generalkeyterms

General Key Terms

� Abortion
o The removal of the foetus from the womb before it can survive outside the womb, without life saving equipment
� Agnosticism
o Not being sure whether God exists
� Assisted suicide
o When one asks someone for the means by which to end his or her own life, or providing someone with such means
� Atheism
o Believing that God does not exist moral evil actions done by humans, which cause suffering
� Bastard
o Old term used to denote someone born out of wedlock
� Benevolent
o The belief that God is good/kind
� Causation (The First Cause Argument)
o The idea that everything has been caused, (started off), by something else
� Co-habitation
o Living together as husband and wife but not legally, or religiously married
� Conversion
o When giving yourself to God changes your life and/or your belief system
� Design (The Design Argument)
o When things are connected and seem to have a purpose, e.g. the eye is designed for seeing
� Discrimination
o Putting prejudice into practice and treating other less favourably as a result
� Equality
o That state of everyone having equal rights regardless of gender/nationality/class
� Euthanasia
o An easy and gentle death with dignity
� Extended family
o Children/parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles all living together as a family unit or close by with very regular contact
� Faithfulness
o Staying with you partner and having sexual relations only with them, body and mind!
� Genderism
o Discriminating against people because of their gender, also known as sexism
� Homophobia
o Irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals, which is usually widened to include, trans-sexuals, bi-sexuals and trans-genders
� Immanent
o The belief that God is within the universe, indeed, is within us!
� Immortality of the Human Soul
o The idea that the soul lives on after the body dies
� Marriage
o The end of a beautiful relationship � no seriously, when a couple are legally joined so that they are allowed to live together and usually have children
� Miracle
o Something, which seems to break a law of science and makes you think only God, could have caused it
� Moral evil
o Things Humans choose to do that, abuses another
� Multi-ethnic society
o Any society where people from different ethnicities, nationalities and cultures work and live together
� Natural abortion
o Miscarriage, the body naturally rejects the foetus from the womb
� Natural evil
o Things, which cause suffering but have nothing to do with humans, e.g. quakes
� Nuclear family
o Mum, Dad and kids, living together as a family unit
� Numinous
o The feeling of the presence of something greater than you, e.g. in a church or looking up at the stars
� Omnipotent
o The belief that God is all-powerful
� Omnipresent
o The belief that God is everywhere all the time, God is with us
� Omniscient
o The belief that God knows everything that has happened and everything that is going to happen
� Paranormal
o Unexplained things that are thought to have spiritual causes, for example, ghosts and mediums
� Positive discrimination
o When we favor one person over another, but it must be fair, for example, if a woman and a man of African heritage both apply for a job in a male orientated work place and they are both equally qualified, the woman should be given the job ..
� Prayer
o An attempt to contact/communicate with God, usually through thoughts and words
� Prejudice
o Believing that some people are inferior or superior without even knowing them
� Promiscuous
o Having lots of sexual partners but having no emotional relationship with them
� Racism
o The belief that one race is superior to others � but we all know there is only one race, the Human Race, and when we come to social harmony we will discuss this at great length, as if we haven�t already! J
� Racial harmony
o Different ethnic groups working and living together peacefully
� Re-constituted family
o When two families come together as one when the parents marry, you then have stepbrothers and sisters and/or half brothers and sisters, and step-parents, Mum/Dad
� Religious freedom
o Having the freedom to practice or change your religion
� Religious pluralism
o The idea that there is only one God and all religious paths lead back to God, so all religions should be afforded equal respect and not merely tolerated
� Re-marriage
o When a couple who have previously been married, who have divorced or been widowed, marry again
� Resurrection
o The belief that after the body dies it rest in the ground until the final day when it is raised
� Sanctity of Life
o All life is sacred, belongs to God and should be treated as such
� Transcendent
o The belief that God is outside of the universe and thereby our comprehension
� Voluntary euthanasia
o The situation where someone is dying and asks someone to end his or her life, painlessly

Well done, you got to the end; now come back again tomorrow and do it again, for these terms underpin the entire course and if you can use them apporpriately it will help you realise a respectable grade.