Taylor Pilk
Professor Bijoyeta Saharia Das
Expos 355: 101
31 October 2017
Religious Doing
The discussion about God and religion has always been in the public domain. Many people believe that the concept of God should be easy and that religion must be understood by everyone. Despite the technological and scientific advancement, many people continue to present underdeveloped and sometimes primitive ideas about religion. Karen Armstrong through Homo religiosus brings out the concept of religion and culture. According to Armstrong, religion is very crucial to the human beings and has been there since the Paleolithic period. Religion forms the basic concepts of what is right and what is wrong, therefore, her arguments mean that a bigger part of
…show more content…
As Armstrong brings out in her article, the people during this era had not fully embraced the religious concepts but most of their activities were centered towards a supreme being. Many Muslim, Jewish, and the Christian theologians argued that as much as it was a necessity for them to present their wishes to the divine through words, the beliefs could not be adequate as it would be man-made. They, therefore, came up with spiritual practices that subverted the normal patterns of speech and thought in order to make the faithful understand that the worlds they used to tell God were not suitable. The ancient time theologians argued that the idea of God being divine, powerful and good could not be clearly understood. Symbolism formed a bigger part of the pre-modern Christian practice. Taking the medieval Europe as an example, the believers were urged to see the Mass as a symbolic remembrance of Jesus’ Death and resurrection. Unlike the current situation where everybody has a Quran or a Bible, the believers in the ancient times had a different relationship with the holy readings. Study of the scripture entailed keen listening while they recited the piecemeal. The myths formed a bigger portion of religion in the ancient times. They played a major role in helping the people negotiate understand the religious beliefs that were considered hard to express. …show more content…
The modern era saw the construction of temples, churches and the mosques because people realized that it was not enough to believe but they also needed to practice their religion. Those that had not adopted the religious concepts could now be accorded the privilege of visiting the holy places in order to get spiritual nourishment. The Christians adopted the art of pilgrimage as a sign of turning away from the sinful ways and embracing holiness. The transformation in the religious belief led to a lot of praying in the churches as the priest involved their congregation in the appropriate forms of prayer and meditation. Knowledge and understanding grew amongst many people because of
In his book, An Imperfect God, Henry Wiencek argues in favor of Washington being the first true president to set the precedent for the emancipation of African-American slaves. Wiencek delves into the evil paradox of how a nation conceived on the principles of liberty and dedicated to the statement that all men are created equal was in a state that still preserved slavery for over seven decades following the construction of the nation. Washington’s grandeur estate at Mount Vernon at its peak had the upkeep of over 300 slaves 126 of which were owned by Washington. First, it must be understood that Washington was raised on slavery receiving ownership of 10 slaves at the age of 11 years old and that Washington was a man of his time. However, it must also be understood that Washington’s business with slavery was in the context of a constrained social and political environment. Weincek maintains that this does not exonerate the fact that Washington maintained slavery however; it does help to quantify the moral shortcoming by which Washington carried until his last year of life.
Miller-Thayer, Jennifer. “Religion and Belief Systems.”Class Lecture. Anthrology 3: Cultural Anthropology. Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga. 06 March. 2014
He further elaborates the topic by speaking on the idea that God is a Necessary being who has no cause but He is the cause of everything and He is the one who sustained this universe. In conclusion of the chapter, Rachels stated that idea of the existence of God will always remain in the contemplations of religious people and arguments used in this chapter needs more convincing evidence to prove the existence of God in this Universe. The chapter commenced by the most thought-provoking argument that “Is it Reasonable to Believe in God?”. The author to explicit this argument gives the result of Gallop polls and the polls conducted by Pew research center, which indicates that the underdeveloped countries are more religious than the developed countries and specifically in United states only 56% of the people consider religion as the most important part of their lives. Furthermore, the author discussed that no one detects the God existence by ordinary means, however, some people can have the sensation that God is somewhere around them no matter if they cannot see, heard or touch Him.
Religion has been a controversial topic among philosophers and in this paper I am focusing
As children, we are often told stories, some of which may have practical value in the sense of providing young minds with lessons and morals for the future, whereas some stories create a notion of creativity and imagination in the child. In Karen Armstrong’s piece, “Homo Religiosus”, a discussion of something similar to the topic of storytelling could translate to the realm of religion. Armstrong defines religion as a, “matter of doing rather than thinking” (17) which she describes using an example in which adolescent boys in ancient religions, who were not given the time to “find themselves” but rather forced into hunting animals which ultimately prepares these boys to be able to die for their people, were made into men by the process of doing.
―"Religion in “Brave New World“." Religion in Brave New World. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2014.
Smart, Ninian. "Blackboard, Religion 100." 6 March 2014. Seven Dimensions of Religion. Electronic Document. 6 March 2014.
