Worldviews: Language and Culture

I. Themes

• worldviews
• religious beliefs
• language and culture
  • the universal translator and incommensurability
  • Darmok

II. Understanding Religion

Religion=

Religious stories and worldviews

III. Religion and the Environment

• Creation stories
  • Oceania: Hawaiian Kumulipo
  
  
  • Americas: Mayan Popol Vuh
  
  
  • China: Pangu*
  
  
  • South Asia: Aryan Vedas, Purusha
  
  
  • Africa: Egyptian Amon* and Atum-Re
  
  
  • Southwest Asia: Babylonian Enuma Elish; Hebrew Genesis
  
  
• Types of deities and spirits
  • animism
  
  
  
  • animals and ancestors
  
  
  
  • chthonic deities: Maize
  
  
  
  • Arinna, Tesup, Dingri-Lama*
  
  
  
  • anthropomorphic deities and polytheism
    • pantheons
    • Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva*
    • god heroes
    
    
  • from monism to monotheism
  
  
  

IV. Religion and the Socio-Political Realm

• Political relations
  • ziggurat: Nippur
  • pharoah, Osiris and Isis*
  • Mandate of Heaven


• Class and gender
  • priests and kings
  • social status
  • gender: goddesses, priestesses, and prophetesses

V. Human Relations to the Divine

• Practical religion
  • propitiation and prayer
  
  
  • prediction
  
  
  • meditation*
  
  
• The afterlife
  • creation and judgment
  
  
  • burial*
  
  
  • quests
  
  

VI. Conclusions

• partiality of knowledge
  • language and culture
  
  
  • myth and archaeology
  
  
• beliefs and values in relation to environment and culture