RLG101H5: Introduction to the Study of Religion

An indispensable resource for exploring food and faith, this two-volume set offers information on food-related religious beliefs, customs, and practices from around the world.
Check Guided to Related Topics in each volume as it shows the list of Customs, Feasts and Feast Days, Food and Drink, (Well-known) Individuals, Religion or Belief, Religious Festivals and Seasons, Religious Practices, Rituals, and Texts and Scriptures.
— List of Entries AND Guid to Related Topics
Different festival calendars are available: e.g., Baha’i Festival Calendar (pp.61-62), Buddhist Festival Calendar (pp. 84-86), and so forth.

e.g., Chapter 23: Food and Religion

Academic food ethics incorporates work from philosophy but also anthropology, economics, the environmental sciences and other natural sciences, geography, law, and sociology.

This reference work covers the cuisine and foodways of India in all their diversity and complexity, including regions, personalities, street foods, communities and topics that have been often neglected. The book starts with an overview essay situating the Great Indian Table in relation to its geography, history and agriculture, followed by alphabetically organized entries.

This book documents hundreds of customs and traditions practiced in countries outside of the United States, showcasing the diversity of birth, coming-of-age, and death celebrations worldwide.
This three-volume encyclopedia covers more than 300 birth, life, and death customs, with the books' content organized chronologically by life stage.
— Volume 1 focuses on birth and childhood customs,
— Volume 2 documents adolescent and early-adulthood customs, and
— Volume 3 looks at aging and death customs.

➤➤➤ Volume 1 Geographical List of Entries (Coverage)
— Selected Bibliography for Volume 1
➤➤➤ Volume 2 Geographical List of Entries (Coverage)
— Selected Bibliography for Volume 2
➤➤➤ Volume 3 Geographical List of Entries (Coverage)
— Selected Bibliography for Volume 3

This Handbook provides a compendium of the information essential for constructing a comprehensive and integrated account of ritual and worship in the ancient world. Its focus on ritual and worship from the perspective of biblical studies, as opposed to religious studies, highlights that the world of ritual and worship was a topic of central concern for the people of the Ancient Near East, including the world of the Bible.

This book introduces readers, with little or no background in Christianity, to the theology and history of Christian rituals. It opens with a brief explanation of the role of symbols in human life based on recent anthropological studies.

The author examines how and why various rites and customs celebrating stages in the life cycle have evolved through the ages and persisted to this day. For each phase of life - from childhood, adolescence, adulthood, to the advanced years - the book traces the origin and development of specific rites associated with the events of birth, circumcision, and schooling; bar and bat mitzvah and confirmation; engagement, betrothal, and marriage; and aging, dying, and remembering. Customs in Jewish tradition such as the presence of godparents at a circumcision, the use of a four-poled canopy at a wedding, and the placing of small stones on tombstones are discussed.

This book provides a chronology of events, a brief introduction that gives a general overview of the religion, and a dictionary with several hundred entries, which present the gurus and other leaders, trace the rather complex history, expound some of the precepts and concepts, describe many of the rites and rituals, and explain the meaning of numerous related expressions.

e.g., The section "Halal food" includes Religious Dietary Compliance in Islam: Halal Food, Halal Meat, The Spiritual Dimension of Halal Food, Halal and Abrahamic Faiths, Halal Certification, Difference of Opinions, The Range of Treatment in Poultry, The Multi-Billion-Dollar Halal Food Market, and so forth.

Aspects of Sikhism that it explores include the concepts that form the central beliefs of Sikhism, and then the expression of these beliefs in worship, daily life, and the ethics of Sikhs in the modern day.

Following an introduction on the philosophy of religion, attention is focused on Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam which are religions that have had (and probably continue to have) the greatest number of followers in Western society.

1. Indic Cultural Region
— Hinduism
— Sikhism
— Jainism
2. Buddhist/Confucian Cultural Region
— Buddhism (Theravada, Tibetan)
— Confucianism
— Traditional Chinese religion
— Japanese and Korean religious traditions
3. Jewish Cultural Region
— Judaism (Israel, North Africa & Middle East, Europe, Americas, Asia)
4. Christian Cultural Region
— Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox,
— Evangelical, Coptic, Mormon)
— Regional communities: Europe, Russia, Latin America, North America, Africa, South Asia, China, Southeast Asia
5. Islamic Cultural Region
— Islam (Sunni, Shi'a)
— Regional communities: Arab, North African, Sub-Saharan African, European, Central Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Chinese, American
— Movements with Islamic origins
6. African Cultural Region
— Traditional African religions
— Afro-Caribbean religious societies
7. Local Religious Societies
— Native American religions
— Australian Aboriginal religions
— Pacific Islands religious communities