Asceticism

The Neolithic agricultural revolution occurred when hunter-gatherers learned how to farm crops and it changed women and men daily lives. The Neolithic agricultural revolution did not suddenly occur, Pathologic hunters and gathers had already grown crops to supplement their traditional source of food. “The Mesolithic Age was when there was a transition from a food-gathering and hunting economy to food-producing one. Systemic agriculture developed independently in different areas of the world.” (p…

A common definition of religion is a set of beliefs that is held by a group of people. A primary definition of religious which is available in standard dictionaries reads something like “of, concerned with, or teaching religion,” and this is what people normally mean when they say things like “Christianity is a religious belief system”. The terms religion and religious clearly originate from a similar root and one would think that it means the same, one as a thing and other as a descriptive word…

Rhamses Lo English-1 Orwell: Human Imperfection and Sainthood There are many different ways to live life. This much is known with no uncertainty. How each individual chooses to live life; however, is the real question that one must ponder in one’s journey. One’s decision not only affects one’s own journey, but the courses of others as well. In the passage from George Orwell’s remark about Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Orwell criticizes Gandhi’s values and…

Introduction The Life of St. Antony by Athanasius was a very important book to the Christian Byzantines and was continuously read throughout the early Christian world. It was a biography that was also held up as a model of the ideal life in the Byzantine civilization. The author himself, St. Athanasius, was a man that would have preferred the monastic lifestyle, but was an important and influential man in the church and therefore, contrary to his wishes, had to live among the people. This…

Jainism is an ancient religion from India that emphasizes complete nonviolence and asceticism. It is a religion that basically teaches a path to spiritual purity and enlightenment through a disciplined mode of life founded upon the tradition of ahimsa, nonviolence to all living creatures. People who fallows Jainism care called Jains and there are about 4 million Jains worldwide. Jainism emerged in 6th century BCE India, the same time Buddhism was developing. Beginning in the 6th century BCE,…

“The two most important reformers were the patriarch St. Basil of Caesarea (329-379 C.E.) in Byzantium and St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547 C.E) in Italy. Both men prepared regulations for monasteries that provided for mild but not debilitating asceticism combine with meditation and work on behalf of the church (p.344).” One of the main reasons for…

Nirvana refers to the dousing or extinguishing of a fire in general terms. In ancient India, their people had a tradition to smother the fires before anyone commenced the voyage of renunciation and asceticism (Jayaram, 2017). In spiritual meanings, Nirvana indicates the conclusion of a severe undertaking. The meaning introduces the condition of imaginary, inappropriate, and absence influenced by the obliteration of coexistence, along with identification at the completion of an extended and…

pictures (Elwell 1: 55). Hill simplifies the definition by saying, “allegory says one thing but conveys a deeper or hidden meaning” (472). Why would such an approach be taken? For early Christians, viewing the book literally would be contrary to the asceticism that they encouraged, where total abstinence from intercourse was deemed virtuous (Longman 294). Three predominant allegorical approaches emerged due to this slant. First, many viewed the book from an ecclesiological perspective, meaning…

suggesting that we would “rather will nothingness than not will...” (97-98). In Neitzsche’s first observation, this refers to the radical aspect of an engagement with the “chastity” of an artist, Richard Wagner – whose leap to the other end (to asceticism) is only a change of sense, meaning that an artist like Wagner embraced chastity in the old age is merely an influential change caused by Schopenhauer (101-102) .…

Each individual strives to find their true purpose and happiness in life, entailing various meanings within each person. In the novel Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse, the main character is aware that he has yet to reach his full potential, as set by his own standards, leading him to put everything he knows behind him in order to obtain his true purpose and happiness. While searching for truth, enlightenment, and Nirvana, both the people he meets and the obstacles he faces become lessons…