A) Shopping Malls as Sacred Places

Jon Pahl in his article “The Desire to Acquire: Or, Why Shopping Malls are Sites of Religious Violence” makes very interesting parallels between the church and the mall. I never thought that between these two such different buildings can be something similar. The sacredness of malls has become even noticeable nowadays than ever before. With companies trying to sell their products has gone to another level of unconsciousness of one’s who do not have no clue of that’s taking in effect. When going to the church like the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Seattle, the people who are attending church are there to praise God like no other church. When entering the mall, there are many similarities and differences that create this enchanted Bellevue Square mall become other than a place to shop, but a place embodied with sacredness of their architecture.
Being a public place, it has its own religion that is welcomed for everyone. As the first thing I’ve notice at Bellevue Square mall was the huge building. It gave the place a visual of power of being oversized, as the church has the power of God. The first thing that caught my attention was the huge water fountain. Streaming full of water, people are throwing coins in the fountain to receive a granted wish. As for most shoppers, people are going to the mall to buy something in particular or to look around. As the usage of natural architecture of plants, stones, and water has brought these people into a place of sacredness. The stimulation of purchasing has become even greater than everyone is underestimating.
As I first walked into the mall, there were many signs already saying there are sales. All these deals were able to cure these customers of materialism. This leads to the fact of how everyone may dress, as they like from their taste and what not. As the church strictly have rules of dressing formal if not casual with respective clothing of not skin showing. Back to the sale, it was only for a few days, becoming not just a must have deal, but a must have within a certain time. The deal was only for another day, that pressures one into purchasing something for not just what they’re expecting to look for, but for the extra cash spent for what is known as a deal.
The temperature of the mall has become to a perfect feel yet a little below room temperature for one’s to feel comfortable walking around. The lighting was perfect, feeling no difference of the time of the day it was. The lack of windows and access to the outer world has become covered. The mall was its own world, with its own habit of people who are hungry to eat up all the products that are available. The sacredness of all these plants, trees, water, and the architecture of laziness and perfection for shopping has become the perfect environment of a mall. It’s as if the mall has its own God of products for these people to filter themselves with.

B2) Early Teachings

Daoism, taken from Lao-Tzu’s Tao-Te-Ching, stresses is the importance of nature, and action through “non-action”. The Tao or “The Way” is nameless, and is a concept that is unable to be explained in words. The central dogma of Daoism, Wu-Wei, stresses the need to let events take its original course and to act without action. Following this principle, the natural Taoist reaction to an event is to simply let it happen. In the Tao-Te-Ching, it is written that, “When nothing is done, nothing is left undone”. This can be interpreted to mean that, for nature to take its course, action by means of non-action is the only thing necessary. Those practicing Daoism are encouraged to refrain from extravagance, and to maintain simplicity in their lives. This is in accordance to Wu-Wei, as we can see that over-consumption is a variation of an action in the place of non-action. Just as nature is simple, in order for one to achieve naturalness, they must keep their lives simple. According to Daoism, humans are just a mere fragment of the cosmos, therefore; our actions should be in agreement with the natural course of the Universe. In order for this to occur, one must free his mind of wants and desires in order to make the appropriate decisions in life. One’s life is just a posed to the flowing of a river in the Daoist perspective. One can find their way through life in the same manner as a river finding its way to the ocean. In perhaps the most famous of Zhuangzhou’s tales, Zhuangzhou dreams that he is a butterfly, joyous about the simplicity of life. He then wakes up from his dream, unable to distinguish reality from his dream, as he stares at his sleeping body. Was he a butterfly dreaming of becoming a human, or a human dreaming of becoming a butterfly? This story reflects the simplicity that one should live by and stresses the importance of nature within Daoism. He realizes what it truly means to be happy in the form of a butterfly, even to the point of doubting the existence of his true human form.

