Expert answer:what forces might be at play in the spatial distri
Solved by verified expert:part 1: Look at Slides # 42 and 43 from ch7 ppt (containing figures 7.23 and 7.24). Describe, based on what you have learned in this ppt (ch7) what forces might be at play in the spatial distribution of religious and and non-religious people across the US and Europe. part 2: Watch the film: www.tinyurl.com/mxxtkfs .Respond to questions 1 & 2 and 3 as they are written. Mark your responses with the question # before the paragraph that answers it. (for this refer to ppt #7, #4. #6)
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CONTEMPORARY
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
CULTURE, GLOBALIZATION, LANDSCAPE
MONA DOMOSH
RODERICK P. NEUMANN
PATRICIA L. PRICE
C. 2015 W.H. FREEMAN & CO.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF
RELIGION
SPACES AND PLACES OF SACREDNESS
WHAT IS RELIGION?
Religion:
A social system involving a set of beliefs and
practices through which people seek harmony with
the universe and attempt to influence the forces of
nature, life, and death.
• Religious adherents often demarcate sacred
spaces, such as cemeteries, religious buildings, and
sites of encounters with the supernatural.
CLASSIFYING RELIGIONS
• It is important to keep in mind that the practitioners
of belief systems falling outside of the mainstream—
for example, Mormonism, Scientology, and even
Alcoholics Anonymous—strongly object to being
labeled cult members.
• The term cult should be used with caution because
it conjures images of mind control, mass suicide,
and extreme veneration of a human leader.
CLASSIFYING RELIGIONS
Proselytic or universalizing religions:
Religions that actively seek new members and aim to
convert all humankind (e.g., Christianity and Islam).
Ethnic religion:
A religion identified with a particular ethnic or tribal
group; does not seek converts (e.g., Judaism).
CLASSIFYING RELIGIONS
Monotheistic religion:
The worship of only one God.
Polytheistic religion:
The worship of many gods.
Syncretic religions: Religions, or strands within religions,
that combine elements of two or more belief systems.
Orthodox religions:
Strands within most major religions that emphasize purity of
faith and are not open to blending with other religions.
FIGURE 7.2 Danbala and Saint Patrick. Danbala in Haitian Voudou is parallel to
the Catholic Saint Patrick; both are associated with snakes. (Left: © 2003
Charles Walker/Topham/The Image Works; Right: Mary Evans Picture Library.)
FUNDAMENTALISM
Fundamentalism:
A movement to return to the founding principles of a
religion, which can include literal interpretation of
sacred texts, or the attempt to follow the ways of a
religious founder as closely as possible.
• Intolerance of other religions, or of those fellow
believers not seeming to follow the “proper” ways, is
associated with fundamentalism rather than
orthodoxy.
7.1 REGION
RELIGIOUS CULTURE REGIONS
• Because religion, like all of culture, has a strong
territorial association, religious culture regions
abound.
• The most basic kind of formal religious culture region
depicts the spatial distribution of organized religions.
• The boundaries of formal religious culture regions,
like most cultural borders, are rarely sharp.
FIGURE 7.3 The world distribution of major religions. Much overlap exists that
cannot be shown on a map of this scale. The attempt is to show which faith is
dominant. “Animism” includes a wide array of diverse belief systems. Taoistic
areas are cross-hatched to show the overlap with Buddhism in these areas.
“Mixed” Christianity means that none of the three major branches of that faith
has a majority.
FIGURE 7.5 Major religions of
the world. The world’s
major religions, by numbers of
adherents expressed as a
percentage. The third largest
religious group in the world
is, in fact, composed of those
who are not affiliated with
any established faith. Note
that though Judaism is a
prominent religion in the
United States, it does not rank
among the major world
religions in terms of total
number of adherents. (Source:
Pew Research Center’s Forum
on Religion and Public Life,
Global Religious Landscape,
2012.)
JUDAISM
• Judaism is a 4000-year-old religion and the first major
monotheistic faith to arise in Southwest Asia.
• It is the parent religion of Christianity and is also closely
related to Islam.
• Judaism is not proselytic and has remained an ethnic
religion through most of its existence.
• Judaism has split into a variety of subgroups, partly as a
result of the Diaspora – the forced dispersal of the Jews
from Palestine in Roman times and the subsequent loss
of contact among the various colonies.
CHRISTIANITY
• Christianity, a proselytic faith, is the world’s largest
religion, both in area covered and in number of
adherents, claiming about 1/3 of the global population.
• Christians are monotheistic.
• Because Judaism is the parent religion of Christianity, the
two faiths share many elements.
• Christianity has long been fragmented into separate
branches: Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern
Christians.
