Elements of Religious Traditions Essay Example for Free

Elements of Religious Traditions Essay The term religion can bring up mixed emotions in people. Many people have different religious views and their traditions usually follow that religion. Religion is very vast and there are many different forms, views, traditions, and beliefs within each religion. Certain religions are monotheism, some are polytheism, and others are pantheism. Each religion encourages relationships with the divine, sacred time, sacred space or the natural world, and relationships with others. Relationships with the divine According to Molloy (2010), â€Å"All religions are concerned with the deepest level of reality, and for most religions the core or origin of everything is sacred and mysterious† (p 7). Each religion often calls the sacred by name such as Divine Parent, Great Spirit, the Divine, and the Holy to name a few (Molloy, 2010). Monotheism is a term that means belief in one God (Molloy, 2010). Polytheism is the belief in many Gods or Goddesses; the multiple Gods may be separate or a multiple manifestation of the same sacred reality (Molloy, 2010). Pantheism is the belief that the sacred as being discoverable within the physical world, in other words nature itself is holy (Molloy, 2010). Recently there are people who tend to deny the existence of any God or gods which is described as atheism (Molloy, 2010). Relationship with Sacred Time According to Molloy (2010), â€Å"Our everyday lives go on in ordinary time, which we see as moving forward into the future. Sacred time, however, is the time of eternity†(p 43). Many people have different names for this measurement of time such as the Artic people refer to it as â€Å"distant time†, Australian aboriginals refer to it as â€Å"dream time†(Molloy, 2010). Although there are many different names for sacred time they all refer to the time of eternity and each religion has a different theory on sacred time. Some people believe that sacred time is cyclical and returns to its origins for renewal. Others feel that by recalling and ritually reliving the deeds of the gods and ancestors (Molloy, 2010). Indigenous religions even structure their daily lives to conform to mythical events in sacred time which creates a sense of holiness in their daily lives (Molloy, 2010). Certain religions strongly encourage a relationship with sacred time and others tend to not worry about sacred time. Christianity for instance knows that someday Christ will return to earth however most Christians do not center their lives on waiting for this day. However some Christians live everyday as if it will be the day He returns and strive to be worthy in His eyes when that day does come. Relationship with Sacred Space or the Natural World Just like ordinary time there is also ordinary space. Sacred space refers to the doorway in which the other world of gods and ancestors can contact us and we can contact them (Molloy, 2010). Sacred space is often considered the center of the universe where powers and holiness are strongest; where we can go to renew our own strength (Molloy, 2010). In certain native religions sacred space is a mountain, great volcano, or other striking natural site. In Australian aboriginal religions Uluru (Ayers Rock) is their sacred center (Molloy, 2010). Sacred space can also be constructed into a certain shape, special building, or a boundary. For some religions, sacred space is often in the form of a church where people go to worship, pray, and learn about God; some churches are even built extremely tall to be â€Å"closer† to God. Critical Issues What should we study in order to properly understand religions? What attitude should we have when we study the religions of others? How can researchers be objective? These are just some of the complex questions that researchers should ask before attempting to study religions. Some of the issues in the first century included inability to travel, incomplete scriptures, or the translation they depended on were not accurate (Molloy, 2010). One of the main critical issues when studying religion is forming a prior opinion that can create a bias on the research. If a Buddhist is studying Christianity his opinion could be bias because of his own personal opinions on religion or a preference of his own beliefs versus the other. Conclusion Religion is sometimes defined as to join again. According to the common dictionary the word religion is defined as â€Å"a system of belief that involves worship of a God or gods, prayer, ritual, and a moral code† (Molloy, 2010 p 5). Within each religion there are specific beliefs, traditions, and values. Many religions encourage the relationships with the divine, sacred time, sacred space or the natural world. It is also crucial to identify critical key issues when studying religions. Whether someone worships one God, many gods, goddesses, or denies any existence of God or gods it is important to look inside each religion with an open mind. References Molloy, M. (2010). Experiencing the world’s religions: Tradition, challenge, and change (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Perception: Seeing is Believing - UFOs :: essays research papers