C2) The Life of Confucius

Confucius was a Chinese teacher and sage. He created the religion that became the basis of governance, culture and politics of the huge country. However, Confucius almost never said about God, about faith, about what we have come to associate with the word “religion”. It is the religion that means relationship with God, with heaven, with others, and with us. Confucius spoke about humanity and moral duty, about the knowledge and love; about what it means to be a noble man who lives high thoughts in his soul, and is committed to the common good. And what it means to be a “small” man who seeks only to his own benefit and comfort.
Confucius was born in 551 BC in the kingdom of Lu. Father Confucius Shuliang He was a brave officer. When Confucius was 3 years old, her father died and Confucius’s mother devoted her whole life raising boys. Confucius was born with never-ending interest to learning. His mind forcing him to read and, most importantly, to adopt all the knowledge that was contained in the classic books of that era. Therefore, later people spoke about him that he did not have a teacher, but only students. He had different king of skills as he knew how to perform rituals, listening to music, the skill to archery and drive a chariot, writing skills, accounting. When he was about thirty years, Confucius has become one of the most educated men of his time. However, he didn’t take any important position in the public service. Although he was quiet, his actions and words were too honest to get a responsible position in society where prosper adulation and dishonesty.
Confucius opened a school, which over time become a model for the Chinese education. The main focus of the school becomes ethics. The program had six traditional subjects: history, poetry, politics, etiquette, music, and thinking about the future. He believed that education plays an important role in the creation of a civilized and harmonious society. His pathway from school to the free following of desires of the heart and follow the rules of conduct become a moral ideal whole culture of China. Not long before his death he said about himself: “At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty I stood firm; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty I knew the mandate of heaven; at sixty my ear was obedient; at seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without transgressing the norm.”

D1) The Origins of Shinto

“The concept of nature and reverence for ancestors is basic.”
Stuart Picken Essentials of Shinto

Shintoism is national religion of Japan and it means “the way of the gods”. It is based on the worship of many gods that called kami like a divine ancestors of the Japanese people, the spirits of the mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, fire, wind, the patron deity of individual localities and crafts; gods that represent the human virtues and spirits of the dead. Therefore, the basis of this religion is the cult of the ancestors and worships the power of nature. In this regard, Shinto looks like paganism. Shinto is the national religion, which is not addressed to all human, but only to the Japanese. Unlike many other religions, Shinto cannot be called the founder of a specific person or god. According to the Shinto people came from kami and live with them in the same world and can move into the category of kami after death. Therefore, there are no promises of salvation in some other world, but the ideal of a harmonious life of person is life with the outside world, in the spiritual unity. Another feature of Shinto is the set rituals that have survived almost without changes for centuries. Also, unlike other religions Shinto hasn’t moral attitudes. Instead of notions of good and evil there are occupied by the concept of clean and unclean.
At the heart of every belief are myths and above all it is creation myths. In the beginning the world stayed in condition of chaos, and was mixed and unformed. At some moment in the primeval chaos split and formed the High Plains Sky Islands and the Dragonflies Islands. Then there were first gods, and late they began to appear divine couple. In each couple were a man and a woman, a brother and sister, who personify different natural phenomena. The last divine couple was Izanagi and Izanami, which were married and becoming husband and wife. From this marriage came the Japanese islands and many kami have occupied this land. The first kids that were birth they cast them out. Then Izanami gave birth to eight islands of Japan. After that, the goddess started to give birth of different gods. But when she gave birth to the god of fire, she was died. Idzanaki angry with the god of fire and cut it into three pieces, and went to the underworld to search his wife. But he couldn’t bring back his beloved. Since then, the land of the dead was ruled by Izanami, and land of lives by Idzanaki. This is very shortly explanation Shinto creation myths.

D) Art in Daoism and Confucianism

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
Confucius

The art in Daoism and Confucianism religions developed step by step. Firstly, under the influence of the Confucius teachings emperors of the Han Dynasty created a very complex state bureaucracy. There were taken officials by state exams. Education has become an important part of Chinese culture. After the fall of the Han dynasty, popularity of Daoism teachings has increased. Daoism joined the moral code of Confucianism with the ethical central of the art, and the necessity for a person to express them. At the time of Daoism was spread landscape painting, poetry and calligraphy. Earlier, calligraphy previously used only imperial administration scribes, but later calligraphy was much more than just the written words. Often the goal in art was not self-expression, but the search for truth. Artists had all three art forms like a calligraphy, poetry and painting, so their work was difficult to classify. The painting was not only with the verses, but also with calligraphic inscriptions in a suitable style. Also, painters and calligraphers used ink for their work. They were preparing it like rubbing slightly moistened mascara stick or a plate to the viscosity at a special ink tone. In the Sung era China has made a colored ink adding a touch of crushed pearls, jasper and milled camphor. Later artists began to use other colors: indigo, lead, vermilion and malachite.

