The book “The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion”, written by Mircea Eliade, investigates four aspects of the sacred universe: space, time, nature, and self. Eliade splits each aspect into two forms of perception, the sacred and profane. Religious men, specifically the ancient, traditional men, view the universe as sacred. In other words, they acknowledge a distinct qualitative difference between a sacred and profane (non-sacred) universe; whereas, nonreligious, specifically modern men, are unable to understand such differences in the world. This claim rests on the on the concept of heirophanies or manifestations of the sacred. A hierophany is the religious man’s source of absolute reality and it illuminates the glory and power of God. This manifestation of divine glory charges a site with special significance, thereby losing a sense of homogeneity throughout the universe. Eliade’s underlying thesis is that due to the human experience of both the sacred and profane in day to day life, the transitional zones between the two are exceptionally illuminated and charged with the divine glory of the sacred.
The aspect of ordered space versus uniform space is the first comparison drawn between the Sacred and Profane experience of life. Space has a sense of order for religious men because holy places gave the universe a fixed center and sacred territories were distinctly separated from the profane territories. Furthermore, the foundation on which religious men built their entire reality were heirophanies. This is because of their desire to connect to the transcendent being. Heirophanies revealed the glory of god’s power and each action that a religious man carried out in life was symbolically surmounted on this base, thereby ...
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..., the contrast of light byzantine mosaic tiles against a background of dark mosaic tiles mimics the appearance of stars in a vast galaxy.
Therefore its threshold represents the dichotomy to the interior is such a shocking transition to the spirit. This supports the conjecture that the most powerful connection to the sacred reality is present in the rites of passage going from the profane to sacred worlds. The sacred view of water represents formlessness. The material used as the flooring of the Hagia Sophia is striated with wave like curves that look similar to ripples in water. Because it symbolizes formlessness the floor of the temple is representative of the chaos of the profane world and the large distance between the floor and dome further emphasizes the distance that separates the world form the glory of God. tmedia of the enormous hemispheric Dome of the
“Religion Gives Meaning to Life” outlines how life is given meaning through theistic religion in Louis Pojman’s opinion. In this short reading, autonomy is described as in the meaning of freedom or self-governing and argues how it is necessary for ideal existence. By being honest and faithful with ourselves shows how we can increase our autonomy. “I think most of us would be willing to give up a few autonotoms for an enormous increase in happiness” (553) shows our willingness to practice good purpose.
Christianity, Judaism, Islam. These are only a few of the many religions in this world. How does one choose which religion to follow? Is it their background, nationality, belief, or because that’s the only thing they have always known or come in contact with? The concept of religion is a complex one, a concept to be investigated and questioned. This is the journey that Antonio Marex Luna explores in Rudolfo Anaya’s (1972) Chicano novel Bless Me, Ultima.
Roman and Greek mythology are filled with multiple interpretations of how the creator, be it the gods or nature, contributed to the birth of the world. These stories draw the backgrounds of the gods and goddesses that govern much of classical mythology. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Hesiod’s Theogony are two pieces of work that account for how our universe came to be. A comparison of Theogony with Metamorphoses reveals that Hesiod’s creation story portrays the deities as omnipresent, powerful role whose actions triggered the beginning of the universe whereas in Metamorphoses, the deities do not play a significant role; rather the humans are center of the creation. The similarities and differences are evident in the construction of the universe, ages of man, and the creation of men and women on earth.
1.) Intro: I decided to focus my Religious Ethnography on a friend whom I recently have become close with. Adhita Sahai is my friend’s name, which she later told me her first name meant “scholar.” I choose to observe and interview Adhita, after she invited me to her home after hearing about my assignment. I was very humbled that she was open to this, because not only was it a great opportunity for this paper, but it also helped me get to know Adhita better. I took a rather general approach to the religious questions that I proposed to the Sahai family because I didn’t want to push to deep, I could tell Hinduism is extremely important to this family. Because this family does not attend a religious site where they worship, I instead listened to how they do this at home as a family instead.
