Category: General
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Fantastical Beings in Religion: Where Did They Come From and Why Are They Here?
The origin of fantastical beings remain a mystery to this day. Some speculate that they are derived from human imagination and creativity, others believe that the beasts are used as a tool to establish man’s place in the cosmos, or perhaps, these fantastical beasts are another icon devoted to inspiring faith among people. In David…
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The 3 Abrahamic Religions
A point that was brought up during this week’s discussion was that the favorable representation of Cherubim as cute angels is mirrored by the appearance of Jesus being assumed to be Caucasian. This article makes an interesting point on how cultures portray religious figures to look like the dominant racial identity – https://www.history.com/news/what-did-jesus-look-like. Thus, this…
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Super natural Creatures
This week our group talked about how the perception of Jinn in Islamic lore has changed over time. And we also compared and contrasted other religion’s beliefs in supernatural creatures. To start off, as Alejandro mentioned that a mysticism said that to be a Muslim one must believe in Jinn which shows the great importance…
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Etic and Emic, Two sides of the same coin
I’m sure we’ve all been told the phrase “think outside the box”, well did you know that this means much more than a way one perceives a certain scenario or situation? Emic means analyzing a group’s culture or language from the inside. This means that the researcher would have a perspective that is directly or…
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Aspects of the Exodus and Other Similar Religious Narratives
For this week’s discussion, my group and I discussed what two components we found interesting to reflect on in the book of Exodus. If there were any other religious narratives, we could connect the components. The first component Under the new rule in Egypt, the Pharaoh felt threatened by the increasing number of Israelites, so…
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A Tale of Fantastic Beasts, Mythical Creatures and Demons
My group and I did not have a lot of discussions this week, but the one discussion we had was about the painting “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci. To give a brief on this painting we talked about how this myth of The Last Supper had various untold secrets or messages. However, the…
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The Social Impact on Myths: How Myths of Creation Help in Understanding Particular Worldviews
My group did a fantastic job of illustrating the important concepts to a couple of the questions asked, particularly questions one and two. Mythology is spread amongst several individuals socially. For example, traditions/beliefs passed down from generation to generation, traveling, or word of mouth (through this course). According to Leontovich (2015), personal identity is “formed…
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Creation Myths and Worldviews
The discussion our group had this week focused mainly on the importance of myths and their correlation with the shaping of beliefs of a specific group or people or society altogether. First of all, it is nearly impossible to deny the influence of religion and myths in modern society. As one of the group members…
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Chinese Myths and the Creation Stories
Throughout the history of ancient China, each myth and religion which spread throughout had a social impact it left on the country, some even to the modern era. In this week’s discussion thread, there was the common theme of the social impacts of myths in China. First, let’s talk about ancient China. During the Zhou…
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Myths: An Insight on Cultures
In this week’s discussion, all group members agreed on the idea that myths have a big role in shaping identities. With the various symbology and meanings tucked behind anthropomorphic characters and natural landscapes, myths are a gateway to understanding the distinct cultures in the world’s history. Myths dating back to centuries ago still have a…