F) Research Project – Sacred Places and Spaces Aspects

When Christianity came in the first century, it was time of the Roman Empire. The pagan Rome had many cults that included the cult of gods of Rome and necessarily considered a cult of deified emperors. In additional, in private life Roman people could worship gods by their chosen. Christians reject worship pagan gods and the cult of the emperor. At the heart of new religion lay not worship a mythical character, but a real historical figure. Christianity denied all other religions, rejected their rituals. Also, a new doctrine discarded not only social barriers, but also national barriers between people. “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, neither slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all, ” – Colossians 3:11 said (Bible). The first monuments of Christian art date back to II-III centuries that Christianity was a persecuted religion, and the most characteristic monuments are its catacombs. On the catacomb walls preserved paintings that the main theme was belief in the resurrection and salvation of dead.
Because Christian divine service in contrast to pagan rituals was going on inside temples, there had to be a building that would be received and held a lot of people. Therefore, the greatest example of such church is Old Saint Peter’s church raised by Constantine. The typical design of the Roman basilica served as a model for the Christian church to next periods. As service was held in the church, the decorations inside church contrast with the simplicity of the look outside that made different from pagan temples. In Christian churches were no any statues because it was associated as idolatry. Also, Christian art, especially painting and mosaic, was manifested in the two-dimensional image opposite ancient art that humanized gods, illustrating them with realistic reliability. Moreover, wall mosaic was one of the new areas of Christian art. Romans used mosaic for decorative floors and to decorate the walls they preferred painting.

Sources:
BBC, Religions: Taoism, http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/taoism/
Teaching Comparative Religion Through Art and Architecture, http://orias.berkeley.edu/workshop_visuals.html
The Sewanee Review, Shintoism and the Japanese Nation, Shinjiro Kitasawa, Page 480 of 479-483, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27532848
Confucius, Jonathan D. Spence, The Wilson Quarterly (1976-),Vol. 17, No. 4 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 30-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40258766
Confucianism – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/
Daoism (Taoism) – The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/daoism/
The Desire to Acquire:
Or, Why Shopping Malls are Sites of Religious Violence, Jon Pahl, http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/052007
http://www.saintnicholascathedral.org/photos_CathedralToday.html
Onassis Cultural Center , http://www.onassisusa.org/exhibition_transitions.php

Ethnographic Notes – Pilgrimage and Tourism

Today, we often can hear such phrases as “pilgrimage tourism”, “pilgrimage tour” and etc. All these terms come from a misunderstanding of the pilgrimage gist and from their external similarity. The pilgrimage and tourism are related by topic of travel, but despite the similarities, they are different. Even people are visiting the same holy sites, pilgrims and tourists make it in different ways. The main mistake of those who think that pilgrimage is a kind of tourism travel is tourism has begun recently pilgrimage. But this is certainly not because general the Christian pilgrimage more than 1,700 years. Mass tourism is (in its modern sense) arisen only in the first quarter of the XX century. Tourism is a journey with cognitive goals. One of the most popular touristic forms is religious tourism. The main point such kind of tourism is familiarity with history of the holy places, the life of the saints, architecture, and church art. All this is said during the tour that is the most important element of touristic travel. Excursion can also be part of pilgrimage, but it is not the principal and mandatory part; it is as the secondary share of pilgrimage. The main point of the pilgrimage is a prayer, worship and religious worship to saints. The pilgrimage is a part of the religious life of believers. During the pilgrimage is not an external act of rites, but what mood inside in the heard.
Pilgrimage that contrasts tourism always has one main goal to worship the shrine. This is associated with a hard spiritual work, with prayers and devotions. Sometimes pilgrimage associated with the physical work when pilgrims have to do physical work in the holy places. The pilgrimage attracts hundreds of thousands and even millions of people because they believe that prayers in the holy place are more effective, and believers dream to visit the holy places connected with the earthly life of the Savior and saints. It is very important during a pilgrimage what a person brings with him/her in the soul to the shrine, and how he/she is honest. If he/she comes only for curiosity or to learn something new, it’s not a pilgrimage, but religious tourism. However, while calling the faithful to commit their pilgrimage, the Church respects to tourists that visiting the Christian holy places. Church considers religious tourism as an important means of spiritual information of people.

