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Topic Review
Historical Reliability of the Gospels
The historical reliability of the Gospels refers to the reliability and historic character of the four New Testament gospels as historical documents. Some believe that all four canonical gospels meet the five criteria for historical reliability; and others say that little in the gospels is considered to be historically reliable. Almost all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Elements whose historical authenticity is disputed include the two accounts of the Nativity of Jesus, the miraculous events including the resurrection, and certain details about the crucifixion. According to the majority viewpoint the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, collectively referred to as the Synoptic Gospels, are the primary sources of historical information about Jesus and of the religious movement he founded. The fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, differs greatly from the first three gospels. Historians often study the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles when studying the reliability of the gospels, as Acts was seemingly written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke. Historians subject the gospels to critical analysis, attempting to differentiate, rather than authenticate, reliable information from possible inventions, exaggerations, and alterations. Since there are more than 15,000 New Testament manuscripts which present hundreds of thousands of textual variants, scholars use textual criticism to determine which gospel variants could theoretically be taken as 'original'. To answer this question, scholars have to ask who wrote the gospels, when they wrote them, what was their objective in writing them, what sources the authors used, how reliable these sources were, and how far removed in time the sources were from the stories they narrate, or if they were altered later. Scholars can also look into the internal evidence of the documents, to see if, for example, the document is misquoting texts from the Hebrew Tanakh, is making claims about geography that were incorrect, if the author appears to be hiding information, or if the author has made up a certain prophecy. Finally, scholars turn to external sources, including the testimony of early church leaders, writers outside the church (mainly Jewish and Greco-Roman historians) who would have been more likely to have criticized the early churches, and to archaeological evidence.
  • 13.0K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Kulam
Kulam or Barang are terms used for a kind of black magic, specifically a malevolent use of sympathetic magic, which is associated with Indigenous Philippine religions and practiced in the Philippines . Kulam has been present throughout the Philippines before the Spanish colonization. Today it is said to be centered in Pampanga, Talalora, Western Samar and Sorsogon, where many of the country's faith healers reside. Kulam also exists in many of the hinterlands, especially in Samar and Leyte, however, Kulam is known and occurs anywhere in the Philippines.
  • 13.0K
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Number of the Beast
The number of the beast (Greek: Ἀριθμὸς τοῦ θηρίου, Arithmos tou Thēriou), also known as The devil's number is a term in the Book of Revelation, of the New Testament, that is associated with the Beast of Revelation in chapter 13, verse 18. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of the Bible, the number of the beast is six hundred and sixty-six or χξϛ (the number not being representable by the repetition of 6 or ϛ three times – Greek for 6 is ϛ, but ϛϛϛ is not six hundred sixty-six). Papyrus 115 (which is the oldest preserved manuscript of the Revelation (As of 2017)), as well as other ancient sources like Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, give the number of the beast as χιϛ or χιc (transliterable in Arabic numerals as 616) (χιϛ), not 666; critical editions of the Greek text, such as the Novum Testamentum Graece, note 616 as a variant.
  • 12.7K
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Buddhism and Evolution
Evolution is not explicitly mentioned in the Tipitaka. As no major principles of Buddhism contradict it, many Buddhists tacitly accept the theory of evolution. Questions about the eternity or infinity of the universe at large are counted among the 14 unanswerable questions which the Buddha maintained were counterproductive areas of speculation. As such, many Buddhists do not think about these kinds of questions as meaningful for the Buddhist goal of relieving oneself and others from suffering. One does not need to know the origin of life in order to achieve enlightenment. Dalai Lama dismisses the element of randomness in the theory of evolution based on natural selection: Lopez elaborates that the process of Rebirth (into any of a large number of states of being including the human, any kind of animal and several types of supernatural being) is conditioned by karma (action of consciousness), which explains Dalai Lama's view. Buddhists believe the beginning of this world and of life is inconceivable since they have neither beginning nor end. Buddhists believe that the world was not created once upon a time, but that the world has been created millions of times every second and will continue to do so by itself and will break away by itself.
  • 12.0K
  • 05 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ali in the Quran
The majority of Islamic commentators do not believe that Ali ibn Abu Talib (Arabic: عَـلِي ابْـن أَبُـو طَـالِـب) is mentioned explicitly in the Quran. However, Shi'ite scholars and some Sunni scholars interpret many Quranic verses as referring to Ali. Shi'ite scholars also believe other Imams have been referred in the Quran. They believe Imams are referred to as "the signs of Allah, the way, the straight path, the light of Allah, the inheritors of the Book, the people of knowledge, the holders of authority and other such designations," Shi'ite sources state, Muhammad al-Baqir answers: "Allah revealed Salat to his Prophet but never said of three or four Rakats, revealed Zakat but did not mention to its details, revealed Hajj but did not count its Tawaf and the Prophet interpreted their details. Allah revealed this verse and Prophet said this verse is about Ali, Hasan, Husayn and the other Twelve Imams." Shi'ite scholars, thus, have argued that a quarter of Qur'anic verses are stating the station of imams. Such a view is rejected by Sunni scholars, who argue that some of these verses instead refer to the Quraysh or Muhammad's wives.
