Investigating

Religion
Looking through the
remarkable marks religon left
around us

ALLPPT.com _ Free PowerPoint Templates, Diagrams and Charts

On course
Religion has become very influencial in
almost every aspect of human life from
personal routines to diplomatic relations. In
each country, there are majority and
minority religious groups and sometimes
the power struggle between these two
groups esclate into historical developments
which oftentimes shock the world.
Objectives

This topic seeks to:

1.Let students know the
different events religion left in
history.
2.Stories behind known events
3.What does it reflect to us
now
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
The Witch Hunts
When Puritans settled in Massachusetts in
the 1600s, they created a religious police
state where doctrinal deviation could lead
to flogging, pillorying, hanging, cutting
off ears, or boring through the tongue
with a hot iron. Preaching Quaker beliefs
was a capital offense. Four stubborn
Quakers defied this law and were hanged.
In the 1690s fear of witches seized the
colony. Twenty alleged witches were killed
and 150 others imprisoned.
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
Aztec Human Sacrifice
The Aztecs began their elaborate theocracy in
the 1300s and brought human sacrifice to a
golden era. About 20,000 people were killed
yearly to appease gods especially the sun
god, who needed daily nourishment of blood.
Hearts of sacrifice victims were cut out, and so
me bodies were eaten ceremoniously.
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
 Roman Persecution of
Christians
Christians were first, and horribly, targeted for persecution as
a group by the emperor Nero in 64 AD. A colossal fire broke
out at Rome, and destroyed much of the city. Rumors
abounded that Nero himself was responsible. To divert
attention from the rumors, Nero ordered that Christians
should be rounded up and killed. Then in the mid-third
century, emperors initiated even more intensive persecutions
This, The Great Persecution, is considered the largest.
Beginning with a series of four edicts banning Christian
practices and ordering the imprisonment of Christian clergy,
the persecution intensified until all Christians in the empire
were commanded to sacrifice to the gods or face immediate
execution. This persecution was to be the last, as
Constantine I soon came into power and in 313 legalized
Christianity.
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
The Crusades
By the end of the 11th century, Western Europe
had emerged as a significant power in its own
right, though it still lagged far other
Mediterranean civilization such as that of the
Byzantine Empire (formerly the eastern half of
the Roman Empire) and the Islamic empire of
the Middle East and North Africa. Meanwhile,
Byzantium was losing considerable territory to
the invading Seljuk Turks, who defeated the Byza
ntine Army at the battle of Manzikirt in 1071
and went on to gain control over much of
Anatolia.
The Crusades

After years of chaos and civil war,

the general Alexius Comnenus seized
the Byzantine throne in 1081 and
consolidated control over the
remaining empire as Emperor
Alexius I.
The Crusades
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
The Childrens Crusade
The Children's Crusade is a possibly fictitious
or misinterpreted crusade of 1212. The story
is that an outburst of the old popular e
nthusiasm led a gathering of children in
France and Germany, which Pope Innocent III
interpreted as a reproof from heaven to their
unworthy elders. None of the children actually
reached the Holy Land, being sold as slaves or
dying of hunger during the journey.
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
Reformation
The Reformation (1517-1648) was one of
the greatest events in European history.
Prior to this period, the Roman Catholic
Church had close to absolute control
over the people and governments of the
Christian world. It was when many of the
learned men of the time began to
question the practices of the church in
comparison to the Bible that trouble arose
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
Self-immolation
In June of 1963, Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk
Thch Quang Duc burned himself to death at a busy
intersection in Saigon. He was attempting to show that to
fight all forms of oppression on equal terms, Buddhism to
o, needed to have its martyrs. The self-immolation was do
ne in protest to the South Vietnamese Diem regimes pro-
catholic policies and discriminatory Buddhist laws. In partic
ular this was a response to the banning of the Buddhist
flag, just 2 days after Diem had held a very public
ceremony displaying crosses; earlier in his rule he had ded
icated Vietnam to Jesus and the Catholic Church. The
growing resentment of Buddhists under Diem was one of
the underlying issues of South Vietnam, and eventually
led to a coup to put in place a leader who would not
alienate Buddhists, who made up 70-90% of Vietnams
population.
Self-immolation
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
Sati
In this age of ascending feminism and focus on equality
and human rights, it is difficult to assimilate the Hindu
practice of sati, the burning to death of a widow on her
husband's funeral pyre, into our modern world. Indeed,
the practice is outlawed and illegal in today's India, yet it
occurs up to the present day and is still regarded by some
Hindus as the ultimate form of womanly devotion and
sacrifice. Sati (also called suttee) is the practice among
some Hindu communities by which a recently widowed
woman either voluntarily or by use of force or coercion
commits suicide as a result of her husband's death. The
best known form of sati is when a woman burns to death
on her husband's funeral pyre. However other forms of
sati exist, including being buried alive with the husband's
corpse and drowning.
 Religious events that
changed the course of history
The Inquisition
The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical court and process of
the Roman Catholic Church setup for the purpose toward
s the discovery and punishment of heresy which wielded
immense power and brutality in medieval and early
modern times. The Inquisitions function was principally as
sembled to repress all heretics of rights, depriving them
of their estate and assets which became subject to the
ownership of the Catholic treasury, with each relentlessly
sought to destroy anyone who spoke, or even thought
differently to the Catholic Church. This system for close to
over six centuries became the legal framework
throughout most of Europe that orchestrated one of the
most confound religious orders in the course of mankind.
Godhra Train Incident
The Godhra train incident is what most report
s about the violence in Gujurat, India point to
as the starting point for the barbarism and
massacre of Muslims that followed. This is
why it is critical to understand exactly what
happened there. About 60 people died in the
train attack. Most of them were Hindu. Later
on Hindu militants burned and looted
Muslim properties for several days, resulting
in about 5,000 deaths, according to Muslim
sources.