B1) The Beginnings of Buddhism

Buddhism originated in the VI BCE in India. The word “Buddhism” is the original form from the name “Buddha.” Also, the beginning of Buddhism associated with the name of Prince Siddhartha Gautama. Gautama’s father avoided him to see the real life , and he lived in luxury and then got married his girlfriend, who got birth to his son. According to legend, the prince had four meeting with different people and it was the reason of spiritual revolution of prince. At first he saw a decrepit old man then suffering from leprosy and next a memorial procession. From this Gautama learned that all people get older, get sick and then death. The last person that prince was met was pacified poor wanderer, who didn’t want anything from life. All it shocked the prince, and made him think about the fate of people. At age 29 he secretly left the palace and the family and became a hermit who was trying to find the meaning of life. As a result of deep thinking in 35 years he became the Buddha that means the enlightened and awakened.
However, Buddha along didn’t call his teachings as Buddhism, but he said, “Dharma”. This word most often translated as “truth” or “the nature of all things.” Dharma, or teachings of the Buddha, has 84,000 teachings and practices that lead from suffering to enlightenment. Buddha gave many teachings because he understood that one dogma cannot be for all like from each disease we need different medicine. He understood all people different and they need different ways of development. Therefore, Buddhism uses an individual approach to training people. Nevertheless, if makes summary of Buddhism teaching, it will be like that several trusts. The first, there is suffering, deep discontent of variability, nervousness, fear, incomplete. Then, a suffering has a cause as a thirst about sensual pleasures or the changes. Next, there is a way to free themselves from suffering. And last is path that leads to freedom from suffering (the eightfold path leading to nirvana). After the death not only humans, but any living creature are reborn again. However this time in the form of a new living being, which is a “recombination of dharma.” With use of correct meditation the understanding of the knowledge becomes a personal experience. The main goal of the Buddha’s teachings is the full development the body, speech and mind.
Unlike Christianity and Islam, Buddhism doesn’t have the idea that God is creator and lord of the world. The Buddhism teachings call everyone to take the path for searching of inner freedom, and the full release from all bonds that brings life.

Sourses

Pilgrimage and Pilgrims – York University, http://www.york.ac.uk/projects/pilgrimage/index.html
Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism by Ellen Badone; Sharon R. Roseman; Anthropology through a Double Lens: Public and Personal Worlds in Human Theory by Daniel Touro Linger, Lynne S. McNeill, Western Folklore, (Fall, 2006), pp. 478-481, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474830
World Religions Today Text Book Companion Site, http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195365634/student/?view=usa
Buddhism – University of Wyoming, http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/religionet/er/buddhism/index.htm
Religion: Shape and Shadow, Michael Pye, (Jan., 1994), pp. 51-75, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3270413

Research Project

For my research project I want to write about Christianity the first century. I would like to know more beginnings of Christianity and about first followers. It will be very interesting to know since first Christians whether something has changed or not. For me it is remarkable to know how it all began.
Christianity has a lot of different rituals, but I want to talk about the one that in our time Christians do every month. It is Communion. The Bible gives a lot of details of this ritual. I took example from 1st Corinthians 11:23-26, “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” The Lord’s Supper is a form of proclamation. It is a symbolic expression of the fact and meaning of Christ’s death. It is very interesting and unlikely to our time, first Christians did it every day to support that and we can find a prove in Bible, in Acts 2:42, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” It is very important ritual in Christianity.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+11&version=NKJV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%202&version=NKJV

Ethnographic Notes : Women, Gender, and Religion

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Bible, Genesis 1:27

The word of gender is to distinguish between masculinity and femininity of the person. Also, gender   determines the behavior of him/her in society and how this behavior is perceived. Gender tactic is focused not only on women, but on men and women. This tactic makes a difference between men and women in everyday affairs, how they communicate and are expressed.  In addition, it is traditional and hierarchical views that determine the position of women and men in the family, community and society which through men usually dominate women.  For centuries, the doubt and disrespect towards women and the requirement of submission and obedience to the man in the whole religion was created to the rank of moral norms. For example, Christian and Muslim scholars say Eve responsible for all the people evils. Buddhism also believes a woman one of the most serious problems to the salvation. Women are forbidden to pray in mosques and synagogues along with the men, but for women, there are prayers specially enclosed off areas. In the past, any woman protested against religion humiliation turned round for their persecution, prison or a monastery. Social progress and related women freedom forced the church to rethink its traditional concept of the place and the position of women in society and the family. Many theologians seek a new way to explain the text of the Holy Scriptures that allowing the spiritual oppression and enslavement of women. For example, today the blame for original sin is divided equally between Adam and Eve. Also, scholars revise their relationship to the woman in the some special spheres of religion. Comparing women with men and even giving them preference in one area as in the service of God and diligence in prayer, the church imposes on women’s special responsibility to bring the younger generation to the religion. In my view, the position of modern women is much better than was before, but in some countries and some religions situation is same and is not well still.

