Gods and Heroes
RELIGION AND CULTURE
Themes
- religion and worldviews
- culture and language
- examples from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India, China, Americas
Religion, Culture and Language
- Religion =
- a system of __________, __________ and __________
- relative to __________,
- which shapes an __________ manifested in the __________ of its adherents.
- or: "the systems of belief, which, through
symbols and actions, mobilize the feelings and wills of human
beings." (Ninian Smart)
- "relates a view of the ultimate nature of
reality to a set of ideas of how man is..to live." (Clifford Geertz)
- culture and language
- Can you understand another culture without learning the language?
- universal translator versus "incommensurability"
- What can religious stories tell us about cultures and worldviews?
Religion and the Environment
- creation stories
- Greek Gaia, Uranos, Chronos
- Chinese Pangu*
- Mesopotamian Enuma Elish
- Egyptian Amon *; Atum-Re
- India's Purusha
- Mayan Popol Vuh
- gods and nature
- animism
- ancestors, aumakua
- chthonic deities
- animal-human combos
- Arinna, Tesup, Dingri-Lama*
- anthropomorphic deities and polytheism
- India: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva*
- Mesopotamia: Anu, Marduk, Enlil
- Egypt: twins; Osiris and Isis*
- Greek and Roman pantheon: Olympus; Zeus*
- fertility stories and heroes
- Greek Persephone
- Egyptian Osiris
- Hercules and Gilgamesh
Religion, Society and Politics: ____________ religion
- ziggurats, Hammurabi; Nippur
- pharoah, Ma`at
- Mandate of Heaven
- Temple of Athena
- Purusha and varna
Relating to the divine: __________ religion
- propitiation
- prediction
- geomancy, I Ching
- aurispices
- the future
- burial: mummy*
- judgment
- transcendence and yoga *
- quests
Links
Return to Syllabus Lecture Outline
kjolly@hawaii.edu 8/20/01