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The effect of religion on culture
Religion and beliefs and their effects
Religion and beliefs and their effects
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Section 1: B. What is the relationship between religion and power? Describe five distinct ways that religions exercise power in culture. We live in what has been described as a ‘secular age’. What are at least three of the changes that this ‘secular age’ has made on how religions express power and/or expect to express power? Describe three distinct criteria by which we can evaluate a contemporary religion’s exercises or expressions of power. Power and religion takes many forms of interpretation and understanding, a consistent meaning is needed to understand the discussion between the relationship of religion and power under a conventional scrutiny. In this essay, power is “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others …show more content…
Everyone has his or her own worldview, a different ideas on how one lives and interprets the world, influenced by a set of beliefs that makes sense to oneself. Worldviews are affected by many factors such as; values, religion, science, culture, life experiences, social status, characteristics, acquired knowledge etc. According to Clifford Geertz, “worldview is a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbolic forms by means of which men [sic] communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life.” (Emmanuel, slide 7) It is also a cluster of beliefs, which one holds most significant in life, whether about God, humanity, the cosmos, or …show more content…
These are the concepts where individuals or groups of people make up their worldview. Understanding of worldview can analyze the differences between people. Through symbols, rituals and myths shared by individual or group of people, we can learn and understand their beliefs. Symbols are popular in religion and how they emphasize doctrine. For example, Christianity uses a cross to symbolize their belief in Jesus Christ as their God. Symbols can also represent a nation, structure, tribe, and culture; it conveys a particular meaning that impacts how the world is interpreted. Different ‘totems’, an animal symbol are used to represent a culture. Also, specific religions and cultures have distinct rituals that express their belief. It is a cherished ceremony, repeated in the same way, it can be habitual, and everyone with the shared belief does it, and implies a particular teaching or behavior. An example of a ritual would be a baptism associated with Catholics and Christianity, and Ramadan—a fasting for a period of time associated with Islam teachings. Symbols and rituals are influential because of its association with a specific belief, religion or culture. For this reason, symbols and rituals are successful in conveying a notion particularly about
Religion is a part of society that is so closely bound to the rest of one’s life it becomes hard to distinguish what part of religion is actually being portrayed through themselves, or what is being portrayed through their culture and the rest of their society. In Holy Terrors, Bruce Lincoln states that religion is used as a justifiable mean of supporting violence and war throughout time (Lincoln 2). This becomes truly visible in times such as the practice of Jihad, the Reformation, and 9/11. The purpose of this essay is to show that as long as religion is bound to a political and cultural aspect of a community, religious war and destruction will always occur throughout the world. A historical methodology will be deployed in order to gain
Phillips, A. (2009). “Religion: Ally, Threat or Just Religion?” A Debate on the Public Role of Religion and its Social and Gender Implications, Gender Development Programme Paper Number 5, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, pp 35-58. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/30954/ [Accessed 28 May. 2014].
Although scholars of new religious movements would agree that religious groups often have substantial influence over their followers, they would also argue that the “influence exerted in "cults" is not very different from influence that is present in practically every arena of life,” (19 Oct 1999). Mainstream religions also exercise influence over their members concerning matters such as lifestyle choices, familial relations and monetary donations. Furthermore, most social scientists concede that some degree of influence is inevitable in each culture and facet of life even outside the arena of religious choice.
A person’s religion has a large affect on how they live their day-to-day lives. It can influence the choices they make. Someone’s opinion on the government and the running of a country can also affect what they can and cannot do about religious issues. When religious freedom is taken away or silenced, people will either back down or speak up. A totalitarian government controls over everything society does, from public to private things. In a totalitarian government, religion can be put aside on certain issues.
Worldview is how you view certain views from a certain perspective, such as a Christian worldview would be how you view certain views from a Christian perspective. Everything in life is affected by worldview and everyone has one. As Christians, our worldview is using the Bible for our starting on our views. An example of a worldview is, according to the article “What is a Christian Worldview?”, “Christianity as taught in the Bible is itself a worldview.” 77 words.
What is a worldview? A worldview is an idea or thought that manifest in our brain but is originated from how we perceive and feel towards events that happen during our life. The opinions we express outwardly in action disseminates to others with whom we surround ourselves with, and vise versa. Collectively we take in worldviews and judge them to our own view, and settle on a conscious agreement to what we hold to be truth.