B1) The Origins of Hinduism

Hinduism is the oldest national religion of India. Its origins are usually made to II-III century BC. Consequently, by the turn of a new era, this religion already had more than one thousand years of existence. At the same time, Hinduism, so far, remains of old well-known laws, the basics of life, and is offering a culture tradition to modern word that began at the dawn of history. By number of believers (there are more than 700 million), Hinduism is one of from most common religions in the world. His followers make up about 80 percent of India’s population. The followers of Hinduism live not only in India, but  in other countries as South and Southeast Asia, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, South Africa and other places. India has many religions and beliefs and including all of the world religions as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, nevertheless, it has been and remains a country of Hinduism. Around this religion, for centuries, was built Indian’s cultural, political and social unity. Hinduism is complex and contradictory, I can even say – confusion and chaotic.  There is still no satisfactory definition and even explanation what was attributed to Hinduism and what is the content and scope of this idea. By the way, Chakravarti, Sitansu S. give very interesting definition of Hinduism in his book Hinduism, a Way of Life, “Hinduism is a monotheistic religion which believes that God manifests Himself or Herself in several forms. One is supposed to worship the form that is most appealing to the individual without being disrespectful to other forms of worship.”

For several thousand years of its history Hinduism fills all spheres of the follower life: ideological, social, legal, behavioral, and so on; even deeply intimate life spheres. In this sense, Hinduism is not only and not so much a religion, but more as a way of life and behavioral standard. On the one hand it is a complex religious system, but from other view it is flexible and supply combines the opposite extremes and skillfully adapts to a variety of social and political conditions. Herewith, Hinduism is keeping the extraordinary variety, brightness and life. This religion being able to connect the unconnected, and translate into the strangest forms, it has an ability to generate new sects and movements. However, these sects don’t conflict with main ideological fundamental. As a result, Hinduism has a huge number of the gods worshiped by followers of this religion. Moreover, the character of Hinduism demonstrates not only the variety of cults, objects of worship and a plenty of myth-ritual complex, but also a very special relationship to other faiths. And opposite to the others religions Hinduism wasn’t known a single organization (for example: such as the Christianity).  

Although it is impossible to formulate a perfect definition of Hinduism and is common to all areas of the Hinduism doctrine, there are some beliefs which occupied a central place in Hinduism, and which can be considered as classic of Hinduism. First is Dharma that is moral and ethical responsibility and ethical obligations. Second is Samsara which is the cycle of birth and death. Followers believe in reincarnation of the soul after death in the bodies of animals, humans, or gods. Third is Karma that is belief to order rebirth which depends on life committed by the actions and their consequences. Next is Moksha which is liberation from the cycle of birth and death, samsara. And the last is Yoga in its various ways. However, the central to Hindu was and still is following the ancient traditions, and observance of the commands of ancestral ritual and behavioral norms that, according to legend, were ​​known from gods, alive in the myths and confirmed by the authority of the sacred texts.

B22) Hinduism and the News.

In my view it is very interesting article about Hinduism in our time. This article talks about celebration of Republic Day in India. Author of this article write that Hinduism in our time has become of way of life as culture life. That people only perform rituals that became a part of life as routine, everyday responsibility, but belief is gone.  I think it is very interesting to hear opinion about Hinduism and its followers from a representative of this faith.  

“On Republic Day, consider that India’s real split is between two Hinduisms” Shreya Sen-Handley, guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 January 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2013/jan/26/republic-day-india-two-hinduisms

Hinduism – Religious Studies Program, U. of Wyoming, http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/religionet/er/hinduism/index.htm

In my view, it would have been clearer about what is to be said, if first I define of word “religion.” Thus, religion is a special form of the world realization that based on the belief in the supernatural and includes a set of moral norms and behaviors, rituals, religious activities and to unite people in the organization ( like a church or religious community). Also, religion has the special important concepts such as good and evil, morality, meaning and purpose of life. At all times, starting from the first people to the present times, people believed in something. In ancient times was spread polytheism, which means belief in or worship of more than one god. However, the monotheism, which means belief in one god, more is spread in our time and it is characteristic of such religions as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and some other. I must say that religion has two aspects as the external that outside observer san see and the inside, which opens the believer who lives in accordance with the spiritual and moral principles of the religion. In our time almost all people can say that they religious persons, but just word it is not enough. In my view, it is not enough to be called a Christian(for example); you need to prove that by your life.

http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195365634/student/?view=usa