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Topic Review
Akhlaq
Akhlaq (Arabic: أخلاق) is the practice of virtue, morality and manners in Islamic theology and falsafah (philosophy).
  • 17.2K
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Luciferianism
Luciferianism is a belief system that venerates the essential characteristics that are affixed to Lucifer, the name of various mythological and religious figures associated with the planet Venus. The tradition, influenced by Gnosticism, usually reveres Lucifer not as the devil, but as a destroyer, a guardian, liberator, light bringer or guiding spirit to darkness, or even the true god as opposed to Jehovah.
  • 16.6K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization
Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization ("IVC") is a debated topic and remains a matter of speculation. If the Indus script is ever deciphered, this may provide clearer evidence. The first excavators of the IVC were struck by the absence of obvious temples or other evidence of religion, and there remain no examples of buildings generally agreed by scholars to have had a religious function, although some suggestions of religious use have been made. The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley people have received considerable attention, especially from the view of identifying precursors to deities and religious practices of Indian religions that later developed in the area. However, due to the sparsity of evidence, which is open to varying interpretations, and the fact that the Indus script remains undeciphered, the conclusions are partly speculative and many are largely based on a retrospective view from a much later Hindu perspective. Geoffrey Samuel, writing in 2008, finds all attempts to make "positive assertions" about IVC religions as conjectural and intensely prone to personal biases — at the end of the day, scholars knew nothing about Indus Valley religions. An early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu interpretations of archaeological evidence from the Harappan sites was that of John Marshall, who in 1931 identified the following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants; symbolic representation of the phallus (linga) and vulva (yoni); and, use of baths and water in religious practice. Marshall's interpretations have been intensely critiqued, and most of his specific details have failed to stand the test of time. Yet, claims Asko Parpola, Marshall's conclusions have been generally accepted. Contemporary scholars (most significantly, Parpola) continue to probe the roles of the IVC in the formation of Hinduism; others remain ambivalent of these results.
  • 16.3K
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Malthusianism
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, called a Malthusian catastrophe (also known as a Malthusian trap, population trap, Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian spectre, or Malthusian crunch) occurs when population growth outpaces agricultural production, causing famine or war, resulting in poverty and depopulation. Such a catastrophe inevitably has the effect of forcing the population (quite rapidly, due to the potential severity and unpredictable results of the mitigating factors involved, as compared to the relatively slow time scales and well-understood processes governing unchecked growth or growth affected by preventive checks) to "correct" back to a lower, more easily sustainable level. Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements, but almost always refers to advocates of population control. These concepts derive from the political and economic thought of the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, as laid out in his 1798 writings, An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus suggested that while technological advances could increase a society's supply of resources, such as food, and thereby improve the standard of living, the resource abundance would enable population growth, which would eventually bring the per capita supply of resources back to its original level. Some economists contend that since the industrial revolution, mankind has broken out of the trap. Others argue that the continuation of extreme poverty indicates that the Malthusian trap continues to operate. Others further argue that due to lack of food availability coupled with excessive pollution, developing countries show more evidence of the trap. A similar, more modern concept, is that of human overpopulation. Neo-Malthusianism is the advocacy of human population planning to ensure resources and environmental integrities for current and future human populations as well as for other species. In Britain the term 'Malthusian' can also refer more specifically to arguments made in favour of preventive birth control, hence organizations such as the Malthusian League. Neo-Malthusians differ from Malthus's theories mainly in their support for the use of contraception. Malthus, a devout Christian, believed that "self-control" (i.e., abstinence) was preferable to artificial birth control. He also worried that the effect of contraceptive use would be too powerful in curbing growth, conflicting with the common 18th century perspective (to which Malthus himself adhered) that a steadily growing population remained a necessary factor in the continuing "progress of society", generally. Modern neo-Malthusians are generally more concerned than Malthus with environmental degradation and catastrophic famine than with poverty. Malthusianism has attracted criticism from diverse schools of thought, including Marxists and socialists, libertarians and free market enthusiasts, feminists and human rights advocates, characterising it as excessively pessimistic, misanthropic or inhuman. Many critics believe Malthusianism has been discredited since the publication of Principle of Population, often citing advances in agricultural techniques and modern reductions in human fertility. Many modern proponents believe that the basic concept of population growth eventually outstripping resources is still fundamentally valid, and that positive checks are still likely to occur in humanity's future if no action is taken to intentionally curb population growth. In spite of the variety of criticisms against it, the Malthusian argument remains a major discourse based on which national and international environmental regulations are promoted.
  • 16.1K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Gender Fair Language
Gender fair language (GFL) is language used with the intention of reducing gender bias in one's mental representation, or mental understanding of an idea. Gender fair language includes gender-neutral (English singular they) and gender-inclusive language (English he or she). Feminization strategies of gender fair language use gender-inclusive language. Neutralization strategies of gender fair language use gender-neutral language. Some languages however are genderless rendering such strategies superfluous. Gender fair language focuses on grammatical gender, where gender is marked grammatically in the language. Gender fair language does not interact with gender noun classes, in which some languages categorize nouns. Gender fair language concerns grammatical gender marking on nouns that reference humans, where the gender marking is in accordance with the gender of the human. Gender marking occurs the most in gendered languages, like German, Spanish, and French, where all nouns are grammatically gendered. In these languages, gender fair language generally applies to nouns, pronouns, role nouns (e.g. German der Lehrer "teacher; m."), and possessive pronouns. Grammatical gender is also marked to a lesser extent in natural gender languages, like English and Swedish, in which animate referents are grammatically gendered according to their intrinsic gender. In these languages, gender fair language generally applies only to pronouns and possessive pronouns. Every language has its own method for grammatical gender marking, and thus gender fair language applies differently to each language to match its need.