  • 11.8K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Catholic Church and Evolution
Early contributions to biology were made by Catholic scientists such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel. Since the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, the attitude of the Catholic Church on the theory of evolution has slowly been refined. For nearly a century, the papacy offered no authoritative pronouncement on Darwin's theories. In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that God created all things and that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces. (As of 2013), the Church supports theistic evolution(ism), also known as evolutionary creation, although Catholics are free not to believe in any part of evolutionary theory. The Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution, leaving the specifics of either theistic evolution or literal creationism to the individual within certain parameters established by the Church. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, any believer may accept either literal or special creation within the period of an actual six-day, twenty-four-hour period, or they may accept the belief that the earth evolved over time under the guidance of God. Catholicism holds that God initiated and continued the process of his evolutionary creation, that Adam and Eve were real people, and affirms that all humans, whether specially created or evolved, have and have always had specially created souls for each individual. Catholic schools in the United States and other countries teach evolution as part of their science curriculum. They teach the fact that evolution occurs and the modern evolutionary synthesis, which is the scientific theory that explains how evolution proceeds.
  • 11.5K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Moon Man (Internet Meme)
Mac Tonight is a fictional character used in the marketing for McDonald's restaurants during the mid-1980s. Known for his crescent moon head, sunglasses and piano-playing, the character used the song "Mack the Knife" which was made famous in the United States by Bobby Darin. Throughout the campaign, Mac was portrayed by actor Doug Jones in his fourth Hollywood job. Originally conceived as a promotion to increase dinner sales by Southern California licensees, Mac Tonight's popularity led McDonald's to take it nationwide in 1987. Although McDonald's ceased airing the commercials and retired the character after settling a lawsuit brought by Darin's estate in 1989, the company reintroduced the character nineteen years later throughout Southeast Asia in 2007.
  • 11.4K
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Guilt-shame-fear Spectrum of Cultures
In cultural anthropology, the distinction between a guilt society (or guilt culture), shame society (also shame culture or honor-shame culture), and a fear society (or culture of fear) has been used to categorize different cultures. The differences can apply to how behavior is governed with respect to government laws, business rules, or social etiquette. This classification has been applied especially to so called "apollonian" societies, sorting them according to the emotions they use to control individuals (especially children) and maintaining social order, swaying them into norm obedience and conformity. The terminology was popularized by Ruth Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, who described American culture as a "guilt culture" and Japanese culture as a "shame culture".
  • 11.3K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Pharmakon
Pharmakon, in philosophy and critical theory, is a composite of three meanings: remedy, poison, and scapegoat. The first and second senses refer to the everyday meaning of pharmacology (and to its sub-field, toxicology), deriving from the Greek source term φάρμακον (phármakon), denoting any drug, while the third sense refers to the pharmakos ritual of human sacrifice. A further sub-sense of pharmakon as remedy which is of interest to some current authors is given by the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek–English Lexicon as "a means of producing something". In recent philosophical work, the term centers on Jacques Derrida's "Plato's Pharmacy", and the notion that writing is a pharmakon. Whereas a straightforward view on Plato's treatment of writing (in Phaedrus) suggests that writing is to be rejected as strictly poisonous to the ability to think for oneself in dialogue with others (i.e. to anamnesis), Bernard Stiegler argues that "the hypomnesic appears as that which constitutes the condition of the anamnesic"—in other words, externalised time-bound communication is necessary for original creative thought, in part because it is the primordial support of culture. Michael Rinella has written a book-length review of the pharmakon within a historical context, with an emphasis on the relationship between pharmakoi in the standard drug sense and the philosophical understanding of the term. Adrian Mróz, a Polish-American philosopher and musician, analyses its application to art and argues that pharmakon is any physical, mental, or behavioral object which can cut (techne). In other words, pharmaka are agential and responsible for changes in consciousness.
  • 11.2K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Thelema
Thelema (/θəˈliːmə/) is a social or spiritual philosophy derived from Western esotericism. The word thelema is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun θέλημα (pronounced [θélɛ:ma]), "will", from the verb θέλω (ethélō): "to will, wish, want or purpose". While Thelema is most often regarded as a religion it is also often called a philosophy. Thelema was developed in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley, an English writer, mystic, and ceremonial magician. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a spiritual experience that he and his wife, Rose Edith, had in Egypt in 1904. By his account, a possibly non-corporeal or "praeterhuman" being that called itself Aiwass contacted him through Rose and dictated, through Rose, a text known as The Book of the Law or Liber AL vel Legis, which outlined the principles of Thelema. The Thelemic pantheon—a collection of gods and goddesses who either literally exist or serve as symbolic archetypes or metaphors, depending on one's viewpoint—includes a number of deities, primarily a trio adapted from ancient Egyptian religion, who are the three speakers of The Book of the Law: Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Crowley described these deities as a "literary convenience". The religion is founded on the idea that the 20th century marked the beginning of the Aeon of Horus, in which a new ethical code would be followed: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law". This means that adherents of Thelema should seek out and follow their true path, i.e. their True Will. The philosophy also emphasizes the ritual practice of Magick. As Crowley developed the religion, he wrote widely on the topic, as well as producing more "inspired" writings that he collectively termed The Holy Books of Thelema. He also associated Thelemic spiritual practice with concepts rooted in occultism, yoga, and Eastern and Western mysticism, especially the Qabalah. Aspects of Thelema and Crowley's thought in general inspired the development of Wicca and, to a certain degree, the rise of Modern Paganism as a whole, as well as chaos magick and Satanism. Some scholars, such as Hugh Urban, also believe Thelema to have been an influence on the development of Scientology, but others, such as J. Gordon Melton, deny any such connection.
  • 11.2K
  • 20 Oct 2022
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