An Analysis Of Karen Armstrong's Essay 'Homo Religiosus'

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In Karen Armstrong’s essay “Homo Religiosus,” she describes religion as a result of rituals. The more a person practices rituals, the more they believe that they work. For example, in “Homo Religiosus,” Armstrong describes a scene from the Paleolithic age in which a crucial, initiation ritual was performed. Young boys were taken from their mothers and forced to go through terrifying situations. When the initiations are complete, the boys will fully understand the, “...link between hunter and prey in their common struggle for survival”(5). Understanding the similarities between the animals and the people will make the hunt more sacred and will honor the animals. This ritual encourages the boys to face their fears and to learn to embrace …show more content…

Religion, rituals, and selflessness are all connected. Rituals create religion and from the religion, selflessness arises. In Robert Thurman’s essay “Wisdom,” he explains the journey to selflessness and the bond all humans share with their world. According to Thurman, the first step is to start with the body by pinpointing each of the different senses in the Self. This will lead to the “recogniz[ation] that for each of these sensations you are experiencing, you are receiving data from the outside world”(491). The environment and the Self are one therefore, people have a connection through their shared environment and the similarities shared with the people around them. Thurman uses this to represent the ways that humans and their perceptions of themselves are ever-changing. This can relate to the way that the idea of artificial intelligence has changed over time and is constantly evolving. Before there was artificial intelligence, people had to fend for themselves and perform rituals for the things that they could not control in life. These days, people accept artificial intelligence in their lives and look to it for comfort. In Sherry Turkle’s “Selections from Alone Together,” artificial intelligence becomes something people can love and shows them that there are different types

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