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Patterns Of Culture Vs Religion

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Moreover, culture is very similar to religion, thus also engaging in all of the ignorance. Culture is similar to religion; different cultures share different beliefs, which creates different answers. In Ruth Fulton Benedict book called Patterns of Culture, she states that cultures, “provides the raw material of which the individual makes his life” (Austin, The Individual and the Pattern of Culture 113). This meant that whatever the culture provided would be what the human could be. If the culture is “meager, the individual suffers; if it is rich, the individual has the chance to rise to his opportunity” (Austin, The Individual and the Pattern of Culture 113). A rich culture would create a good human while a lower quality culture would create …show more content…

The students from Plato’s Academy came up with the definition that “a human being is a ‘featherless biped.’” (Austin, What Is the Essence of Humanity? 71). That simply defined humans as a hairless two-leg walking animal. Although the definition created for a human is fairly simple, confusing arouse because of the outcomes that could emerge. If humans were to be defined as careless, and vicious then strong measures would have to be impose, but if humans were define as, virtuous and friendly then more freedom would be granted (Austin 71-72). Another problem would be that humans would not accept an inferior definition to define their nature. Instead they would prefer a definition that defines their superiority and power. The fact that things could have gone easily to either side caused …show more content…

In his work named Mencius, Mencius provided that idea that man are naturally kind. Mencius said “[h]uman nature is inherently good, just like water flows inherently downhill” (Austin, Man’s Nature Is Good 79). He then explained this by saying that, “[t]here’s no such thing as a person who isn’t good, just as there’s no water that doesn’t flow downhill” (Austin, Man’s Nature Is Good 79). Mencius was trying to say that water always flowed downhill no matter what the circumstance was. Water could be up in a mountain, in a creek, in a river, wherever it was water always flowed down never up. Using this logic Mencius compared it to humans. Humans’ nature was good; it was how they were born. Just like water only knows to flow down; humans only know to do good. This is supported when he says, “[h]umanity, Duty, Ritual, wisdom—these are not external things we meld into us. They’re part of us from the beginning. . .” (Austin, Man’s Nature Is Good 80). Others could argue that some humans are not good, therefor contradicting Mencius idea. In his work Mencius addresses this by saying that “if someone’s evil, it can’t be blamed on inborn capacities” (Austin, Man’s Nature Is Good 80). In other words, man are still naturally good, if they end up being evil it is not because they were born that way. If they turn out to be evil, it has to do with other things such as wisdom. A evil person was not born evil,

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