Comparative Religions & Primal Traditions-Free-Samples for Students

Questions: 1.Discuss with relevant examples these essential religious tradition components: Revelation Grace Verification Embodiment 2.Discuss with relevant examples the following primal traditions of one indigenous group in Malaysia and one indigenous group in Australia. Answers: Revelation Revelation is an important part of Christian theological practice. In the Christian revelation doctrine it is considered to be the basis of humans knowledge of God and churchs affirmations (Migliore, 2014). Literally revelation means Gods disclosure of his existence and will to his followers. Revelation is most prominent in the context of Jesus of Nazareths life, death and resurrection. On the other hand, in Judaist tradition, Gods disclosure is more personal in many occasions as seen in the Hebrew Scriptures (Hunt, 2017). Like in Genesis Gods Covenant with Abraham for disclosing is one such event. Grace Grace can be defined as Gods favor to those who do not deserve it and are not entitled to except any (Scott, 2015). Many religions have this theological concept of divine grace. Gods grace helps those undeserving souls to purify, regenerate virtuous impulses and offers them power to resist the immoral temptation. The followers believe that without Gods grace achieving salvation is impossible. Noahs story offers us a significant example of Gods grace in the Old Testament. The evil and sins of earthly creatures disheartened God so much that his regret of creating them encouraged him to destroy all the creatures. God chose Noah, though he was not a perfect to save the human kind from destruction: Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Andersen, 2015). Verification Vienna Circle from 1920s Logical Positivism movement developed the principle of Verification (Stadler, 2015). They believed in order to become meaningful religion has to be verified through mathematical or scientific principles. Verification evaluates a statement and proves its existential truth. So it can be considered by the verification principle that Gods existence is a factual truth. The verification method is popularly applied by the atheists in their denial of Gods existence. John Hick offers an effective metaphor regarding verification. The two men walking together gives them a similar experience, the believer sees it as the preparation but the one believed the road was leading towards nowhere finds the experience worthless. Embodiment Embodiment of God is largely believed and celebrated in Christian theology (Sigurdson, 2016). The theologicians believe that the human beings believe in disembodiment is capable of causing more violence, inequality and injustice. God has already proved his radical embodiment in the past. God embodied and made the humans realize the pure spiritual existence. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is considered to be the strongest Gods humanly presence on earth Primary tradition of Australian Aboriginals There are many significant indigenous communities in Australia. They follow their own unique customs, beliefs, rituals and tradition. The indigenous community Banaka of northwest Australia is one such community (Bates, 2014). Their concept of time is circular and dreaming has always been a big part of their cuture. They believe the civilization has been created from one man and woman. They call their creator as Gnurker. The four tribal names created from Gnurker are Boorung, Banaka, Kymera and Paljarri (Sacred-texts.com, 2017). Tarlow is a stone that is very precious to them which the master of the house keeps them in their homes if they are planning to produce children. The tarlow has been passing on to generation after generation. The head of the family from the Banaka community carry the Tarlow to the shrine along with other family members. The spot where they keep the stone should be kept secret, as they believe that if other communities come to know about the spot their spell wi ll be broken. So in this tradition of Australian indigenous community the presence of nature is prominent. They mostly depend on the animals for natural food. They organize an annual ceremony named Corroborie where every member from the community attends it. If any death occurs in the community they tend to follow a difficult ritual. They men and women throw run, throw themselves and hit beat their heads with Bulga. They lie on the body as they crave for the person to be alive again. The dead persons hair and preserve it. In every month when the moon reaches the same stage, they gather and moan for the dead and remember him. As they cannot count the time, they marke the time by the moon and identify seasons as different time period. They maintain few customs like refraining themselves from eating fish or Kangaroo meat till a certain period after death, which they call Chadgie. Few important festivals are Yeperenye Dreaming or barunga festival. Primary tradition of Malaysian Indigenous People The indigenous communities of Malaysia are called Orang Asli or natural people. The paganism or old native religion named Agama Asal is practiced by a large indigenous community of Malaysia (Liven, 2014). As any other primal indigenous community Agama Asal has strong deep rooted connection with nature and earth. The symbols of nature like trees, rivers, soil and creatures all possess life like any other human being. They believe that trees have spirits like human beings and they should be treated with equal care and respect as any human. They claim to understand and communicate with nature in a nonverbal language like the Dusun Tindai tribe. They practice their own customs like applying Wonod or water from a trees roots to heal physical diseases. The tree is generally surrounded by a big tree. Their traditional ritual is called Tombilon, where ceremony is for communicating with the Himbous as they possess healing power. The named natures most powerful spirit as Kinorohingan, in their native language it means God. Dream has a significant role in the rituals as the healer determines the causes of pain through the dreams. The society believes in collective ownership or Mitatabong, the harmony is given the most importance. The crops they grow is believed to be granted by the Himbous. The deep relationship with nature is expressed in every aspects of life. They also use stone tool for various purposes, curing and magical purpose are also there (Chauhan, Ozarkar Kulkarni, 2014). The crystal stone found in the roots of Chenduai plant is used to gain affection from someone. References Andersen, N. L. (2015). A Compensatory Spiritual Power for the Righteous.Brigham Young University Education Week devotional. Bates, D. (2014). Section III, 3a-Genealogies. Article on social organisation of some tribes of WA. Chauhan, P. R., Ozarkar, S., Kulkarni, S. (2014, December). Genes, Stone Tools, and Modern Human Dispersals in the Center of the Old World. InProceedings of the Symposium on the Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Palaeolithic Asia. November(pp. 94-113). Hunt, S. (Ed.). (2017).Judaism and Islam. Routledge. Livan, L. (2014).Native Religion in Malaysia: An Introduction Article 19.Article19.org. Retrieved 30 August 2017, from https://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37428/en/native-religion-in-malaysia:-an-introduction Migliore, D. L. (2014).Faith seeking understanding: An introduction to Christian theology. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Scott, R. S. (2015). Covenant, Kingship, Grace, Sacrifice, and Prophetism in the Old Testament.The Kabod,2(1), 5. Sigurdson, O. (2016).Heavenly Bodies: Incarnation, the Gaze, and Embodiment in Christian Theology. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Stadler, F. (2015). The Origins of Logical EmpiricismRoots of the Vienna Circle Before the First World War. InThe Vienna Circle(pp. 1-25). Springer International Publishing. The Customs and Traditions of the Aboriginal Natives of North Western Australia. (2017).Sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 30 August 2017, from https://www.sacred-texts.com/aus/cat/cat.htm