Pyre

The Murder Methods of Nazi Germany In 1933 when Nazi Germany came into power, the Jewish population was over 9 million. By 1945 nearly two out of every three Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust. This methodical genocide targeted mainly the Jewish population, but also the Gypsies, the disabled and some Slavic people. Various other groups were targeted because of political, religious and behavioral grounds such as Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. The German…

Social hierarchy is the arrangement of people in a society into groups. It is present in all societies in some form, and multiple religions detail societal hierarchy. Two such religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, have many followers (Buddhism has 440 million, Hinduism has 1.6 billion), but despite both having high numbers, they have varying views on social hierarchy. In Hinduism, there is a caste system detailing societal roles, contrasted in Buddhism with no caste system. However, both religions…

Phaedrus believed that Love was the eldest of the Gods, and that made him the mightiest. His viewpoint on love is that when a person falls in love he/she should do anything to make the object of their love happy. I still believe that his theory on love can be applied to the modern day, now more so than before. As Phaedrus explains, Chaos is the only god that is older than Love. That makes sense because after Chaos, Love is needed to get things back on track. The world now is full of…

loved someone else. Deianira tried to use the love potion to renew Hercules’ devotion to her, but the potion hurt him and Deianira committed suicide out of shame. At that point, Hercules decided life was not worth living and had others make a funeral pyre for him. He was killed, but reconciled with Hera in heaven and married her daughter Hebe. As long as human nature allows people to act without thought, horrible acts will happen, but so will repentance and forgiveness for those…

Sikhism is over five centuries old and is followed by over 20 million people worldwide—making it the fifth largest religion in the world. Despite this, it rarely gets any attention here in America, even though there is an estimated 78,000 Sikh adults living here, in America. Sikhism is often described as a mixture of Islam and Hinduism, because it shares many similar traits to both, but many things also make it unique to both religions. Sikhism began over five hundred years ago in present-day…

succumb to ritualistic activities and blindly follow tradition. Whether it be as simple as the celebration of Christmas, which has lost its anti-materialistic nature, or more sinister practices like Sati, a woman immolating herself on her husband’s pyre. What’s even more so, is the idea that a contemporary, democratic America could participate in an activity like the latter. In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, she exaggerates with the concept of how America could divulge in a sacrificial ritual,…

The Cultural Meaning of Suicide: What Does That Mean addresses the differences in a culture view on suicide. Suicide is viewed as a worldwide phenomenon and that one culture view on suicide behavior can be interchangeable with another’s. For instance, martyrs and suicides could be the same the only difference is the perspective of the individual viewing the act. As suicide bombers are martyrs in many Muslim nations instead of what the name suggests. There needs to be more research into the view…

“The Modern Massacre” The Lottery is as straightforward with the century it takes place in as it was for the location. So again, the reader has to stitch together bits of information to find that the time the story is in, is the mid-twentieth century. There is the section that mentions the “coal company” Mr. Summers owns. Coal was of utmost importance in the mid-twentieth century because of the massive energy needs for World War II and trains. Both were big interests in the 50’s. Jackson also…

Hoax; a humorous or malicious deception. What is a hoax? Most people believe them to be harmless acts of idiocy such as the belief in Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster. Though these are obvious examples, many critics believe the Holocaust was a hoax, but certain documents and medical autopsies prove that the genocide of over 6 million Jews was real. It is a proven fact that at one time, well over 40,000 concentration camps were in use for the execution and/or malnourishment of well over a…

EZ Trojan Horse is a mythological tale about the Trojan War regarding a military strategy utilized by the Greeks to breach Troy and ultimate force the island nation into capitulation. After a decade of stalemates and fruitless sieges, the Greeks decide to create a giant wooden horse and give it to the Trojans as a symbol of defeat and a monument for Athena. The horse, conceived of by Odysseus, is built in a mere three days. However, unbeknownst to the Trojans, a skilled force of warriors is…