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Two Views of Reality
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The Western Two-Tiered View |
The Historic and Multicultural Three-Tiered View |
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Religion |
High Religion |
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Faith in God The spiritual Dimension The sacred Miracles and exceptions to the natural order |
Cosmic Beings: God, gods, angels, demons of a world
separate from this one
Cosmic forces: kismet, fate, karma, or impersonal cosmic forces |
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Low Religion, Magic, Mana |
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(Excluded Middle)
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Folk religion: local gods and goddesses, ancestors, spirits, demons, ghosts Psychic phenomena: curses, blessings, special powers, astrological forces, evil eye Physical phenomena: magical rites, charms, amulets, firewalking, embedded charms, psychic surgery |
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Sight and experience The natural order Secular definition Empirical methodology Mechanical analogies Sense experience Experimentation and proof |
Directly observable sensory phenomena, knowledge based
on experimentation and replication
Interaction of human beings or interaction of natural objects based on natural forces |
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(Adapted from Paul Hiebert in Augsburger, D. (1986) Pastoral counseling across cultures. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, p. 34.)