Author Akinfenwa Oluwaseun also has evidence in his article “The Role of Religion in Society…” that would effectively support claims and ideas made by Salman Rushdie in “Imagine There’s No Heaven.” In his article, Rushdie was questioning the causality of some gruesome things allowed through religious practices. He proposed, “…many unbearable things-female circumcision to name just one-can be excused on culturally specific grounds, and the universality of human rights, too, can be ignored?” (Rushdie 518). This was a very strong sentence in Rushdie’s work. He takes up a sarcastic tone in this sentence, by asking if human rights can also be ignored, and it would be just fine. Obviously, Rushdie believes ignoring basic human rights is not fine,
The main idea in the first chapter “The Great Questions” is that how important of religious, and the author use two sample experiences, which ordinary and extraordinary human experiences are. Portier pointed out four main aspects for extraordinary experiences, those are Birth, Death, Love, and Evil. Because of these four parts, the god creates human being and religious becomes meaning to us. In this chapter, we can learn that religious have power, and they will develop sustainably in the future. Portier still concerned that human life is a mystery. And Portier proposed a context called tradition, and he said that “I want to use it to refer to the sea of historical connections in which individuals swim.” (Portier, William L. Tradition and Incarnation: Foundations of Christian Theology. New York: Paulist Press, 1994. P19). Religious are one of meaningful parts in our life, and they will become an important position in the different culture.
architecture. The Byzantines perceived art as an active agent. Earthly materials such as water, light, and gold give rise to new forms of vision and understanding of one’s place in relationship to figural imageries in Byzantine art and the metaphoric representation of the universe. Ruth Webb’s essay “The Aesthetics of Sacred Space: Narrative, Metaphor, and Motion in ‘Ekphraseis’ of Church Buildings” argues that “the intensity of aesthetic experience inside the church is such that normal modes of perception and normal distinctions between subject and object are said to be disrupted.” The Byzantines seemed to favor the construction of lived experiences over the works that conformed to a passive relationship between the spectator and object of
I begin by describing the Hickean account of religious pluralism. Essentially Hick aims to explain religious plurality through the shared salvific experiences and values of the Real. I then give Hick’s conception of what the Real is and how it relates to major religions. Hickean religious pluralism faces what I consider to be fatal criticisms with regards to the nature of the Real, the result is that either the Real is contradictory or fails in its explanatory value. I, therefore, conclude that Hickean religious pluralism is not a plausible philosophical position.
Smart, Ninian. "Blackboard, Religion 100." 6 March 2014. Seven Dimensions of Religion. Electronic Document. 6 March 2014.
Byzantine mosaics developed depicted subjects with shimmering skin and shinning halos which brought up an effect of an accomplished gold leaf and smalti. The Roman mosaics featured domestic scenes, animal sacrifices and geometric patterns which led to the creation or display of Christian imagery in terms of depicting Christ.
For millennia, human beings have pondered the existence of supreme beings. The origin of this all-too-human yearning for such divine entities stems in part from our desire to grasp the truth of the cosmos we inhabit. One part of this universe physically surrounds us and, at the end of our lives, consumes us entirely, and so we return from whence we came. Yet there is another, arguably more eternal, part of the cosmos that, in some ways, is separable from the transient, material world we so easily perceive, but that, in other ways, is inextricably linked to it by unexplored, divinable forces. The argument of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is not that this worldview is provable or disprovable; the mere fact we are able to reason about abstract objects without having to perceive them is evidence enough of this order.
...ity beyond this world which manifests itself in our midst and makes itself known and brings about a change in our reality.” In other words, his study of religion is the examination of the different forms and places in which the sacred is manifested.
Religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and worships which includes a code of ethics and a philosophy of life. Well over 90% of the world 's population adheres to some form of religion. The problem is that there are so many different religions. What is the right religion? What is true religion? The two most common ingredients in religions are rules and rituals. Some religions are essentially nothing more than a list of rules, dos and don 'ts, which a person must observe in order to be considered a faithful adherent of that religion, and thereby, right with the God of that religion. Two examples of rules-based religions are Islam and Judaism. Islam has its five pillars that must be observed.
many brutal wars, such as the Crusades, yet also founded many hospitals and charities, proving it difficult to categorize religion as a positive or negative influence. Author Chinua Achebe acknowledges this debate in his novel Things Fall Apart. This novel takes place in Nigeria during the late 19th century and shows the Ibo tribe’s transformation after Christian missionaries arrive. Achebe suggests that Christianity can guide a society by including outcasts but can also destroy a society by breaking family values and establishing schools.
Religious explanation is much different than scientific and philosophical explanation and when misunderstood can have a great conflict. Religious explanation does not originate from observation or logical deduction, but from belief of there being knowledge we don’t know of a higher being(s) who make and sometimes control us humans and the universe which we live. Religious explanation is where some of the first philosophical claims originat...