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How has religion affected literature
How has religion affected literature
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At the beginning of this semester we focused on hermeneutics and the reader’s personal interpretations and biases when reading a text. The Protestant bias is one bias that anyone who grows up in a western culture is likely to have. A protestant bias is a bias one can have regardless if they are actually a protestant. A protestant bias is a bias comes from the fact that the majority of westerners are most familiar with and base their assumptions about scripture on one particular scripture -- the Christian Bible. Whether an individual is a Christian or not, most westerners have been exposed to Christianity, and the Bible is often the first book that comes to mind when “scripture” is mentioned. People generally have negative associations with the word “bias” that are usually connected to the idea of closed mindedness. When actually considering biases …show more content…
Many westerners often think of scripture as an authoritative guide that is to be taken literally while other scriptures are meant to be interpreted in many different ways. The Lotus Sutra is honestly a perfect example of a text that can be interpreted a countless number of ways. Rather than there being one “right” way of understanding a scripture, other scripture are meant to be interpreted and understood by different individuals in different ways.
These different factors of the Protestant bias definitely could interfere with one’s study of the Lotus of the reader is not aware of the bias. I feel like the protestant bias will most affect someone’s study of the Lotus Sutra in regard to the interpretation of scripture. Rather than one interpretation being authoritative, the Lotus Sutra produces an endless number of interpretations. Interpretations of the Lotus Sutra are made based off a person’s background and personal experiences and are not considered invalid because different from someone else’s
According to David M. Carr, the history of Scriptural interpretation indicates that religious texts are popular candidates for reinterpretation and, as such, are spaces wherein the personal identity of the reader frequently inscribes itself at length:
By using imagination to relate scripture to personal experiences, people discover their truths derived from The Bible through Ideology. According to Brueggemann, Ideology is biased by the interpreter. They have had very unique experiences that dictate their thought process while attempting to understand the words of scripture. Ideology is when one discovers their unique truth within scripture but gives recognition that it is not the one and only existing truth. Therefore, each person must decipher scripture for themselves to discover their true, personal meaning to guide them in their religious
...uality. It attempts to persuade Christians in a very effective way that works better than perhaps facts might. I heard someone say once a quote that I think fits really well, that Christians’ fight with values and it is almost impossible to fight values. This is true and I think because you can’t necessarily fight values we have to attempt to change values and that can be much more effective with something that hits home a little more than scientific facts might.
... The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha Revised Standard Version.(1977). New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Nyberg, Nancy.(November 1997). Personal Interview and survey with Pastor of 1st Congregational Church of Dundee. Poole, W. Michael, D.Min., Th.D.(November 1997). Personal Interview and survey with pastor of Calvary Church of God. Strong, James.(1996). The New STRONG'S Complete Dictionary of Bible Words. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. Tierney, Michael J.(November 1997). Personal Interview and survey with Priest from Saint Margaret Mary Catholic Parish. Unger, Merrill F.(1967). Unger's Bible handbook. Chicago: Moody Press. Weizsacker, H.I(1958). The Apostolic Age. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications. White, R.E.O.(1960). The Biblical Doctrine of Initiation: A Theology of Baptism and Evangelism. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Religion and opinions are both products of humans. Our intelligence gifts us with the freedom of thought and capability to apply it to our views on deep life questions. Intelligence provides us the right to believe in any sort of God, afterlife, or way of living. Brad Gregory describes the Protestant Reformation’s effects on the present society’s Christian qualities in a book he wrote titled “The Unintended Reformation.”1 (After my awareness of the outcome of the western history of the Protestant Reformation, I gained an opinion on today’s religious views that do not completely agree with Gregory’s valuation.) The Protestant Reformation was vital to the progress in the knowledge about the Christian faith.
Trible, Phyllis. "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation." Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLI/1 (March 1973) pp. 30-48.
When looking at religion from an educational perspective, conflicts may arise due to the various interpretations when analyzing religious text. When differing interpretations appear about various topics, this can then lend itself to starting conflict among people with varying opinions. Using the “The Gay Debate” by Matthew Vines as an example, we are able to look at an individual’s interpretation of the Bible regarding the topic of homosexuality and Christianity. When looking at the argument the reader has to break down the strategies used by the speaker to test its validity and then reflect on the possibility for this deductive reasoning to be applied to other arguments.