Originally the Romans and the Greeks worshiped a lot of gods linked to the forces of nature. To be influenced by other people, they introduce new goods. The religious freedom is a particular side of the freedom of expression, representing the free and intellectual individual will of binding and choosing or not a religion. The particular aspect consists in that religion is not limited by its transposition in faith, but gives rise to practices ensuring the free exercise of religion. One of the most extremely felt, dominant and a significant force in civilization is religion. Religious thinking inspires human action and religious groups to put in order their shared religious expressions. The ancient Greek and Roman culture had an intensely rooted spiritual background and all the citizens were intensely spiritual. The gods and goddesses who they believed in have stories about them. The stories have helped everyone to learn on how things were created and to learn about the two cultures. Religious expressions let people to liberally express his or her knowledge through re...
The purpose of this reflective outline is to demonstrate a thorough understanding of theories, concepts, and/or strategies relating to cultural and social religions. “Whale Rider” (Caro, 2002) , is a depictive representation of a cultural religion that has survived on the belief of male inheritance as their form of guidance; however, history has shown that change is inevitable. For example, throughout history, religion has played a pivotal role in the development of individuals, including the evolution of societies. This shows that because religion/s around the world have practiced their core beliefs in an attempt to guide humanities behaviors, yet , as we can observe with the “Whale Rider,” even the most influential community and cultural leaders can become miscued in their ideologies. Because The Maori of New Zealand have developed deep seated beliefs within natural creatures; Katu is term used to relate to their god (Maori.com, 2014) steaming for their ancestral Polynesian descendants. In addition to what can be observed, such as beliefs, practices, and/or symbolic terminologies, each religion will ensure its presidential knowledge is passed to those who receive it accordingly. The factual concept stands and history has proven is evolution that without guidance and continuous religious and cultural support, decedents of a heritage may become lost and/or miscued within their mislead ideology. Although many religions are centered on the belief of normality’s cultural expectance, often times we can observe drastic changes in the reorganization of a cultural religion.
Religion is an ever-growing idea that has no set date of origin. Throughout history religion has served as an answer to the questions that man could not resolve. The word religion is derived from the Latin word “religio” meaning restraint in collaboration with the Greek word “relegere” which means to repeat or to read again. Religion is currently defined as an organized system of beliefs and practices revolving around, or leading to, a transcendent spiritual experience. Throughout time, there has yet to be a culture that lacks a religion of some form, whether it is a branch of paganism, a mythological based religion or mono/polytheistic religion. Many religions have been forgotten due to the fact that they were ethnic religions and globalizing religions were fighting to be recognized, annihilating these ancient and ethnic religions. Some of these faiths include: Finnish Paganism, Atenism, Minoan Religion, Mithraism, Manichaeism, Vedism, Zoroastrianism, Asatru, and the Olmec Religion. Religion is an imperative part of our contemporary world but mod...
Religion can be described as a social institution built up around the idea of a supernatural being or beings, and the relation of human beings to them. In addition, religion provides individuals a belief to which they understand their existence as well network of emotional support during times of distress. Moreover, religious institutions provide individuals a proper perspective of life and establish values. Religion involves three major aspects: A conception of the nature and character of divinity (2) A set of principles concerning the duties and obligations between divinity and humanity. (3) A set of behavior patterns designed to conform to God’s will (Thorman, 154). The theme of panopticisim is to assert and maintain power by being unseen. In Christianity, God, unable to be to seen, is a supernatural being with infinite power. In addition, the Holy Bible reaffirms this power and establishes accordance among civilians. The social institution of religion is a form of a panoptic system where individuals are compelled to act accordingly.
Most Christians (or those religions that follow the basic principles of the Bible) believe in the stories told in the Bible. In fact, these stories are usually regarded not only as mere stories, but also as actual historical accounts of important people, events, and concepts of the Christian faith. However, stories of Greek and Roman mythology are typically regarded as nothing more than fictional, fantasy stories. The idea that Ancient Greeks viewed these stories to be their religion seems insane to many people of Biblical Faith. This idea seems to cast a stigma of irrationality, almost ignorance, upon the Ancient Greeks. Although placing this stigmatism on a long-dead culture may seem to be unimportant in much of the contemporary world, it is important because this long-dead culture represents the history of a large portion of the world (the Ancient Greek empire was much more vast than modern-day Greece). Just as many Americans would find it offensive to have their history as irrational and ignorant, it seems logical that Greeks might as well. Therefore, it is necessary to try and understand that both Ancient Greeks and Ancient Christians may have held similar beliefs about the world they were living in. The fact is that Greek myths contain unrealistic and unbelievable characters, events, and other elements, but upon comparison of Greek mythology stories with different Biblical accounts, it is apparent that some parallels between the two do exist, and that the Ancient Greeks view of the events of the early world are very similar to the views of both ancient and contemporary Christians.
Religion is an organized collection of beliefs and cultural systems that entail the worship of a supernatural and metaphysical being. “Religion just like other belief systems, when held onto so much, can stop one from making significant progress in life”. Together with religion come traditions that provide the people with ways to tackle life’s complexities. A subscription to the school of thought of great scholars
The longest standing belief explained by Karen Armstrong in Homo Religiosus
When first looking at the relationship between philosophy and religion, I found it easier to explain the differences rather than the similarities. I began this paper the same way I do others. This generally involves a profound amount of research on the topic at hand. However, in contrast to the other papers I have done, the definitions of philosophy and religion only raised more questions for me. It was fascinating how the explanations differed dramatically from author to author.