FIGURE 7.7 Leading Christian denominations in the United States, shown by counties. In
the majority counties, the church or denomination indicated claims 50 percent or more
of the total church membership. The most striking features of the map are Baptist
dominance throughout the South, a Lutheran zone in the upper Midwest, Mormon
(Latter-Day Saints) dominance in the interior West, and the zone of mixing in the
American heartland. Why do you think that so much of the western United States shows
an adherence to Catholicism?
ISLAM
• Islam, a proselytic faith, claims 1.6 billion followers.
• Muslims are monotheists and worship one absolute God
known as Allah.
• Islam was founded by Muhammad, considered to be the
last and most important in a long line of prophets.
• The Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, also serves as the basis of
Islamic law, or Sharia.
• Islam has fragmented into two major groups: Shiite and
Sunni.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM
• A belief in Allah, the one God whose prophet was
Muhammad
• Prayer five times daily at established times
• Giving alms, or zakat, to the poor
• Fasting from dawn to sunset during the holy month
of Ramadan
• Making at least one pilgrimage, if possible, to the
sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia
FIGURE 7.8 Muslims at prayer in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. (ayazad/Shutterstock.)
HINDUISM
• Hinduism is closely tied to India, and claims about
1 billion adherents.
• Hinduism is a polytheistic religion – Hindus recognize
one supreme god, Brahman, but it is his many
manifestations that are worshipped directly.
• Social divisions (castes) separate Hindu society into
four major categories (varna) based on occupation:
priests (Brahmins), warriors (Kshatriyas), merchants and
artisans (Vaishyas), and workers (Shudras).
• All Hindus also share a belief in reincarnation.
FIGURE 7.9 Ganesha. The elephant-headed god of wisdom, intelligence,
and education is revered by many Hindu university students. (Punit
Puranjpe/Reuters/Landov.)
SIKHISM AND JAINISM
• Hinduism has splintered into diverse groups, some of which are so
distinctive as to be regarded as separate religions.
• Jainism claims perhaps 4 million adherents, almost all of whom live
in India.
• Jains adhere to a strict asceticism involving self-denial and
austerity (e.g., veganism).
• Sikhism arose in the 1500s, in an attempt to unify Hinduism and
Islam.
• Centered in the Punjab state of northwestern India, Sikhism has
about 23 million followers.
• Sikhs are monotheistic and have their own holy book, the
Adi Granth.
BUDDHISM
• Hinduism is the parent religion of Buddhism, which
began 25 centuries ago as a reform movement based
on the teachings of Prince Siddhartha Gautama.
• An Eightfold Path of proper personal conduct and
meditation permits the individual to overcome desire
… state of enlightenment known as nirvana.
• Buddhism and Hinduism share many beliefs.
• In the process of its proselytic spread, Buddhism fused
with native ethnic religions such as Confucianism,
Taoism, and Shintoism.
FIGURE 7.11 Buddhism is one of the religious faiths of South Korea. Here, an
image of the Buddha is carved from a rocky bluff to create sacred space
and a local pilgrimage shrine. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)
TAOIC RELIGIONS
Tao – The force that balances and orders the universe.
• Derived from the teachings of philosopher K’ung Fu-tzu
(551–479 B.C.E.), Confucianism was later promoted by
China’s Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) as the official
state philosophy.
• Taoism emphasizes dynamic balance: the “three jewels of
Tao” are humility, compassion, and moderation.
• Shinto, once the state religion of Japan, has long blended
with Buddhism, as well as being infused with a Confucianderived legal system, but at its core Shinto is an animistic
religion.
ANIMISM/SHAMANISM
Animism:
The idea that souls or spirits exist in humans, and also in
animals, plants, rocks, and other natural phenomena.
• For the most part, animists do not form organized or
recognized religious groups but practice as ethnic religions
common to clans or tribes.
• Most animists follow oral traditions and do not have holy
books.
• Currently number perhaps 240 million.
• Animistic elements can pervade established religions.
FIGURE 7.12 Druids from the Mistletoe Foundation bless mistletoe in
Worcestershire, England. Celtic Druids have their roots in the ancient, preChristian reverence for natural elements such as streams, hills, and plants.
Mistletoe is sacred to the Druidic faith. (Andrew Fox/Corbis.)
7.2 MOBILITY
CULTURE HEARTHS
Culture hearth:
A focused geographic area where important
innovations are born and from which they spread.
• Religions have always been on the move.
• To a remarkable degree, the origin of the major
religions was concentrated spatially in three
principal culture hearth areas.
THE SEMITIC RELIGIOUS HEARTH
• All three of the great monotheistic faiths—Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam—arose among Semitic
peoples who lived in or on the margins of the
deserts of Southwest Asia, in the Middle East.
