Breaking The Spell: The Study Of Religion

843 A.D. We the Northmen came to Nantes and killed the bishop and many of the clergy and laymen, both men and women, and we pillaged the city. Thence we set out plunder the lands of lower Aquitaine. Then we arrieved at a island and we carried materials from the mainland to build our houses for the winter.As a reason that we “ Northmen” not believe in god, we are not christians , and we don't have respect towards the monasteries. Our main purpose is to get food and jewelry from others. Many people tagged us as “uncivilized” by cause our way to get what we want and for what we came to.

In the book, “ A Beginners Guide to the Study of Religion”, Herling highlights the clash that questions who has more knowledge in religion between an outsider and an insider. The insider being the person who physically and emotionally participates in said religion whilst the outsider being the one who studies and gains information about it from every corner from afar. Although this question is slightly unsolvable, it’s important for us as students to understand the concept of what our position means, why both insiders and outsiders are important, and which stance we should be taking in this course. This also in a sense links with Megan Roper’s TedEd talk about her position as both an insider and an outsider and how one should approach either

Memes can be divided into two definitions; Dawkins definition, and internet memes today. The term Meme was first coined by Charles Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. In this he came up with a theory that culture develops similar to how genes spread in organisms. For example, genes move from one organism to another (genetically) whereas a meme moves from one person to another, and then changes person to

The concept of sacred reality, “We recognize a notion of sacred reality wherever a group of people describes a particular phenomenon as a manifestation of the real in terms that indicate something (1) specially distinctive or “set apart” from everything else in the world, (2) to some extent, beyond the volitional control of human beings, (3) specially prominent with respect to human welfare, and (4) properly determinative of various aspects of human existence. In what follows, we illustrate each of these characteristics of sacred reality.” (Cunningham,

Scientists are now beginning to understand how these addictive meme are made, and why they dont last long or in other words “die”; or seeing if it's possible to predict which will go viral. The internet had not been around the time when Richard Dawkins the British evolutionary biologist came up with the term meme in 1976. Memetics uses Dawkins theory of evolution and suggests that memes evolve just as genes do. The gene that went through the many imitation had to be the best to evolved for communication. A meme is not controlled by one creator but many people. It can be hard to explain what can fall under the term meme. But scientists say that a meme can be a phrase, catchy jingle or a kind of behavior. Dawkins define the term but he noted

Susan Blackmore’s idea of memetics is controversial because not many believe it is scientific at all. A meme is “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” (Blackmore, 7). Blackmore describes this as singing “Happy Birthday” to someone or a handshake could be a meme. A meme is a form of imitation.

Notably, innate human abilities and ideas permit culture to determine the favored genes, which in turn can reinforce the culture. The relationship between culture and genes can be viewed as a vicious circle. To comprehend, the significance of culture, it is essential to view it as an independent organism, a parasite— a meme! The term "meme" was conceived by Richard Dawkins as "information copied from person to person by imitation"(as cited in Bull, Holland, and Blackmore, 2000, p. 2). Memes are ideas, beliefs, practices, etc. In order, for these memes to be successful parasites, their hosts (the humans) have to be successful at this imitation process. This complex social behavior is a consequence of our possession of a very sophisticated genetic mechanism: the mirror neuron system! Mirror neurons are a fairly recent neuroscientific discovery that affirms that the same neurons fire when we perform an action, as when we observe the action being done by

Larger social forces have very much shaped me into the human being I am today. As a Jew, I was born into a religion that has gone through much adversity. We are often stereotyped, and for this reason have been massacred throughout history. It is out ability to constituently overcome adversity that makes me so proud to be a Jew, and to represent my religion on my necklace everyday. It is what has made me want to attend a Jewish Day School, and have a Bar Mitzvah. It is what inspired me to go to Israel, and get connected with the holy land. It is what got me involved in BBYO, an International Jewish youth movement. It is what got me involved in community service and fundraising. Many of my closest friends happen to be Jewish, and

teach his people to love others. He wanted people to treat all the other people around

Sociologists define religion as a cultural system of commonly shared beliefs and rituals that provides a sense of ultimate meaning and purpose by creating an idea of reality that is sacred, all-encompassing and supernatural (Durkheim in Giddens 2006 p.534). Religion can be viewed as a lifestyle or culture for some people: This culture entails united beliefs, the same values, customs and philosophies that generates a shared distinctiveness among a group of people. All religions have a behavioural aspect to them – these are distinctive activities in which members of the faith participate in, and that identify them as members of a religious community, an example of this would be Ramadan, this is a period of roughly thirty days fasting which Muslims partake in yearly which is then ended by a huge celebration named Eid al-Fitr. Sociologists are not concerned with the validity of religious beliefs, rather they tend to focus on the social effect that religion has on people individually, and the institution itself. Since the beginning of human existence religion has been a very important part of society’s substance.

