8.3 Worship in temples and street shrines Apart from being intensely visible, participation in devotional practice at temples and festivals is extremely widespread within popular Hinduism. If we make allowance for regional and sectarian variations, we can gain some truly representative insights into a central preoccupation of living Hinduism. As in Section 6, I would like you to look
8.2 The diversity of Hinduism The complex tradition now known as Hinduism has emerged largely from the coming together of four main elements: The traditions of the original inhabitants of India, some of which may still continue in the cultures of India's more remote tribal peoples. The influences of the Indus Valley civilisation that flourished in northwest India until approximately the middle of the second millenium bce.
8.1 Hinduism as a ‘religion’ India's population includes followers of many religions and many people who have rejected religion in any form. The modern Republic of India has a secular constitution (one which guarantees the religious freedom of all but does not give a privileged position to any one religion) but a population which overwhelmingly identifies itself as Hindu. More than eighty per cent of India's population are Hindus, practitioners of what is now widely referred to as the religion of Hinduism. Historically,
7.5 Religion: a ‘good’ thing or a ‘bad’ thing? In considering the value of religions, we can begin by saying that one of the first tasks of the critical student should certainly be to test the basis of judgements offered by other commentators. We saw earlier that the Church of Scientology has had problems gaining official recognition as a ‘relig
7.4 Religion: true or false? I noted earlier that differences between the truth claims made by religions has led those who practise Religious Studies to avoid premature judgements when dealing with questions relating to the truth and value of particular religions. By seeming to by-pass truth claims, you may feel that what I have been describing as Religious Studies avoids what many would regard as the purpose of religion – to deal in truths. This is a difficult area to cover briefly, but let me at least try to explain
7.1 Some basic principles of religious studies Remember that in Section 4 I suggested that possible reasons for studying religion could be clustered together under two broad headings: to understand the society in which we live, the culture we inherit and the wider world of which we are a part; as part of a personal quest for religious
6.1 Introduction Whatever else they may be, religions grow in historical and social settings. The present form of a religion has its roots in the past. Religion can exercise a strong influence upon society and the cultural forms of a society, but religion itself is no less affected by changes and pressures within society. Religion gives meaning to a pattern of living and may even be responsible for establishing a certain lifestyle or distinctive social organisation or institution. At the same time, religion o
5.5 Common sense and analysis Faced with the choice between narrow substantive definitions and broad functional definitions, we should require any definition to ‘fit with broad common-sense reflection’ and ‘encompass what ordinary people mean when they talk of religion’ (Bruce, 1995, p. ix). The definition must also assist in the analysis and explanation of what is being studied. For these reasons, Steve Bruce, who is a leading sociologist of religion, opts for the following substantive defini
5.4 A dimensional model of religion Given the problems of devising a succinct definition of religion, some contemporary scholars have produced broader profiles of religion without claiming to identify one distinguishing characteristic. One example of this kind of approach is the seven-dimensional model of religion proposed by Ninian Smart, a specialist in the study of world religions. Smart argues that, if his model is adequate, ‘then we do not need to worry greatly about further definition of religion’ (Smart, 1989, p. 21)
5.3 Scholarly definitions of religion Scholars offer us many different definitions of religion, but these definitions tend to be of two types. The first type is known as a substantive definition: that is, a definition that tells us what kind of thing religion is by pointing to its distinguishing characteristic – usually its beliefs and/or practices. We can find an example of a substantive definition of religion in my summary of the definitions found in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Think again about d. Acc
5.2 The ‘answer’ in your dictionary Please now look at the definition of ‘religion’ given in your dictionary. Do you think that the definition is going to help you when deciding what is or is not religion? Please give 5.1 ‘Religion’ and ‘the religions’: two new notions I want to begin our closer discussion of the question ‘what is religion?’ by looking briefly at the history of the use and meaning of the term. You may be surprised to find how recently the word ‘religion’ has taken on the meanings attached to it today. Contemporary scholars of religion emphasise not merely the cultural breadth but also the antiquity of religious activity. Yet, the term ‘religion’ as we understand it today is very much a Western concept. 4.4 Religion and social policy Understanding religious beliefs and practices and what we mean by ‘religion’ is not merely of academic interest. It is often bound up with social policy and so relates to the rights and privileges of individuals. In Britain, for example, the Church of Scientology has not been allowed to register i 4.2 Reasons for studying religion Identify and jot down reasons that you think might prompt someone to make a study of religion. Here are some reasons in no special or 1 Themes and issues in the history of art This unit introduces you to a number of themes and issues in the history of art, taking as its pretext a visit to the Louvre in Paris. It asks three kinds of question: How did the Grand Louvre (as the modernised Louvre is called) – its buildings, paintings and sculptures – come to be as it is? How should we respond to the claim that the collections in the Louvre constitute a significant part of the canon of Western European art? 5.2 The aftermath of the Holocaust In interwar Europe ethnic Germans had been in an overwhelming majority in the populations of both Germany and Austria. In addition, the two largest minorities spread across the states of interwar Europe, and particularly the states of the centre and east, had been Germans and Jews. The war and the Holocaust produced ‘solutions’ to the questions of both minorities. The Jews of central and eastern Europe who survived were often unwilling to return to their former homes; indeed, many of thos 3.4 The mass production of death Mass shootings by soldiers and Einsatzgruppen and the use of the mobile gas vans took time and energy. There was concern about the effects on the morale of the men involved. Towards the end of 1941, even before the Wannsee Conference, the Nazis had begun building camps in Poland that incorporated large gas chambers for the mass production of death. Belzec was the first to come into operation in February 1942, killing people with carbon monoxide first released from bottles and subsequen 2.1 Anti-Semitism and Hitler Anti-Semitism was central to Hitler's world view and to that of most Nazi activists. Hitler considered Jews to have been foremost among profiteers and racketeers during World War I; they engineered the ‘stab in the back’ of November 1918; they were hand-in-glove with Bolshevism. In August 1919 Hitler was an instructor at a military camp at Lechfeld, near Augsburg. His task was to inject nationalist and anti-Bolshevik ideas into the men in the camp, many of whom were recently released pris Glossary Introduction For many centuries, ancient Egypt was seen as the source of wisdom and knowledge, about mathematics as well as other things. There was a long classical Greek tradition to this effect, and in later centuries the indecipherability of the hieroglyphs did nothing to dispel this belief. But since the early nineteenth century, when the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone by Young and Champollion enabled rapid progress to be made in translating extant Egyptian texts, the picture has changed to reveal a
Exercise 9
Exercise 7
Discussion
Alliteration
repetition of sounds, usually the first letters of successive words, or words that are close together. Alliteration usually applies only to consonants.
Anapest
see under foot.
Assonance
repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.
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