Riddle of the Desert Mummies

These are some of the pictures from the movie we watched in class. Enjoy!!

Assimilation of Chinese Traditions

             “Myth is a very important tool for constructing ethnicity, especially in traditional societies”. To my understanding the actual meaning of myth is basically a traditional story, concerning early history of people, which have been lead on from one generation to another.  When I was young, my Grandmother used to tell me many myths, which included supernatural beings and events that marked history.

It amuses me how people before our time used to believe things so easily without any solid evidence. Let us start of by talking about; Bret Hinsch’s essay “ Myth and the Construction of Foreign Ethnic Identity”. Here he talks about how early Historians categorized myths into to different version, which are native and Sinicised. His main focus was the manipulation of ethnic identity of the distinctive people of Xiong-nu, Xianbei, and Chaoxian for political and military reasons. The Chinese used this against foreign people to divert their thoughts psychologically and to control others. Using myths they mastered the manipulation of ethnic identities.

Through reading this I figured that Chinese people at that time were really sophisticated. Like, many Chinese would Sinicise the myths for foreign people and endowed them with primitive Chinese identity. This was their attempt to incorporate foreign people into their culture. One of the other reasons was to keep their enemies distant by asserting the scare factor. The cultural differences made China’s enemies seem incomprehensible and threatening.  One reaction to this subject was to tell stories that disparaged their opponents. These myths helped enforce Chinese supremacy. Sometimes they would assert myths that would actually do the opposite. Like they would tell myths that would cancel out the vast cultural difference, which helped to reduce the psychological pressure.

This reading was quite interesting and aroused many questions in my mind. It interests me in knowing, that how Chinese people used several techniques to assimilate their message to their audience. It was quite effective at that time as many people were not educated and sophisticated enough to judge the truthfulness of the message, received.

What Is Religion?

Religion is highly an infamous word to describe as it has different meanings to it. Religion can be described in many ways. It can be said to be the belief in something sacred or a moral code believed to have a supernatural basis .Religion can be broken up to three main factors which includes psychological, sociological and historical factors, which helps to understand and identify the concepts of religion in a broader perspective. Definitions of religion tend to suffer from one of two problems: they are either too narrow and exclude many belief systems which most agree are religious, or they are too vague and ambiguous, suggesting that just about any and everything is a religion.  An example of a narrow definition is seen when religion is described as a belief in God and a vague example would be is to consider religion as a worldview.

Religion has always been with us from the early ages till present day. It has taken the central place in the lives of many people across the globe. It is powerful and it shows no sign of disappearing. It incites commitment, expression, action, and intense debate. Furthermore, the essence of religion is really deep and overwhelming, which the practioners consider to be the divine or the absolute. Scholars usually set out to study the historical roots of the background of the people. According to scholars religions are complex enterprises that mix moral, metaphysical and historical affirmations. Most scholars start from the assumption that the beliefs and behaviours they examine are products of human thought, intention and emotion. Religious activity needs instead to be approached through humanistic categories. It is best understood when scholars apply to it the same rules of analysis, evidence and logic used in philosophy, history and literature

I belief that the exact definition of religion various from one person to another due to the fact that every person is unique in their own way, which basically means is that they have different beliefs and values, which helps in forming the true terminology of religion.