According to our textbook, “Religious beliefs and practices are found in all known contemporary societies” (Ember 242), and there even appears to be evidence of religion in prehistoric times. As something that is so widespread, it is only natural for anthropologists and other social scientists to try to explain why religion has developed, and a majority of experts, “think that religions are created by humans in response to certain universal needs or conditions” (Ember 243). That is, it is a commonly accepted fact that religions are not “phenomenon” but are rather the result of human adaptation to fulfill certain needs or respond to certain conditions. Specifically, there are five main explanations as to why religion has developed: the human need to understand, a “reversion to childhood feelings” (Ember 243), anxiety and uncertainty, the need to form a community, and the need for cooperation (Ember 243).

The idea, concept, and practices of religion have never really been something that is of importance to me during my life. For the longest time I did not identify as any certain or specific religion and when asked I would simply state how I was not a religious person. It was not until high school when I discovered the religion of Agnosticism. In our English class we had to research different religions and our group received Agnosticism. Before then I had never heard of that religion, but after learning about Agnosticism it pretty much summed up how I feel and what I believe about God and religion. Basically Agnosticism entails that the person believes that the existence of God is uncertain and claims neither a faith nor a disbelief in God. I feel like this religion perfectly sums up how I feel when it comes to my faith and ideas about God and just religion as a whole. Since I am not a religious type of person, the idea of me choosing another one that I would be a part of seems like a difficult task. When I do think about the various religions that I have studied, written, and read about during the course of this semester there is one that stands out to me. If I had to choose another religion to join instead of my own, I would join Buddhism because their fundamental principles and values are those that I can agree with and their ultimate purpose in life is something I can see myself believing in as well.

Religion is man-made and has nothing to do with spirituality. Belief on God does not require a religion. Spirituality is native to the human being and we are constantly in contact with that, which we cannot measure in physical terms. The belief in a higher power or God does not require religion. Religion is a man-made institution developed specifically for the control of mass people by a smaller group of people. The intermingling of spirituality and religion is a major problem. There can be no consensus on human morality and ethics until it is done without religious interference. I am willing to believe in a creator (although no knowledge has gone so far to define it) but not necessarily the being described in the Bible or Quran or any other religious text. One may argue that the degree of order and the complexity of that order may demand the existence of a creator, and the observable physical laws are obvious but there may be spiritual laws that underpin reality as well. Those laws are the foundation of ethics and morality. Religious people believe that religion is the tool by which the connection or the rules of restricting behavior is accomplished. But it is not the case because the inherent bias that each religion has interferes

Religion is something weird to the general public however that was not the case during the fall of Rome and the rise of the Byzantine Empire. During that era religion was one of the few things that tied people together. Without religion the only thing keeping the people of Rome together was the government. Since Alexander the Great’s empire leading to the Byzantine Empire led to a mix of many culture and religions for the very first time. Greece and Rome believed in a set of Gods but the lands they conquered did not. The Eastern Roman Empire showed how one unique religion such as Christianity brought people of many different back grounds together. The fall of the Western Roman Empire led the people to people depending on Christianity. The text Arius, Letter to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria and The Nicene Creed showed the public matter of Christianity. On the other hand the excerpt Augustine of Hippo, Confessions and The Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon addresses the personal effect of Christianity, the private affairs. The point is that is that over the course of about 300 years Christianity has united the fallen people of Rome onto the Byzantine Empire, the transition from the private life to the public use of Christianity.

Religious aspects explain the common characteristics which are used to explain how the religion had been formed. Religions have many common factors between the eight aspects which include Belief, sacred stories, religious experiences and religious rituals are the 4 main aspects including the extra 4 ( sacred texts , sacred structures, sacred symbols and religious ethics ). These aspects have a large influence on the religion as they allow people to have a purpose for why they are alive till this very day, to thank those they think have created the world by praying, how everyone should act to those among them through their lifetime and to tell the stories of those who have made the world for what it is today. We also get a deeper understanding of how these religions were formed, by who and why they have so