... of the Christian faith front and center by uniting two camps of believers in one reading; a starting point. As illustrated by the authors, “Though we have not, of course, reached agreement, we are satisfied that we have eliminated misunderstandings, that is, that neither of us has misrepresented the other. We offer the result to the reader as a celebration of shared friendship, faith, and scholarship” (xi).
Buddhist scholarship involves commentary on the sutras. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a practice of acknowledging one’s teacher and monastic lineage so as to provide legitimacy and authenticity to the teachings. In what follows, I shall give my own commentary of the Heart Sutra, and thus I shall acknowledge the lineage through which this information passed down to me. My knowledge of the Heart Sutra comes from the commentary of the Dali Lama (3-52, 63-147) and the rest comes from commentary from Jamyang Gawai Lodro (151-164). Both of these commentaries are in a volume entitled Essence of the Heart Sutra translated by Geshe Thuptn Jipa. This is also where I read the words of the Sutra itself (59-61).
Harris, Stephen. Understanding The Bible. 6 ed. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2002. Print.
Buddhism is one of the worlds major religions with 300 million followers around the world. Buddhism has many beliefs, tradition, and practices based on teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. It is a religion that doesn't involve in having a belief in a God or Gods. many people believe Buddhism is a way of life or a philosophy. Buddhists believe that Buddha is not God and he didn't say he was God, but he was a man that taught people the path to enlightenment that he learned from his own experience. Many believe that Buddhists worship statues of the Buddha, but by bowing to the Buddha statue they are paying their respect and expressing their gratitude for his teachings. There are also different types of Buddhism because it changes from country to country do to different cultures and customs. Buddhism is believed to originate in northern India in 563 BC. It is also believed that the traditions of Buddhism was taught by Siddhartha Gautama also called the Buddha meaning the enlightened one or awakened. Siddhartha Gautama was born to a rich family in Lumbini India. When Siddhartha Gautama reac...
Throughout the early years in many East Asian countries, there were many people who were looking for answers to this world’s, and otherworldly, questions. When Gotama became enlightened, and began preaching the practices of Buddhism, it came at such a time when the Han dynasty was collapsing, citizens were tired of Confucianism and looking for a new ideology that they could put there hearts and souls into. Over the years, Buddhism proved to be much more than just a religion; it became a way of life. But over time, the powerful orthodoxy transformed, and many different Buddhist sects emerged. One of the more popular sects, Ch’an, or Zen, Buddhism, has become one of the most influential religions in China and Japan, and is still flourishing today.
The study of Buddhism over the past century or so has resembled the encounter of the blind men and the elephant in many ways. Students of Buddhism have tended to fasten onto a small part of the tradition and assume their conclusions held true about the whole. Often the parts they have seized on have been a little like the elephant's tusks a striking, but unrepresentative, part of the whole animal. As a result, many erroneous and sweeping generalizations about Buddhism have been made, such as that it is 'negative', 'world-denying', 'pessimistic', and so forth.
Buddhism and Christianity are different religions. Both have numerous similarities as well as differences that one might find really interesting to look at in details. These two religions have certain beliefs, values and traditions which are really compatible. On the other hand, some of these values, beliefs and traditional practices are quite contradicting and conflicting. This makes the study of these two religions an inevitable and pleasurable task. Theology historians have raised adequate concerns and issues relating to connections between Buddhism and Christianity. They claim that there is strong comparability between the characters of Jesus and Buddha, especially their lives and teachings.
It was utilized for showing changes over the fundamentals of religion and for reflecting the magnificence of faith and morality around the world. As a powerful instrument for evangelist (missionary) purposes, it ought to be as precise and accurate as possible. To do this, translators must comprehend the source text ST and translate it, precisely, and accurately into the target text TT, without adding, omitting or ignoring any part of the ST. Dickins, Hervey, and Higgins (2002:178) argue that the topic of religious writings implies the existence of spiritual world that is not fictive, but rather has its own external substances and truths. The creator is seen not to be allowed to make the world that animates the topic, yet to be only instrumental in investigating