The Sacred And Profane Summary

The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge is an interesting book that’s supposedly filled with useful information about how to live like a Christian and become more like Christ. However, this book has many issues. Brent Curtis and John Eldredge attempt to get us as readers to understand how to live and be more like Christ by comparing the pains and sufferings we all go through in our everyday lives to that of arrows piercing our hearts. As Curtis and Eldredge talked about arrows piercing our hearts I realized there have been times in my life that happened to me. Finally, after reading the book I realized that this book has the potential of being an interesting read but, it’s many errors leave us as readers confused.

In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas weaves her analysis of religion and society around a very simple topic, one of which I honestly took for granted: dirt. Dirt, Douglas argues, plays a massive role in the formation of society and how societies understand their worldviews and conceptions of sacredness. With this constant pushing and pulling of purity and impurity, meanings can be assigned to all patterns inside and outside the symbolic classification system of a society. Unity of the sacred and the filthy is then achieved through these purity and impurity rituals (3). In this essay, I will discuss the paradoxes of her book, modern approaches with understanding ritual, and my insecurities over the “Primitive Worlds” chapter.

Over the centuries, Christianity has organised its beliefs into a systematic theology that draws from its sacred writing and tradition. While the main beliefs of Christianity are shared by all Christian variants, there are degrees of different in the interpretation of these beliefs and how they are lived out in everyday life. This can be seen in the important of sacred text, principle belief of the concept of salvation in John 3:16, principle belief of divine and humanity in ‘John 1:14’, principle belief of resurrection in ‘Mark 16:1-8’, principle belief of revelation in ‘1 corinthians14:6’, and beliefs through the Trinity in ‘2 Corinthians 13:14’. This essay will explain the important of the sacred text and the principal beliefs of Christianity.

Elialde author of The Sacred and the Profane introduces a new model of the sacred and the profane. Elialde’s model is meant to be universal, therefore meant to be appropriate for any recognized religion. David Carrasco author of Religions of Mesoamerica and Kay Almere Read and Jason J. González authors of Mesoamerican Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs of Mexico and Central America, discuss their interpretation of the Mesoamerican religion although their views on the Mesoamerican religion differs in some aspects when compared to Eliade’s model of the sacred and the profane there are a few noticeable similarities between both views.

Hinduism considers no specific moment of origin. They believe everything as timeless and always existing. The oldest religious text of Hinduism are the Vedas (Veda means knowledge) containing hymns to various deities of sun, moon, earth, sky, wind, and night. These deities were not considered the creators, although Brahman is considered the “all in one force” (Halverson). Brahman is “the womb of both the existent and the nonexistent” (Shattuck) and responsible for establishing the earth, sky and atmosphere the creator and primary cause of reality.

The book Anatomy of the Sacred was an interesting read. I’ve learned a lot concerning

Every Culture has a set of rituals that they partake in, that are often constructed over a long period of time. Simple Actions, and special moments contain so much meaning and make everlasting memories. All rituals despite the locations they originate from, or the location they are carried out in contain the same components, they are repetitive, symbolic, remind a certain group of people about their values and beliefs, and these rituals commemorate a significant moment. For example christians commemorate the birth of christ by attending mass, and many other cultures celebrate this moment in many different ways that have in depth symbolic meaning. In the book “Guests of the Sheik” by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea rituals play a major role. Fernea’s husband Bob is an anthropologist studying the occupants of a small village named El Nahra and their culture. Fernea has documented her experiences, and adventures, and her perspective of the many rituals that the townspeople participate in such as, Ramadan, Muharram, weddings, and pilgrimages. In Muslim culture pilgrimages are immensely important and can even lead to an elevated status. Such as the pilgrimage to Mecca. Fernea is able to participate in a pilgrimage to Karbala with a couple of the towns women she had befriended. The Pilgrimage to Karbala is a symbolic, and cultural ritual in the aspect that it is reenacted every year, and is full of symbolic meaning, commemorates an important occasion and reminds a culture about their

Hinduism, the world’s oldest religion, is the third largest religion in the world after Islam and Christianity with close to one billion followers. The followers of the religion are called Hindus and are mainly located in India, and their place of worship is a temple. The religion doesn’t have any one specific founder, however,

Baba Brinkman’s “Rap Guide to Religion” is a one of a kind rap music that tries to explain the evolution of religion. Throughout Brinkman’s rap performance, I agreed with many of his argument on how people of faith are prejudice over then who are atheists. Although Brinkman’s “Rap Guide to Religion” is original, interesting and informative, he could have done a better job in explaining how religion actually evolved by using a timeline (or some type of visual aid) rather than jumping from one epoch to another. Moreover, he could have used his bar charts to better explain the relationship between faithful followers and atheists, all the while trying to rationalize why as technology is beginning to overtake religion, the trust and acceptance for atheists are still relatively low.

The Question of Origin is answered by the Hinduism Worldview as “everything has always been in existence and is a part of god” (Weider & Gutierrez, 2011). A part of the worldview is that the universe and god is one in the same thing. Hinduism believes that itself has always existed, that it did not have a creator. God is viewed "as an infinite, impersonal force" (Weider & Gutierrez, 2011).

Several people find Mircea Eliade’s view on religion similar to Emile Durkheim’s, but in truth, it is similar to Tylor and Frazer’s. One of Eliade’s major works was The Sacred and the Profane. In his writings he explains that his understanding of religion are two concepts: the sacred and the profane. The profane consists of things that are ordinary, random, and unimportant, while the sacred is the opposite. The sacred “is the sphere of supernatural, of things extraordinary, memorable, and momentous” (Pals 199). When Durkheim mentioned the sacred and the profane, he was concerned about society and its needs. In Eliade’s view, the concern of religion is with the supernatural. To Eliade, the profane doesn’t hold as

Eliade's insightful and artistic ways to deal with myth, image, and religion are characterized by a few key suppositions and standards. To begin with, he contended for "the finality of the hallowed." He trusted that religious wonders must be comprehended as remarkably and unchangeably religious, as communicating importance on a religious plane of reference. Eliade much of the time condemned the individuals who endeavored to lessen religion to mental, social, financial, recorded, or different nonreligious wonders. As indicated by him, they neglected to do equity to the special, unchangeable essence of religious

Creative Response to the Hindu Creation Myth How were we created? How was the universe created? What happens after we die? These questions are some of the most important questions that we still have yet to answer. Religion helps explain their perspective about these questions and give elaborate stories to share amongst generations.

Correct me if I’m wrong but it is beyond question that Mircea Eliade did a phenomenal job isolating all the characteristics that defines what a sacred and profane really is. Allow me to demonstrate, in his book, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Eliade proves that sacred is more than just connecting oneself with god but it is also seeing the world (and life) in a whole religious prospective. On the other hand, profane deals with living life and seeing the world in a non-religious prospective. We can even go further with the meaning of profane to that moment in class when my professor exposed the quote “The unreal never is. The real never is not.” (B. Gita 2:17). While everyone in class were puzzled at first, my professor

“Brahmâ, the first god of the Hindu triad , the Creator, was the immediate source and founder of the caste order; for he caused, it is said the august Brahman to proceed out of his divine mouth, while the warlike and royal Kshatriya emanated from his shoulders, the commercial Vaisya from his thighs and the menial Sudra, from his