Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the 'Submit my answers' button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Question 1:

Which of the following academic terms refers to the worship of many gods?
a) Pluralism
b) Monotheism
c) Polytheism
d) Dualism

Question 2:

According to the authors, which of the following aspects is essential to defining ‘religion’?
a) Belief in a personal god
b) A cohesive worshipping community
c) A promise of life after death
d) None of the above

Question 3:

Which of the following best explains the concept of ‘dualism’?
a) Each religion has an inner and outer meaning.
b) There are two ultimate principles in the universe opposing each other.
c) The category accounts for the paradoxical nature of religions being both inclusive (of their members) and exclusive (of outsiders).
d) This type of religious system sees the world in binaries such as the yin-yang system of China.

Question 4:

According to your textbook, which of the following religious traditions is not characterized by ‘dualism’?
a) Christianity
b) Gnosticism
c) Manichaeism
d) Zoroastrianism

Question 5:

The Zoroastrian tradition derives its title from which of the following points?
a) the name of its central deity
b) the Western name of its primary prophet
c) the name of its holy text
d) the name of its original geographical locale

Question 6:

Which of the following is NOT a central Gnostic belief?
a) Humanity can be saved only through divine redemption.
b) Matter is evil.
c) The guide to salvation is a special redeeming knowledge, or
d) Seeking physical satisfaction will lead to spiritual salvation.

Question 7:

Which religion was both a missionary and a state religion from its start?
a) Christianity
b) Islam
c) Baha'i Faith
d) Buddhism

Question 8:

Which of the following traditions is NOT typically thought of as a missionary religion?
a) Hinduism
b) Buddhism
c) Christianity
d) Islam

Question 9:

Why are some religions NOT considered to be missionary religions?
a) Because they do not create clear boundaries between insiders and outsiders
b) Because their conceptions of salvation encompass all peoples
c) All of the above
d) None of the above

Question 10:

An influential twentieth-century approach to religion suggests that all religious beliefs/practices originate from the human experience of a compelling sense of supernatural mystery (the numinous). Which theorist proposed this view?
a) Karl Marx
b) Mircea Eliade
c) Rudolph Otto
d) Emile Durkheim

Higher Education

A Concise Introduction to World Religions 2e: Chapter 1