• Judaism, the oldest of the three, originated some
4000 years ago.
• Christianity originated about 2000 years ago.
• Seven centuries later, Islam arose in western Arabia.
HOW DO RELIGIONS SPREAD?
• Religions spread by both relocation and expansion
diffusion.
• Proselytic faiths are more likely to diffuse than ethnic
religions.
• Christianity initially spread through the Roman Empire,
using the system of imperial roads.
• In later centuries, Christian missionaries often converted
kings or tribal leaders, setting in motion additional
hierarchical diffusion.
• Some Christian expansion was militaristic.
HOW DO RELIGIONS SPREAD?
Contact conversion:
The spread of religious beliefs by personal contact.
• The Islamic faith spread from its Semitic hearth area
in a predominately militaristic manner.
• Tropical Africa is the current major region of Islamic
expansion, an effort that has produced competition
with Christians for the conversion of animists.
• Islam has become the world’s fastest-growing
religion in terms of the number of new adherents.
THE INDUS-GANGES
RELIGIOUS HEARTH
• This hearth gave birth to Hinduism and Buddhism.
• Hinduism, which is at least 4000 years old, was the
earliest faith to arise in this hearth.
• Branching off from Hinduism, Buddhism began in
the foothills bordering the Ganges Plain about 500
B.C.E.
• The diffusion of Buddhism continues to the present
day. Some 2 million Buddhists live in the United
States, mostly the result of relocation diffusion.
THE EAST ASIAN RELIGIOUS HEARTH
• Kong Fu-tzu wandered about with a small band of disciples
trying to convince rulers to put his ideas into practice, but
he was shunned.
• Hierarchical diffusion from politicians and schools
eventually spread Confucianism from the top down.
• Taoism also did not gain wide acceptance until it was
promoted by the ruling Chinese elite.
• 1949 – China’s communist government officially repressed
organized religious expression, but religion was driven
underground rather than eradicated.
• Chinese and Japanese migrants have relocated their belief
systems across the globe.
FIGURE 7.14 The origin and diffusion of five major world religions. Christianity
and Islam, the two great proselytic monotheistic faiths, arose in Semitic
southwestern Asia and spread widely through the Old World. Hinduism and
Buddhism both originated in the northern reaches of the Indian subcontinent
and spread throughout southeastern Eurasia. Taoic religions originated in
East Asia, relocating with Chinese and Japanese migration regionally and,
more recently, to North and South America.
RELIGIOUS PILGRIMAGE
Pilgrimages:
Journeys to places of religious importance.
• Pilgrimages are typical of both ethnic and proselytic
religions – particularly significant for followers of
Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Roman Catholicism.
• Religious pilgrimage is the number one driver of
tourism.
• Some religions mandate pilgrimage (e.g., Islam).
FIGURE 7.17 Top pilgrimage destinations. This map displays the world’s most
popular sites of religious or spiritual pilgrimage. Taken together, these 14 sites
attract 100 million visitors annually.
7.3 GLOBALIZATION
THE RISE OF EVANGELICAL
PROTESTANTISM IN LATIN AMERICA
• In Latin America and the Caribbean, Roman Catholicism
has dominated since the time of the Iberian conquerors in
the late 1400s.
• Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world in terms of
population, but Catholicism has been on the decline in
Brazil and throughout the region in recent decades.
• More and more Latin Americans believe that the Catholic
Church has failed to keep in touch with the needs and
concerns of contemporary urban societies.
• As a result, more and more are turning to evangelical
Protestant faiths (e.g., Seventh-Day Adventist and
Pentecostal churches).
FIGURE 7.19 Protestant worship. The faithful attend a prayer session in an
evangelical church in the Bangu neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. (PILAR
OLIVARES/REUTERS/Newscom.)
RELIGION ON THE INTERNET
• Gathering together regularly in a holy place—a mosque,
temple, church, or shrine—is at the heart of most
organized religions.
• Now you can sit in front of a computer and read a holy
book, submit and read online prayers, engage in
theological debate, or watch broadcasts of religious
services.
• Illness, invalidism, or the pressures of a busy life need not
present a barrier to worship.
• Detractors argue that solitary worship online erodes the
place-based communities that are at the heart of many
religions.
RELIGION’S RELEVANCE
IN A GLOBAL WORLD
• A 2012 Gallup poll revealed that 69% of Americans
consider themselves very (40%) or moderately (29%)
religious, making the United States one of the more
religious nations on Earth.
• Yet the percentage of Americans who do not have a
specific religious identification has also increased.
• Across the United States, the importance of religion
varies.
