The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (576 page)

 
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Credo ut intelligam
(commitment to the coherence between rationality and belief)
:

see
ANSELM
.

 
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Creed
.

A concise statement of what is believed
(Lat.,
credo
, ‘I believe’).
Judaism
See
ARTICLES OF FAITH
.
Christianity
Creeds originated as confessions of faith by candidates for
baptism
. The Council of
Nicaea
(325) put in a credal form the profession of faith as a standard of orthodoxy, and the use of creeds for this purpose rapidly spread. The most important creeds, the
Nicene Creed
,
Apostles'
Creed, and
Athanasian Creed
, are also used liturgically.
Islam
The basic ‘creed’ is the
shah
da
, but this affirmation of allegiance (
isl
m
) is not a credal profession, with articles of faith. The nearest equivalent to that is the
‘aq
da
, several of which appeared in the early history of Islam.

 
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Cremation
.

Method of disposing of dead bodies by burning. It is the natural method of disposal in those religions (e.g. Hinduism: see
ANTYE
I
) which regard the body as a dispensable vehicle for an immortal soul (
soma s
ma
, ‘the body a tomb’), or, as in the case of Buddhism, where the process of reappearance alone continues. But in religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, where there is belief in resurrection of the body, burial has been preferred as, intuitively, suggesting an easier reconstitution of the parts.

 
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