Aleha Havlinek
30 April 2013
HST 210
Pluralism, Syncretism and Black Robe In the United States different religions came from all directions and in many different forms. The ways in which each religion manifested itself once coming to the United States, however, varies greatly. We can identify conversions, religious conquests, syncretism, creative adaptations, and assimilations across the board in terms of religions in the New World. It is through these five methods that the history of our current religions can be traced and analyzed in their founding stages in the United States. Historians talk about Deism today because of its implications on our country’s founding fathers beliefs and the Declaration of Independence. Deists believed that there was a God or Creator, but that his role was to watch and not intervene, not have relationship with humans, that the bible contains only untrue stories that capture wise things from wise people and that Jesus was simply a good moral teacher. The Deists beliefs came from Thomas Paine’s travels through Europe. They eventually became a common belief amongst those who attended university. This is widely due to the fact that Deism is a religion that at the time was only taught in university education or was common amongst economic or political elite, and therefore those who were Deists were said to be part of the elite system of thought. For this aspect alone, I would consider this to be a form of conversion. It is impressed upon students that what they learn at university is absolutely true. Therefore since Deism was something that was supported and taught in the university higher education system, it acted as a form of conversion for those who were economically or politically elite and/or attending university. I think that had it have been approached differently, there could have been a different response, and at the time the United States needed those who were higher in societal ranking to have the basis that Deism provided in order to attract the public eye. In the southern areas of the United States there were many small Native American villages that rooted themselves amongst the present day California, New Mexico and Arizona regions. They were commonly known as the Pueblo people and they had a very precise layout for their sacred places and villages. Their tribes were positioned in a circular fashion with the sacred place and religious leaders in the center, known as the Kiva, and moving outward were the women and the children followed by the young men who were the protectors of the Pueblo society. However the Spanish Franciscan Catholics who later came to these Native American tribes, completely inverted the Pueblo societal systems by changing cultural customs to function oppositely. For this reason, I believe that this transformation from particular Pueblo societies into Spanish Franciscan mission towns adequately illustrates religious conquest. More specifically, in creating these mission towns and overturning the system, they replaced the Kiva (typically underground) with a church (typically above ground), they switched male and female roles in society and they turned their prayer sticks into crosses; just to name a few. These actions were done in interest to conquer the Pueblo system and put Franciscan religious practices into play instead. In this sense they were crippling the Pueblo tribes, and forcing a foreign religion on them. In the novel “Black Robe” by Justin Moore, a group of French Jesuit missionaries are living amongst a Huron tribe who they hope to eventually convert to their belief system. Father Laforgue, a devoted missionary at the beginning of his journey to another Huron tribe, experiences numerous events that transform his ways of thinking. At the end of the novel, he strays from his principle beliefs at the beginning of the novel. With his new Huron village rapidly dying from a disease, Father Laforgue finds himself being
Religious pluralism is the idea of different religious views coexisting in society. Religious pluralism is something that is a part of everyday life. It affects us as we attend school, work, or other functions. We live in a society where there are many religions, faiths, and beliefs amongst different people that attend school, work and other functions. We must take into consideration that everyone does not have the same religious beliefs and ideas. This must be considered so that no one gets offended…
Worldview Inventory There are many different meanings to the word spirituality. Spirituality can be defined in several different ways, as it pertains to different worldviews. Throughout this paper we will look at and discuss worldview as it related to pluralism, scientism, and postmodernism. Worldviews have been known to be a matter of the heart. Every person has a world view, “A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions…
Majoritarianism v. Pluralism Joel Lopez Throughout the course of history in the United States a debate has waged on between the Majoritarian Model and the Pluralist Model of governing the land. Some would say that the majoritarian model can be connected similarly to what the classic stereotypical democracy looks like; with the pluralist model being developed in order to give reason for how democracy would still be functional with limited mass political interest and/or participation. In short, a…
Phoenix Diversity in the United States The information about diversity in the US has only opened my eyes. I have been living in the US for the past many years but I failed to notice that there are so many people belonging to different cultures and religions who ;live here together in unison (Waters, 2006). This amazes me and I feel that I respect the people around me all the more in that learning about the history of different immigrant minorities has convinced me that these people have as much the…
Chicago-Kent Law Review Volume 66 Issue 1 Symposium on Classical Philosophy and the American Constitutional Order Article 8 January 1990 Pluralism and Modernity Lawrence B. Solum Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Lawrence B. Solum, Pluralism and Modernity, 66 Chi.-Kent. L. Rev. 93 (1990). Available at: http://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol66/iss1/8 This Article is brought…
In his chapter Pluralism, Neo-liberalism and Media Policy, author Des Freedman presents two frames for conceptualising media policy – pluralism and neo-liberalism. Citing scholars such as Humphreys and Baker, the text acknowledges there are other conceptual frameworks with which to view media policy, but lauds pluralism and neo-liberalism for their capacity to explain the climate’s fixation on the free market (Freedman 2008, pp.24). Freedman offers theoretical and historic analysis of these both…
language and laws. A certain degree of Anglo-conformity is required not only for general social acceptance but also for citizenship. Another type of society is a pluralist society. It can either be an equalitarian society or inequalitarian. Cultural pluralism means that smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities and their values and practices are accepted by the dominant culture provided they are consistent with the laws and values of that society. In a pluralist…
Scholars try to distinguish between and identify different non-democratic political systems from the past. The 20th century ideologies (or as many scholars say political religions) used by the totalitarian regimes were chosen wisely by leaders; fascism was something new that united nations (everybody could identify with their own) and did not divide them by class like the old interest ideas (Arendt 6). On the other hand communism unified classes (manufacture and agricultural workers) to break away…
Brett Dunkley PHIL 193-02 Ch13 Religion in the 21st century Due 5/6 2. Globalization is the process of mixing together people from different regions which were once isolated from each other. Secularism is the process of people breaking away from their beliefs. Both of these ideas have made an impact on religion or perhaps the other way around. Religious conflict had arose from people because of the mixture of beliefs and the fact that they were co inhabiting with their religious enemies…
Pluralists, Marxists, Feminists and Postmodernists. Postmodernist Lyotard, for example, talks about science as a ‘metanarrative’ or a ‘big story’ which, according to postmodernists, makes them untrustworthy. Postmodernity discusses both ideology and religion in the same way; they are simply view of life and\or history. There is little difference, therefore, between the functions of scientific theories, religious doctrines and political ideologies; they provide untrustworthy ‘big stories’ for society…