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Essay on the roles of religions in political situations
the role of religion in politics
the role of religion in politics
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Integrating Democracy with Tibetan Buddhism
The combination of a religion and a political philosophy do not automatically allow for the most congruous applications. Tibetan Buddhism has been the main stay of a country that has been ruled by a monarchy, through a religious figurehead, and by a socialist republic, all of which seem to have their political frustrations in preserving the Tibetan society. The political spectrum now questions how well the Buddhist tradition integrates the values of democratic theory.
The previous applications of Buddhism in a role of government are necessary to analyze in order to properly investigate the application of the Buddhist tradition into a political framework. The structure of the Tibetan government before the invasion of the Chinese in 1950 was a mixture of the monastic influence and the nobles. The authority of the Dalai Lama reigned over the monasteries and religious order as well as over the administrative obligations of the Country. The search for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama ensures not only leadership of the country from the Buddha of Compassion but also implies that the reign of government is not hereditary, but based on wisdom and guidance for the people and much less on political situations, although these would still much be a factor in ruling. The hierarchical establishment of this division remained partially mixed so that the monks in office balanced the nobles and the monks were checked by the nobles, however the monastic influence remained the dominant of the two. The legacy of the aristocracy was more an element of the older reign of Tibet from a monarchy and class distinction and the religious influence was more dominant with the newer establishment and really established until the fourteenth century with the teacher Tsong Khapa. This checks and balances involved in the government may only be the confluence of an older tradition mixing in with the new in order to maintain a smooth transition, but it may also exhibit the balance necessary to a government lead by Buddhist thought. Buddhism is not merely a doctrine that is automatically to be accepted and instilled as the truth, rather it has to be taught and allow the people to come to it.
There are many criminological theories that attempt to explain criminal behavior or crime patterns. For instance, Agnew’s General Strain Theory can be applied to explain why the criminal John Dillinger committed various crimes. Agnew’s General Strain Theory assumes that all individuals experience strain, which, in turn, causes negative emotions that can result in legitimate or illegitimate coping, depending on an individual’s constraints or dispositions. Thus, the continuous criminal behavior throughout John Dillinger’s life can be explained using Agnew’s General Strain Theory in relation to strain, negative emotions, and dispositions.
There is no simple answer to this question, especially with the convoluted and entwining relationship between Buddhism and Wu, so we focus on how the religion assisted Wu in grasping power and its indispensable role in the Chinese economy. The close connection between government and religion is not a new concept to the Tang era as it has been well-established prior to its time, and it even survived long after. In the case of Buddhism and Empress Wu, the religion played a pivotal role in justifying her rule, which could explain her special interest in it. Among the Buddhists followers, she was identified as the bodhisattva Maitreya, which helped her gain a sense of legitimacy to her reign, especially in a male-dominant society (Smarr Feb. 17 2012). The association of Buddhism with Wu helped spur Wu’s benevolent policies towards the religion, who benefitted handsome...
Agnew, R. (2011). Pressured into crime: General strain theory. In F. Cullen & R. Agnew (Eds.),
...riminal activity. This is because individuals become enthralled with their status in the community and want to achieve it anyway possible. This type of social structure "produces a strain toward anomie and deviant behavior. The pressure of such a social order is upon outdoing one's competitors (Thio, 2006)." Anomie strain theory is a good but difficult theory to implement. It offers "a way of constraining crime by improving the legitimate life chances of those who may otherwise make the choice to innovate defiantly (McLaughlin, 2001)."
There are countless religions in our world today; Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and more. These religions are all so different, yet bear the same mindset behind them: to be a better person. People strive to come to peace with themselves and others by practicing and worshiping certain deities. While the overall mentality of these religions are equivocal, the details become astoundingly diverse. For example, Buddhism’s core belief system goes off the approach of knowing suffering will happen in the world and coming to peace with it through meditation. Only then can the power of enlightenment bring worshipers to eternal peace. Unfortunately, in Burma during the 1920s suffering was anything but depleted. In this Buddhist based country, an imperialist force had taken over: Britain. However, in the midst of pandemonium, one man broke away from the imperialist outlook and saw the world for how it truly was. This is why George Orwell’s literary perspective was substantially influenced by the conditions he witnessed during his services in the Indian Imperial Police Force.