Ordinary religion shows people how to live well within boundaries, and concern themselves with living well in this current world, not in another. Ordinary religion promotes cultures, traditions, values, and common social acts. In contrast, extraordinary religion helps people to transcend beyond their ordinary culture and concerns, crosses the borders of life as we used to know it and seeks to new better place. It is also believed that people have chance to contact God through spiritual ceremonies and get helped by supernatural power. For instance, ceremonies and rituals of baptism and circumcision for infants, and conformations for adolescents, marriage, and funerals for the dead. Through these spiritual ceremonies, people are crossing the physical boundaries and reaching something supernatural that they believe will give them power to encounter challenges and difficulties during stages of life. There are three elements in religious belief developing most religions in America, which are fundamental, ritual, and tradition. The first element is the fundamental structures which are defined with a myth, philosophy, or theology and limited by the boundaries that create the basic ways in which people, cultures and communities imagine, define, and accept how things are and what they mean. A second essential element of religion is ritual. Rituals are a representative set of
Religion is considered as a pervasive force in this world. It shapes people as to how they behave and interact with almost everything present in the society. Influencing behavior, character formations, ideals, policies, standards are just among the dimensions and societal perspectives affected and impacted by religion. Because of these applications and implications in human lives and existence, religion should be understood deeply, particularly, on how it affects the world. Looking at the American perspective of the term "religion," it could be simply
Wink, Walter, ed. “Identifying Powers.” In An Eerdmans Reader in Contemporary Political Theology. 0 ed, edited by William T. Cavanaugh, Jeffrey W. Bailey, and Craig Hovey, 354-68. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012.
My own definition of worldview is set of beliefs about the most important issues in life and my reaction to it. While in agreement with Jeff Baldwin’s eyeglass concept, I choose to compare my Christian worldview to an internal navigational system. When I am lost and need to be found, Christ is omnipresent. He knows my location and guides me into another direction. “It’s a roadmap, a guide for getting around in life, for interpreting reality, and for making choices” (The Importance of Worldview, 2011, p.11). Hopefully my final destination will be in the “city of gold, as clear as glass” (NLT, Revelation, 21:18).
All people have a worldview that is based on personal beliefs forming their reality and what they feel is meaningful in life. I am a Christian of faith that has a biblical worldview, which is based on the word of God. The Book of Romans 1-8 provides the word of God and answers for how Christians can live a righteous life for our savior Jesus Christ.
My personal worldview explains the way I view and live life through the assumptions and beliefs I hold in response to the world around me. I believe I was created for a specific reason and purpose.
Although we may not all see eye to eye, we all still have our own worldview. The central idea of a worldview is to be the different beliefs that is an understanding of how we see the world around us. It will be understood by how a person feels about different emotions and ideas that are encountered on a daily basis. A worldview is a response of our heart or inner being: our intellect, emotion and will. (Weider, Gutierrez,59) We create our own personal worldview based on things we believe are true and norms to society. A worldview perspective shapes, influences, and generally directs a person's entire life. (Samples 2007)
For thousands of years, religion has exerted a great influence over economic and political life. Even today religion is called upon to support rulers, contacts and other legal procedures.
The role of religion in politics is a topic that has long been argued, and has contributed to the start of wars, schisms (both political and religious), and other forms of inter and intra-state conflict. This topic, as a result of its checkered past, has become quite controversial, with many different viewpoints. One argument, put forth by many people throughout history, is that religion and the government should remain separate to avoid any conflicting interests. This view also typically suggests that there is one, or several, large and organized religions like the Roman Catholic Church, which would be able to use their “divine” authority to sway the politics of a given state by promising or threatening some form of godly approval or disapproval. By leveraging their divine power, individual figures within a religion, as well as the religion as a whole, could gain secular power for themselves, or over others. A second view, which was developed by many theologians through history, suggests that that without religion there would be a general lack of morality in the people and leaders of a given state, which would give way to poor political decisions that would not be in the interest of the people and perhaps even God (or the gods). This argument, however, does not address the fact that morality can exist without religion. In sociology, it is commonly accepted that social norms, which include morality, can result from any number of things. Religion, laws, or the basic desire of survival can all create these norms, so it suffices to say that as a society, our morals reflect our desire to live in relative peace through the creation of laws that serve to help us to survive. The argument of whether or not religion and politics should mix...