• In some parts of the world, especially in much of Europe,
religious affiliation has declined, giving way to
secularization.
FIGURE 7.23 Importance of religion. This map of the United States shows the
percent of people in each state who indicated that religion was very
important in their lives. What factors might explain why this map illustrates
these particular regional patterns? (Source: www.pewforum.org.)
FIGURE 7.24 Secularized areas in Europe. Places in which Christianity has
ceased to be of much importance occur in a complicated pattern. What
causal forces might have been at work? In all of Europe, some 190 million
people report no religious faith, amounting to 27 percent of the population.
7.4 NATURE–CULTURE
APPEASING THE FORCES OF NATURE
• One of the main functions of many religions is the
maintenance of harmony between a people and their
physical environment – adaptive strategy.
• Physical environmental factors, particularly natural
hazards and disasters, exert a powerful influence on the
development of religions.
• Environmental influence is most readily apparent in
animistic faiths, although it is evident in the major
Western religions as well.
• Rivers, mountains, trees, forests, and rocks often achieve
the status of sacred space, even in the great religions.
FIGURE 7.26 Two high places that have evolved into sacred space. Left: The
reddish sandstone Uluru, or Ayers Rock, in central Australia is sacred in
Aboriginal animism. Right: Snowy Mount Shasta in California is venerated by
some 30 New Age cults. Why do mountains so often inspire such worship?
(Left: Hans-Peter Merten/Getty Images; Right: iStockphoto/Thinkstock.)
FENG SHUI
• Feng shui, which literally means “wind and water,”
refers to the practice of harmoniously balancing the
opposing forces of nature in the built environment.
• Feng shui involves choosing environmentally
auspicious sites for locating houses, villages,
temples, and graves.
• Feng shui dates back some 7000 years, and
contemporary people still practice its principles.
FIGURE 7.27 Condominium in Hong Kong. The square opening in this building
is supposed to allow for the passage of the dragon that resides in the hill
behind. (Courtesy of Ari Dorfsman.)
THE IMPACTS OF BELIEF SYSTEMS
ON PLANTS AND ANIMALS
• Every religion expresses itself in food choices, to one degree
or another … certain plants and livestock, and products
derived from them, are in demand because of their roles in
religious ceremonies and traditions.
• Some Christians drink wine during Holy Communion …
contributed to the diffusion of grape growing.
• Religious taboos can be absorbing barriers; prevent diffusion
of foods, drinks, and practices that violate the taboo (e.g.,
caffeine and Mormonism).
• Some religions have specific guidelines for food preparation
and consumption (e.g., Judaism and kosher foods, Muslims
and halal foods, Hindus and sacred cows).
ECOTHEOLOGY
Ecotheology:
The study of the influence of religious belief on
habitat modification.
• In some faiths, human power over natural forces is
assumed. In others, nature is a sacred creation that
should be respected and protected by humans.
• The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that humans
have dominion over nature … a view that is
potentially far more damaging to the habitat than
an organic view of nature in which humans and
nature exist in balance.
ECOTHEOLOGY
• Non-Abrahamic religions tend to be depicted as having
more resonance with environmentalist thinking … but is
this always true?
• Real-world practices do not always reflect the stated
ideals of religions (e.g., Buddhism and Hinduism protect
temple trees but demand huge quantities of wood for
cremations).
• The construction of funeral pyres is estimated to strip
some 50 million trees from India’s countryside annually.
• A “green cremation system” is currently under
development in India.
FIGURE 7.28 Wood gathered for Hindu cremations at Pashupatinath, on the
sacred river Bagmati in Nepal. These cremations contribute significantly to
the ongoing deforestation of Nepal and reveal the underlying internal
contradiction in Hinduism between conservation as reflected in the doctrine
of ahimsa and sanctioned ecologically destructive practices. (Cormac
McCreesh/Gallo Images/Getty Images.)
THE GAIA HYPOTHESIS
Gaia hypothesis:
The theory that there is one interacting planetary
ecosystem, Gaia, that includes all living things and
the land, waters, and atmosphere in which they live;
further, that Gaia functions almost as a living
organism, acting to control deviations in climate and
to correct chemical imbalances, so as to preserve
Earth as a living planet.
• Ecofeminists point out that the rise of the allpowerful male sky-deity of Semitic monotheism
came at the expense of earth goddesses of fertility
and sustainability.
7.5 CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
RELIGIOUS STRUCTURES
• The most obvious religious contributions to the
landscape are the buildings erected to house divinities
or to shelter worshippers.
• These structures vary greatly in size, function,
architectural style, construction material, and degree of
ornateness.
Megachurch:
Large Protestant church structures, usually located in
suburban areas of the United States, which have large
congregat …
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