Biomaterial Database

Religious beliefs: online information and resources. 2008

Dion Smyth

Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D012067	Religion	A set of beliefs concerning the nature, cause, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency. It usually involves devotional and ritual observances and often a moral code for the conduct of human affairs. (Random House Collegiate Dictionary, rev. ed.)	Prayer,Religious Beliefs,Religious Ethics,Beliefs, Religious,Ethic, Religious,Prayers,Religions,Religious Belief
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D018599	Witchcraft	An act of employing sorcery (the use of power gained from the assistance or control of spirits), especially with malevolent intent, and the exercise of supernatural powers and alleged intercourse with the devil or a familiar. (From Webster, 3d ed)	Sorcery,Sorceries
D019423	Shamanism	An intermediate stage between polytheism and monotheism, which assumes a "Great Spirit", with lesser deities subordinated. With the beginnings of shamanism there was the advent of the medicine man or witch doctor, who assumed a supervisory relation to disease and its cure. Formally, shamanism is a religion of Ural-Altaic peoples of Northern Asia and Europe, characterized by the belief that the unseen world of gods, demons, ancestral spirits is responsive only to shamans. The Indians of North and South America entertain religious practices similar to the Ural-Altaic shamanism. The word shaman comes from the Tungusic (Manchuria and Siberia) saman, meaning Buddhist monk. The SHAMAN handles disease almost entirely by psychotherapeutic means; he frightens away the demons of disease by assuming a terrifying mien. (From Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine, 4th ed, p22; from Webster, 3d ed)
D020407	Internet	A loose confederation of computer communication networks around the world. The networks that make up the Internet are connected through several backbone networks. The Internet grew out of the US Government ARPAnet project and was designed to facilitate information exchange.	World Wide Web,Cyber Space,Cyberspace,Web, World Wide,Wide Web, World