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8.8 Hinduism as ‘a world religion’: a more recent understanding Traditionally, as we have seen, a Hindu was someone born to Hindu parents and into a caste with its appropriate dharma. The link between religious practice and a whole way of life bound the individual into a community from birth. Regional factors, parentage and caste affiliation largely determi
8.6 The Dakshineswar temple I want you now to follow a worshipper on a ‘pilgrimage in miniature’ around Dakshineswar temple on the outskirts of Calcutta. Before you read further, please study carefully the plan of Dakshineswar temple in Figure 14. 8.5 Looking for Hinduism in Calcutta 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 4.3 The changing face of belief The religious life of post-war Britain has become more varied, although Christianity in different forms remains the most influential religion. Yet, the influence of Christianity over British institutions has declined greatly over the last century and a half, although both England and Scotland still retain Established Author(s): 3.3 Religions in Britain I would like you to continue your reading of the extracts from John Bowker's account of religions in Britain as it is important that you build up your general knowledge of those beliefs and practices commonly labelled as ‘religion’. 5.1 Relativising the Holocaust? In the wake of the Soviet armies during 1944–45 came police units. In Poland the communist Office of State Security (Urzad Bezpieczerstwa Publicznego, UB) refilled former Nazi camps and prisons with civilians, many of whom were Germans innocent of any offence other than that of being German. Somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 died as a result of UB behaviour in the camps and prisons; victims were beaten, tortured, starved, killed. One of the only researched UB units is that which op 10 Comparing and contrasting Often you will find that an assignment asks you to ‘compare and contrast’ poems. There's a very good reason for this, for often it is only by considering different treatments of similar subjects that we become aware of a range of possibilities, and begin to understand why particular choices have been made. You will have realised that often in the previous discussions I've used a similar strategy, showing, for example, how we can describe the rhyme scheme of ‘Love From the North’ as si 9 Line lengths and line endings Read the following prose extract taken from Walter Pater's discussion of the Mona Lisa, written in 1893, and then complete the activity: She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as L Introduction This unit is designed to develop the analytical skills you need for a more in-depth study of literary texts. You will learn about rhythm, alliteration, rhyme, poetic inversion, voice and line lengths and endings. You will examine poems that do not rhyme and learn how to compare and contrast poetry. This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Approaching Literature (A210) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, 1.8 Conclusion In conclusion, what is Babylonian mathematics about? Although it is not easy to answer this question precisely, because of the difficulties of interpretation such as you saw with Plimpton 322, the overwhelming impression is of the study and use of numbers, and various techniques for solving problems involving numbers. Where the numbers arise from—whether land measurement, economic questions, idealised geometrical objects (cubes, triangles and so on), or just fairly abstractly—seems 4.4 Political implications In chapter VI of A Practical View Wilberforce broadens his perspective from the primarily spiritual emphasis of the earlier chapters to a consideration of the political implications of his analysis. In so doing he contributed to the ongoing debate on the French Revolution and the changing nature of British society and politics.
A Practical View can usefully be compared here with another work that gave considerable prominence to religion in the aftermath of 1789, Edmund Bu 1.2 Upbringing; MP for Yorkshire William Wilberforce (Figure 1) was born in Hull, the son and grandson of substantial merchants who had made their fortune in trade between Yorkshire and the Baltic. His father died in 1768 and he subsequently went to live for a period with his uncle and aunt. Through them he was exposed not only to the influence of John Newton, but also to that 2.1 The sensible body For centuries, and well into the early modern period, sense experience, including seeing, hearing and touching, as well as bodily movement, had been explained according to the precepts of Galenic physiology – that is, as the result of the action of animal spirits flowing along the nerves between the brain and the periphery. Nerves were understood as hollow ducts that distributed animal spirits to sustain sensation and motion. In his groundbreaking model of the body as a machine, Descartes r Introduction This unit presents information about how Scottish healthcare institutions were influenced by the underlying social, economic, political and cultural contexts. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a series of innovative models of the body was produced, from the mechanical to the mathematical to the sensible. As groundbreaking anatomical investigation and physiological experimentation were carried out, the map of the body changed, and different parts (vessels, glands, nerves) acqu 1.5 Napier and Briggs The fact remains that few mathematical inventions have burst on the world so unexpectedly as Napier's logarithms. Although various disparate strands – the idea of doing multiplication via addition, the idea of comparing arithmetic and geometric progressions, the use of the concept of motion – had all been floated at some stage, the enthusiasm with which Napier's work was received makes it clear both that this was perceived as a novel invention and that it fulfilled a pressing need. Foremo 3.3 ‘Intentionality’ Is the work of art a free-standing artefact to be interpreted entirely on its own terms, extracted from its historical context, as Bal does it? Or can the artist and the artwork be brought back together again without committing the intentional fallacy? Joseph Margolis makes several important points about the relationship of an artwork to its maker which has significant implications for the limits and possibilities of interpretation of works of art. Margolis puts it thus: References 3.5 New light on compatibilist versus incompatibilist debate Strawson has attempted to throw new light on the compatibilist versus incompatibilist debate by showing that there are certain ‘reactive attitudes’ that are a necessary part of the framework of anything that is recognizably the life of a person. His argument has centred on the claim that is it ‘useless’ to question these attitudes. He argues this by showing the role they have in our lives, and arguing that they are part of the ‘framework’ of life. We could put the point as follows
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Exercise 5