  • 15.1K
  • 09 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Asian Sexual Fetishism
Asian sexual fetishism, sometimes called an Asian fetish, is a variety of sexual fetishism involving primary attraction to persons of Asian descent, especially East or Southeast Asian descent and to some extent South Asian descent. Sexual fetishism towards East Asians by people of other ethnicities is sometimes described by the derogatory term yellow fever.
  • 15.0K
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Pixar Universe Theory
The Pixar universe theory, or simply Pixar theory, proposes the existence of a "shared universe" in which every film that is created by Pixar takes place, sharing characteristics and an internal logic. Media discussion about a "Pixar Universe" has existed since at least 2003, and has been referred to in disparate sources such as SlashFilm, Washington Times, Reno Gazette-Journal, and MTV News. In To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, the companion book to documentary The Pixar Story, Karen Paik states that there are many internal references between various films in The Pixar Universe. In 2009, CityNews Toronto made comparisons between nine "Pixar Universe" films. In his 2013 thesis entitled "The Pixar Theory", Jon Negroni wrote that all fourteen Pixar movies released at the time took place in a single fictional universe. He acknowledges that the concepts behind his thesis were derived from an episode of the Cracked.com video series After Hours, written by Daniel O'Brien. In his post, Negroni discusses all of the films and how they relate in a timeline of events. The character of Boo in Monsters, Inc. is said to create a time loop, and consequently is the same character as the Witch in Brave. As Pixar released new movies, Negroni wrote new posts to fit each new plotline in the whole theory: in June 2015, he published an article on moviepilot.com and another one on his website explaining how Inside Out also fits into his theory; on December 3, 2015, he wrote another post expanding his theory to The Good Dinosaur and on June 17, 2016 another article explaining how the timeline encompasses Finding Dory as well. Negroni had also fit the Cars spin-off series, Planes, into the theory, even though it was not made by Pixar. The blog io9 described Negroni's work as "a crazy read, one that Negroni has been annotating as readers point to corrections or flaws in his theory. But even as a tinfoil hat theory, it makes some clever connections—and, of course, contains plenty of Pizza Planet trucks." Speaking in an informal 2013 interview, Cars "franchise guardian" Jay Ward rejected the idea that the films take place in the same universe, saying: "It's almost like the 9/11 conspiracy theories... it's like, really? No, the movies were sort of made in a different order by different directors in different times, in different places. It's cool that it all worked out that way, but it probably was not intentional." At the 2015 D23 Expo, during the "Pixar Secrets Revealed" panel, director Mark Andrews also rejected the theory, and Inside Out co-director Ronnie del Carmen said: "Do you know what kinds of meetings we'd have to have to make sure all our movies line up?!"
  • 14.9K
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" — which can be spelled a number of ways — is a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person in games such as tag. It is one of a large group of similar rhymes in which the child who is pointed to by the chanter on the last syllable is either "chosen" or "counted out". The rhyme has existed in various forms since well before 1820, and is common in many languages with similar-sounding nonsense syllables. Since many similar counting rhymes existed earlier, it is difficult to ascertain this rhyme's exact original.
  • 14.2K
  • 12 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Atheism in Hinduism
Atheism (Sanskrit: निरीश्वरवाद, nir-īśvara-vāda, lit. "statement of no Lord", "doctrine of godlessness") or disbelief in God or gods has been a historically propounded viewpoint in many of the orthodox and heterodox streams of Hindu philosophies. In Indian philosophy, three schools of thought are commonly referred to as nastika for rejecting the doctrine of Vedas: Jainism, Buddhism and Cārvāka. Hinduism is a religion, but also a philosophy. Among the various schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya, Yoga and Mimamsa while not rejecting either the Vedas or the Brahman, typically reject a personal God, creator God, or a God with attributes. While Samkhya and Yoga rejected the idea of an eternal, self-caused, creator God, Mimamsa argued that the Vedas could not have been authored by a deity. Though some schools of thought view the path of the atheist as difficult to follow in matters of spirituality, it is still a valid one. Hindu atheists accept Hinduism more as a "way of life" than a religion.
  • 14.1K
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Ifrit
Ifrit, also spelled as efreet and afrit (Arabic: ʻIfrīt: عفريت, pl ʻAfārīt: عفاريت), is a powerful type of demon in Islamic mythology. The afarit are often associated with the underworld and also identified with the spirits of the dead, and have been compared to evil geniī loci in European culture. In Quran, hadith and Mi'raj narrations the term is always followed by the phrase among the jinn. In later folklore, they developed into independent entities, identified as powerful demons or spirits of the dead who sometimes inhabit desolate places such as ruins and temples. Their true habitat is the underworld.
  • 13.2K
  • 22 Nov 2022
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