‘Culture, Tradition and Religion’ Archives
Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic Interactionism, is that people learn about themselves from other people. Although to some extent this is certainly true, a literature review by Shrauger and Schoeneman (1979) found that self-appraisals were only weakly correlated with how the person was perceived by others. On the other hand, strong correlations [...]
Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam is an American black Muslim anti-integrationist and black supremacist organization with origins in the 1960s civil rights movement. Well-known adherents have included Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali. Founding texts from the 1930s are W.D.Fard’s The Secret Rituals of the Nation of Islam and Teaching For the Lost [...]
Jainism
Jainism According to tradition, Mahavira, the founder of the Jain religion, was born in the state of Bihar in India in 599 BC. Jainism therefore has as great a claim to antiquity as Buddhism and there are similarities between the two religions. Jainism is an austere, non-theistic religion, its central tenet being non-violence, practised in an [...]
Life on the American Frontier
Life on the American Frontier Life on the American Frontier, daily life in the new settlements that formed as the United States expanded west to the Pacific Ocean, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and north to Alaska. The westward movement across the continent began during the colonial era in the 1600s and continued into the 1900s. Although each [...]
Macaulay
Macaulay Macaulay was a publishing company based in New York City, which was probably founded around 1909. The earliest documentation of its existence is from 1909: an advertisement for Hornor Cotes’s novel of the Civil War, The Counterpart. Macaulay specialized in histories, poetry, criticism, literary translations, and inexpensive popular [...]
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Jehovah’s Witnesses The Jehovah’s Witnesses are a religious sect that originated in the USA in 1872. They regard the return of Christ as imminent, after which the world will be theocratically governed and consist only of the 144,000 of the faithful; however, the elect will be chosen to reign with Christ in heaven. Jehovah’s Witnesses take [...]
Ethics and Religion
Ethics and Religion Ethical principles often have their base in religious doctrine. In several religions, a creator or supreme being is believed to have dictated ethical principles. For people of ancient civilizations, the idea of an omnipotent, supernatural deity who could destroy them may have been a stabilizing threat— more stabilizing, [...]
Intermarriage in Judaism
Intermarriage in Judaism Intermarriage, or what anthropologists term exogamy, occurs when individuals from two different religious, ethnic, or racial groups marry. The relationships between love, intermarriage, and religion have a long and complicated history, especially in the case of Jews and Judaism. The classic Biblical prohibition of [...]
Religious Phenomena and the Neurosciences
Religious Phenomena and the Neurosciences Modern neuroscientific research offers the greatest promise for dealing with religious phenomena by the methods of science. Medical researchers Andrew Newberg, Eugene d’Aquili, and Vince Rause have discussed the issue of religious transformation in the context of seven cognitive operators in the human [...]
Cultural Transmission
Cultural Transmission Regardless of the amount of knowledge and its value, a core of knowledge, for example the shared language, is required to maintain the cohesiveness of the society, and the rules of participation need to be passed on to future members. This cultural transmission occurs through a process of enculturation, including [...]