Perception: Seeing is Believing - UFOs Since the times when the earth was believed to be a flat object, man has had a lust and curiosity about space and the bodies that exist in it. Early astronomers trying to grasp the incomprehensible mysteries of the universe would study the patterns of the stars and planets to try to put this massive puzzle together. In their studies history has recorded sightings of objects that didn't hold to any pattern or set movement supposedly proved to be correct. Objects that moved freely in the sky in any way, shape or form they pleased. Having no further explanation for these dilemmas of space, they were dubbed "UFO's". The acronym UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. Modern electronics and science have helped us in the search for an explanation of these mysterious floating objects. In actuality they haven't gotten us much further on the mission for proof of other living beings in the universe. But in a universe so incomprehensibly large that we no not even a boundary, I sincerely doubt that the human race is the only form of life. It seems certain scientists have come up with other hypotheses concerning UFO's. While all astronomers yearn for a concrete explanation on UFO's, their beliefs on their origin contrast. Many looking for a more scientific definition disregard UFO's as nothing more than a mere misinterpretation of a plane, weather balloon, or meteor. Some have gone so far as to say that specific witnesses to UFO's have seen nothing more than a hallucination and "wanted" to see a UFO so their minds adapted that idea into an illusion to satisfy the urge. Personally, I have had two encounters with unexplainable objects in the sky and to disregard them as a misinterpretation or hallucination is an impossibility. Witnesses who were with me on one of the occasions saw exactly what I did and we concluded it impossible to be anything but unexplainable. Numerous other people out there have also had personal experiences with UFO's and have proof of what they saw. Some people lucky enough have had cameras and home video recorders with them at the time of the encounter caught them on tape. Further analysis of the tapes and photos have proved them to be real, strengthening the believers point of view on alien existence. The strongest piece of evidence on alien existence is the efforts the government makes to cover up the proof on UFO's. The most famous example of this is a building compound found out in the deserts of Nevada called Area 51. Employees of this top secret alien research compound have talked out on the Perception: Seeing is Believing - UFOs :: essays research papers Perception: Seeing is Believing - UFOs Since the times when the earth was believed to be a flat object, man has had a lust and curiosity about space and the bodies that exist in it. Early astronomers trying to grasp the incomprehensible mysteries of the universe would study the patterns of the stars and planets to try to put this massive puzzle together. In their studies history has recorded sightings of objects that didn't hold to any pattern or set movement supposedly proved to be correct. Objects that moved freely in the sky in any way, shape or form they pleased. Having no further explanation for these dilemmas of space, they were dubbed "UFO's". The acronym UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. Modern electronics and science have helped us in the search for an explanation of these mysterious floating objects. In actuality they haven't gotten us much further on the mission for proof of other living beings in the universe. But in a universe so incomprehensibly large that we no not even a boundary, I sincerely doubt that the human race is the only form of life. It seems certain scientists have come up with other hypotheses concerning UFO's. While all astronomers yearn for a concrete explanation on UFO's, their beliefs on their origin contrast. Many looking for a more scientific definition disregard UFO's as nothing more than a mere misinterpretation of a plane, weather balloon, or meteor. Some have gone so far as to say that specific witnesses to UFO's have seen nothing more than a hallucination and "wanted" to see a UFO so their minds adapted that idea into an illusion to satisfy the urge. Personally, I have had two encounters with unexplainable objects in the sky and to disregard them as a misinterpretation or hallucination is an impossibility. Witnesses who were with me on one of the occasions saw exactly what I did and we concluded it impossible to be anything but unexplainable. Numerous other people out there have also had personal experiences with UFO's and have proof of what they saw. Some people lucky enough have had cameras and home video recorders with them at the time of the encounter caught them on tape. Further analysis of the tapes and photos have proved them to be real, strengthening the believers point of view on alien existence. The strongest piece of evidence on alien existence is the efforts the government makes to cover up the proof on UFO's. The most famous example of this is a building compound found out in the deserts of Nevada called Area 51. Employees of this top secret alien research compound have talked out on the

