The Story Of The Alabama Tribe: The Myth Fire

Searching back to its beginnings, religion has a profound impact on cultural identity through the presence of deep and ancient roots that connect a people to their glorious, memorable and often idealized histories. By equating a given religion with the success of a society often times national pride and religious pride become intertwined. Though this manifests itself differently in each country, throughout all four surveyed this attribute seemed to be present.

American author Christopher Hitchens once wrote, “Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at philosophy.” I enjoy this quote because it acknowledges a key aspect of the human condition: our overwhelming desire to know and understand our place in the world. Religion, in turn, is our attempt at that, a construction of what we believe to be the relationship between us, our surroundings, and beyond. For two cultures, religion played an important role in everyday society: the Aztec Empire in Mesoamerica and the Islamic empires of West Africa. Now, I am going to compare and contrast West African and

Most of the human ‘Homo sapiens’ is born into a religion. That religion could be Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Atheism, etc, a set of beliefs which someone inherits from his family, and till the death, that man will likely stay with his or her religion because almost every human has tendency to be religious. On the other hand, the reality of the religion does not matter to him unless someone conducts any investigation to get to the religious truth. In the essay ‘Homo religiosus,’ Karen Armstrong says that, today’s religious followers accept the religion into which they were born, without doing the hard work required. This means that someone follows his ancestor’s religion from the beginning for his life and he or she is not able to prove his ancestors were wrong because he or she has faith in his own religion. Faith is the main concept of the religion because people have deep faith in their own religion. In addition, faith is nothing but mere fantasy and faith has no basis in reality. Therefore, people have no ability to conduct investigations to find out the religious truth. In addition, elements and places of religion vary from religion to religion. Religion is one of the most prehistoric institutions which have been noticed to practice in any society past and present even in the ancient world where cave paintings were popular. Institutions, like politics and entertainments, have been greatly influenced by the religious faith. The truth of religion might give

There are many religions in this world and many creation myths that accompany those religions. Each religion has its own unique viewpoint on how the world came to be. The Cherokee myth I have chosen is something that may seem outrageous to the outsider, but it is how the Cherokee Indians have viewed their creation for many years.

Religion is one of the most important components of culture which has been used in understanding the universe, natural phenomena, what to die for and how to dwell among other people. Religion can be considered as culture by itself because it provides the set of values, beliefs and guidelines for specific behavior (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel & Roy, 2013, p.40). Religion helps to control the social behavior, maintains conflict, supports emotions and gives explanations to unexplainable.

From the beginning of human existence, religion and spirituality have played immense, critical roles in the lives of people and the functionings of our society. In our world today, the conflict in religious forces combined with the conflict in spiritual forces depict both our confusion and our yearning to connect with divine forces and influence the people around us for good. Organized Religion and spirituality both provide their own unique, important influences and opportunities to individuals and our society. Each have their own set of benefits and detriments and analyzing these are growingly essential to our world because people choose to participate in one or the other or both and

Developed before the advent of scientific methodologies, religion has been one of the few continuities that generations have looked to for an explanation of the uncertainties in the world. Historical religion and their scriptures serve as a guideline for how to live. Certain previously discouraged or even outlawed behaviors have become either more accepted or less socially taboo as modern culture has slowly evolved.

Religion has been a powerful force in human history because mankind has longed and searched for the answers to its purpose, the reason for being and the possibility of life after physical death. They reasoned that an afterlife would be a place of accounting and reckoning for the life they lived on earth. Religious belief systems seemed to give the answers as to how to prepare for the afterlife. Religion became the means of giving answers to those basic yet deep seated questions of both life and death. Religion provided a format of rules and laws for conduct and treatment toward others based on the desires and wishes of a god or gods

Religion and spirituality reach into the depths of the human psyche and strongly influence a nation’s way of life.

Religion is a sincerely challenging word to define because there is a vast amount of religions that are categorized and there hasn’t been an exact standard definition. In, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile Durkheim, the author explains how beliefs, rites, and religions are components of the human experience. By comparing primitive and modern religions, Durkheim concludes that every religion needs a Church, which is a place where all of the people who practice specific religions gather. Furthermore, Religions are constructed by human societies because it provides a meaningful explanation of why the earth is in existence. Although rites and beliefs are different for every religion, they are significantly essential in defining religion, and without them, religions would not exist.

It is common knowledge that in the past religion and myths were just ways for societies to explain events and occurrences that citizens of ancient societies did not have enough advanced knowledge to understand. It was also used as a way to oppress others, as seen in the explanation of class order and royalty as God placing a person where they were meant to be and that there was nothing one could do about it, because who can go against God himself? Religion played an even bigger part than that though, being a large part of every person’s identity and something for a country and its people to unit over. But as society slowly aged, and governments were reorganized and re-structured, one can see a reduction in religion being a part of

Religion not only serves as a form of cultural identity to one’s life, and a sense of comfort to many people, while others just do not have a need for religion. Cultural identity is very powerful and is considered very important to its people. Culture is ever changing and everyone is born into a specific culture that is considered very valuable to that individual (cultural identity). Culture tends to be pluralistic and defines the way its people live, die, and was born. A culture is also entitled to practice its beliefs, values, morals, and rituals because all cultures should be given equal opportunity and attention. By analyzing this from an anthropological approach, one aims to be culturally relative and not ethnocentric. Ethnocentrism is

Religion has been present in this world for thousands of years, providing ancient civilizations with answers to their questions and a moral code to abide by. Today, religion still serves that same purpose and more, forming and changing as time goes on. Though religions today may share some elements, they do share vastly different opinions on the soul, time, truth, and the senses, and provide answers and a way of life to those who desire it.

Religion plays a lot of roles in many different cultures. Most things are religion based like in the United States. We are based off Christianity in many different things. In East and Southeast Asia, religion had a big role in shaping the modern history.

In every culture there seems be a creation myth—the story of how the world and everything on it came to be. Religion and the rituals surrounding them are found in every culture in the world. Examples that are familiar to many Christians in the United States are attending churches, praying before a meal or in a time of grief, and baptisms for infants shortly after they are born. Religion serves many functions in society, and attempts to answer some of life’s big questions, such as: Who am I? How was the Universe created? Why am I here? What happens when I die? The role of religious belief and practice everyday life can affect us in ways we may not even realize until we dig a little deeper below the surface.