“We take care of animals, and the animals take care of us.” (Rollin 212). The preceding phrase is a policy that American farmers in the old west lived their lives by. Modern farmers live do not live their lives anywhere near to this phrase because they own factory farms, and the whole reason for having a factory farm is to fit as many animals in a small space as possible in order to maximize profit. Factory Farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) first appeared in the 1920s, right after Vitamins A and D, because if animals are given these vitamins in their diets, exercise and sunlight are not necessities for the animals to grow anymore (In Defense of Animals 1). The growing number of factory farms is coupled with the decreasing population of rural areas, which means that many people are beginning to factory farm because it yields a higher profit (“Agricultural Sciences” 170). In the 1950s, the average number of chickens on a given egg farm in the United States was 100, but now the average number is a shocking 10,000 chickens (“Factory Farms” 4). The reason for the increase of chickens has to do with new and cheaper technology developed just after World War II. The new technology increased the number of chickens, while it had the opposite effect on dairy and meat cows, their numbers went in the other direction. The number of cows used for milk was cut by more than half between 1950 and 2000, because farmers discovered new and more efficient methods for milking cows (Weeks 4). Many activists for animals’ rights are concerned about the methods used by factory farmers because they confine their animals into tight spaces and since there are so many of them in a small ...
Agnew’s general strain theory describes how strains are more likely to lead to deviance when the strain is associated with a low amount of social control. Sutherland and Akers take a slightly different interpretation of this. They recognize that social factors, such as race and social class, do have an influence on criminal behavior because of their effect on an individual’s likelihood of associating with others who present definitions of crime similar to their own. However, these theologians refer to the concept of social control in a different way that
Robert Agnew proposes another aspect of strain known as General Strain Theory. This theory suggest that other sources of strain exist besides financial stressors. Strain may also result from other aspects of life such as loss of a significant other or other traumatic or life altering events. It’s these events that trigger reactions in some individuals who may have displayed a history of pro-social behavior to consider criminal activity as an outlet from the pressures of these external
Confucianism and democracy are two very complex concepts and the relation between them is a subject many scholars have discussed. In this essay, it will be shown what kind of relationship is more appropriate between these two ideas. It will be divided in two parts: the first part will take a look at the compatibility question of Confucianism and democracy and I will attempt to show how these two ideas are not contradictory and how Confucianism actually helps strengthen the concept of democracy. In the second part, I will discuss how such a relationship can work in practice by addressing the different institutional proposals of a democracy with Confucian characteristics to try and figure out which proposal is the most appropriate and why.
Predominantly, strain theory can be used to explain the criminal behavior of the Homicide in Hollenbeck documentary. In the course on juveni...
Rinpoche, Samdhong. Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism in Today’s World; forward by 14th Dalai Lama. (Tibet: World Wisdom, 2006), 264.
Theoretical Background During the past decades, various criminologists developed different theories in an attempt to explain the causes of crime within the society. In return, they were successful, as of today it was adopted or accepted, indeed all of theories explain the root causes of crime. One of these theories is anomie or strain theory which originally argues that the lower class frustration to higher class causes crime (Merton, 1938) in an attempt to explain why the majority of the people who commits crime are lower class. In 1985 Robert Agnew a sociologist come to an interest of studying the theory and finds a potential for the theory in explaining several causes of crime in society, but due to its limitation he developed and reformulated
"Preface to 'Is Factory Farming an Ethical Way to Treat Animals?'." Factory Farming. Debra A.
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
Strain theory is the inability to achieve one’s goals because of the loss of positive stimuli, or the presentation of negative stimuli. Strain theory may play a pivotal role in some of my peer 's lives due to their inability to achieve their goals. In class we talk about how strain theory cause great deal of crimes through means of certain strains or stressors, which increasing the likelihood of crime. Examples of Stressors and strains is not having positive role model this may influence crimes to happen. Other issue of strains that may play a role in crime is the inability of gaining monetary success. Monetary success usually cause problems that arise due to the lack of income or lack of quality education that would drives individuals to commit crime. My perspective to general strain theory is that a lot pressure was put on me to succeed in life, and that played a factor in my of my own strain to succeed, we didn’t have a lot income in the house, but my parents did provide everything in order for me to succeed. People such as Robert Merton believed that when societal norms only accepted goals, such as the 'American Dream, ' which then place pressure on the individual to conform, they force the individual to either work within the society has produced, or instead becomes a members of a deviant subculture in an attempt to achieve those