Knowledge and Heritage Essay

Abstract Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† and Amy Tan’s â€Å"A Pair of Tickets† investigate the relationships between mothers and daughters. Both writers show a struggle, by the children, to understand the true meaning of heritage. Each story has a specific type of mother-daughter relationship. Mother and Daughter Conflict: The Struggle to Understand Heritage in First-generation Americans A key factor in Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use,† and Amy Tan’s â€Å"A Pair of Tickets,† is heritage. Throughout both stories the use of heritage can be seen easily. Walker shows Dee misunderstands her heritage while Tan shows Jing-Mei comes to an understanding. Understanding both sides of the two stories gives readers a chance to explore their own heritage and reflect on how they accept their past. By contrasting the family characters in â€Å"Everyday Use,† Walker illustrates Dee’s misunderstanding of her heritage by placing the significance of heritage solely on material objects. Walker presents Mama and Maggie, the younger daughter, as an example that heritage in both knowledge and form passing from one generation to another through a learning experience connection. Dee, the older daughter, represents a misconception of heritage as a material thing. Dee portrays a rags to riches daughter who does not understand what heritage is all about. Her definition of heritage hangs on a wall to show off, not to be used. Dee’s avoidance of heritage becomes clear when she is talking to Mama about changing her name, she says, â€Å"I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me† (Walker 746). Dee just takes another name without even understanding the true meaning behind it. She tries to explain to Mama that her name now has meaning, quality, and heritage; never realizing that the new name means nothing. Dee fails to realize that her name goes back multiple generations. Dee digs around the house for objects she can display in her own home as examples of African-American folk art. Her argument with Mama about taking quilts that were hand stitched as opposed to sewn by machine gives readers a chance to see Dee’s outlook of heritage is short lived. Dee says to Mama, â€Å"But they’re priceless. . . Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that! † (Walker 748). Mama will not allow her daughter to take the quilts because she has been saving them for Dee’s sister, Maggie, and she wants the quilts to be put into everyday use. By helping and living with Mama, Maggie uses the hand-made items in her life, experiences the life of her ancestors, and learns the history of both, exemplified by Maggie’s knowledge of the hand-made items and the people who made them—a knowledge in which Dee does not possess. Dee attempts to connect with her heritage by taking â€Å"picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house. . . She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included† (Walker 746). Therefore showing Dee’s quest for heritage is external, wishing to have these various items in order to display them in her home. She allowed Dee to run over her enough, and now she would not allow her foolish behavior to carry on, because heritage needs to be put to everyday use and not just be hung up on a wall for people to see. Dee views her heritage as an artifact which she can possess and appreciate from a distance instead of as a process in which she is always intimately involved. She knows the items are hand-made, but she does not know the knowledge and history behind the items. Yet, Mama does know the knowledge and history and she also knows that Maggie does too. Ironically, Dee criticizes Mama for not understanding heritage when, in fact, Dee fails to understand heritage herself. Throughout the story, the true meaning of heritage is understood by two characters and avoided by one character. Dee mistakenly places heritage wholly in what she owns, not what she knows. In Amy Tan’s â€Å"A Pair of Tickets† the theme of Chinese-American life, focuses mainly on mother-daughter relationships, where the mother is an immigrant from China and the daughter is thoroughly Americanized. Tan begins her story by describing a feeling that Jing-mei, the narrator, speaks of. She says, â€Å"The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese† (Tan 120). Tan tells a story within itself giving readers a chance to get to know the character right off the bat and also allowing an understanding of heritage to be brought out. Jing-mei has come to China to trace her Chinese roots which her mother told her she possessed, and to meet her two twin half-sisters whom her mother had to abandon on her attempt to flee from the Japanese. Readers can see that Jing-mei has waited her whole life to connect with her heritage when she says, â€Å". . . I saw myself transforming like a werewolf, a mutant tag of DNA suddenly triggered, replicating into a syndrome, a cluster of telltale Chinese behaviors, all