Classification of Cosmologies
Cosmic worldviews may be examined from two distinct perspectives: geographical location and culturally evolved themes.
,
Common Characteristics of Religious Cosmologies
When symbolism and mythology depict cosmogony and cosmology, the view is confirmed that the cosmos is always the world of humanity and is not an external object of inquiry.
Additionally, an ethical concern, which by itself has no evident part in the study of nature or of astronomy, is very much in evidence in religious views of the world.
The behav.
,
Cosmology and Worldview
According to this explanation of cosmology, the terms cosmology and worldview, although related, cannot often be used interchangeably.
Worldview is the term for a more general, less precisely delineated but commonly accepted set of ideas (i.e., an ideology) concerning life and world.
Cosmology refers to more consciously entertained images, doctrine.
,
Do Science and Religion View The Cosmos Differently?
Contrary to popular opinion, pondering the conflicts between science and religion is not often necessary.
It is more to the point to think of differences in questions asked and in subject matter.
Pre-Islamic Indian literary sources are almost unanimous with respect to the conception of the continents of the earth.
They depict the continents geometr.
,
Images of The World as Subjects For Historians
For historians, including historians of religions, the study of cosmology surveys and tries to classify and understand the significance of mythical images and religious conceptions concerning the cosmos and the origin and structure of the universe.
The variety of images held, historically and globally, leads to one central question: What is the rel.
,
Other Motifs
Traditionally, especially since the nineteenth century, anthropologists and historians of religions have been interested in social structures and cultural structures and generally were neither trained for nor interested in typically exact science questions.
In recent decades however, more scientists have begun to look at ancient cultures and at soc.