believe in a god; nothing. There’s no god that exists. It’s kind of close to “agnosticism”, which I told you that I was. “Agnosticism” means that you have no proof that god exists, or any gods exist. So I teeter-totter between being atheist and being agnostic, but I don’t have a religion. I think religions are amazing, but “atheism” is a belief that god doesn’t exist, and “agnosticism” is a belief that: “I don’t know yet, so don’t ask me my question. I haven’t decided.”

What I’ve done is I’ve written down the four top-and by no means best-religions of the world. In our crazy world we have 10,000 different distinct religions. 10,000. But over 85% of the population are in the top four religions. Now, statistics: I don’t believe them, so when I tell you percentages and stuff, it’s clearly all from the internet and I don’t believe half of it; but let’s see if you do.

Apparently the biggest population in the world, 2.4 billion or 33% of the population are apparently “Christian”. Okay? Apparently this involves people who are atheist and agnostic. So that’s statistic is blown out of the water right away, but Christianity is supposed to be the religion with the most followers. So, first word to learn is: “monotheistic”. “Mono” means one, and “theistic” means God. So, Christianity is a religion with one god, and his/her… His/her… God’s name is God. Is God a him or a her? What do you think? Yeah, you don’t know, do you? Okay. So, this…

Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Okay? We like to shorten his name and just call him “Jesus”. And Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God. He was born to a virgin… What? In a manger. That doesn’t make sense, scientifically; don’t tell my mom that. The holy book that Christians use is called a “Bible” or “Gospel”, so this is where all of the teachings of Jesus Christ are written.

People who practice Christianity are called “Christians”. And the important thing that you guys have to realize is that if you are Catholic, you are Christian; if you are Protestant, you are Christian; if you are Eastern Orthodox-these are the top three-you are also Christian. So you have to be careful. You can’t say to someone: “Oh, well I’m Catholic, but I’m not Christian.” […]

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