those things my mother did to embarrass me. . . . But today I realize I’ve never really known what it means to be Chinese. I am thirty-six years old. My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China† (Tan 120). Although Jing-mei was not born in China like her mother, she now has a grasp on her life and on her mothers. By having the story take place on a train in China, helps the tracing of heritage become real for readers. Strong feelings of happiness and sorrow are felt when Jing-mei traces her Chinese roots and becomes in touch with her heritage and her past; allowing readers to place themselves in the same situation and experience the feelings are being portrayed by the characters. Learning about family heritage is something people do not always understand, like Jing-mei, people do not always want to believe their past and heritage. When coming to an understanding of their past, people can lay to rest their urging thoughts and can come closer in contact with their present life. Now that Jing-mei has met her sisters, she can now make peace in her life knowing that she has fulfilled her dreams and the dreams of her mother. Amy Tan reveals Jing-mei’s epiphany well by writing, â€Å"I look at their faces again and I see no trace of my mother in them. Yet they still look familiar. And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go† (Tan 134). Jing-mei finally realizes that she is Chinese and that her mother was right. Jing-mei also says, â€Å"Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long cherished wish† (Tan 134), thus adding on to her realization of her heritage and past. Jing-mei can now lay to rest the thought of her mother never seeing her twin daughters again and continue on with her existing life, but now with a different perspective, a Chinese perspective. Throughout both of the stories, heritage becomes a major factor. The characters coming to an understanding of heritage helps readers to become more fascinated with the stories. Bringing out the points in Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† and Tan’s â€Å"A Pair of Tickets† gives readers a chance to see the heritage â€Å"shining through†. References Tan, A. (1999) A Pair of Tickets. In E. Kennedy and D. Gioia (7th Ed. ). Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. (p. 120-134) New York City, NY: Longman. Walker, A. (2008). Everyday Use. In R. DiYanni (6th Ed. ). Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. (p. 743-749). United States of America: McGraw Hill.

The Double Life in The Importance of Being Earnest by...

The Double Life in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest appears to be a conventional 19th century farce. False identities, prohibited engagements, domineering mothers, lost children are typical of almost every farce. However, this is only on the surface in Wildes play. His parody works at two levels- on the one hand he ridicules the manners of the high society and on the other he satirises the human condition in general. The characters in The Importance of Being Earnest assume false identities in order to achieve their goals but do not interfere with the others lives. The double life led by Algernon, Jack, and Cecily (through her diary) is simply another means by which they liberate†¦show more content†¦In Wildes opinion Victorians who want to retain the respect of the conventional society lead double life- one respectable and one frivolous. He creates a world in which the laws of the society have no power and the double life can be revealed. Bunburyism is a way of life which offers relief from the restrictive social norms. Wildes characters live in a world in which order is constantly vanishing and they scorn stability and simplicity. The truth, as Algy says, is rarely pure and never simple.(13) Algy and Jack fulfil their wishes by the means of lying. They are impostors who use false identities in order to free themselves from the hypocrisy of the convention. Their tricks simply serve them as a way to achieve their moral freedom. The relationship between Jack and Gwendolen undergoes a parody. Gwendolen laughs when Jack asks how she might feel if his name is not Earnest. Ah, that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, she says, and like all metaphysical speculation, has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.(18) This remark of Gwendolen exactly fits the general theme of the play, but in fact the joke is directed to her. Yet at the end of the play, Gwendolens conviction that she will marry an Earnest and her faith in the name are justified- we understand that Jacks true name is Earnest. The effectShow MoreRelated The Importance of Being Earnest Essay1376 Words   |  6 PagesOscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is a timeless comedy of manners in which two young, light-hearted men, pretend their names are ‘Ernest’ in a bid to impress their love interests, who both believe the name Ernest bestows magical qualities on the possessor. Throughout the play, Wilde uses a mix of social drama, melodrama and farce to appeal to the audience. 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