Let me Know what you guys think

[Timber Loftis]

Let me suggest some possible examples of how geography affects religion.

1. Greece mythology moved to its nearby neighbors, such as Rome. For a religion to spread historically, geographic proximity was a very important factor. Sometimes, this is not true, as in the case of the Norse, who spread their mythology to some pretty scattered places, as the people travelled vast distances considering their time period.

2. A religion may change when it moves geographically/culturally. As an example, early Christian efforts to spread the religion to the east were accomplished by making Christianity and its lessons sound a bit more like the local religions, fables, or beliefs. For instance, one of the decannonized New Testament works is the Gospel of Thomas, found at Nag Hamadi. In it, there are several statements that sound very similar to Zen or Taoist sayings. In researching a term paper for this, I found reference to Thomas the Twin, who Jesus sent to the East to spread the religion. My hypothesis was that Thomas, needing to convey the teachings of Christ to the people of the Orient, stated the teachings in such a way as to be more familiar to the people. My paper, which I did sometime around 1993-94 (and would therefore need to be updated research-wise) went on to line up several passages from the text of The Gospel of Thomas (which is incomplete, of course, being only found at Nag Hamadi) with the Tao te Ching to show parallelism. It was a very neat exercise for me, and I enjoyed finding this out very much. If you like, I'll dig up the paper, which I probably still have on my computer. Just ask.

[Timber Loftis]

Religion's affects on geography and culture.

1. Culture. This is easy. Look to modern-day Vietnamese Catholics. A new religion came into the culture, and changed many of the culture's values. This has happened time and time again all over the world.

2. Geography. The example I can think of is that of war or opposition due to religion. This occurs throughout history as well -- the Crusades were an effort to liberate the holy land. In a more attenuated example, the war in Iraq resulted from Muslim Fundamentalist agression, so it in a sense is a change due in part to religion, too.

Note that these examples are regarding political geography. I can't think of any examples where religion would change physical geography. Except maybe one. Capitalism grew out of the Protestant Work Ethic identified by Max Weber. The industrial revolution and enlightenment grew out of capitalism. In the industrial age, it became possible to re-route rivers, carve faces into mountainsides, and basically remake physical geographical surroundings as we see fit, if we have the patience, dollars, and wherewithall to do it. This is a streeeeeeetch as far as I'm concerned, but I was trying to think of something.

[Maelakin]

Timber,

I think when referring to geography in this case, it is geographical location and the inherent culture of that location.

I suppose by those standards, one instance of geographical location having an effect on religion would be when Moses lead his people out of Egypt.

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Erin 13: Shesh, Not sure I know what I got myself into. It sounds like you must have alot of ppl making stuff up on this forum. For one person to ask "substantiate the claims" is one thing. But. WOW! alot of ppl do. I really was just looking for some help and some more examples. The paper is an informative paper on the effects religion has on geolograpy and the effects geograpy have on religion. This subject was mandated by our professor. Not like I choose it ( however I do think it is interesting. ) Everything I posted was just thoughts typed out, or "brainstorming" as someone cried that I call it. But whatever. At any rate all the data in the post can be found in both: Theology for Beginners by Francis Joseph Sheed and Basic Theology by Charles Caldwell Ryrie I am not going back into each book to find the exact pages either. Your lucky I even went back to find the books. I haven't looked, but I am sure you can all cross reference the data in Brittanica Encyclopedia or the Encarta Encyclopedia. For the guy who thinks I am not even a theology major. I take classes at University of Illinois - Chicago. And I am still as student so I don't presume to know it all, but I am in 200 and 300 level classes for theology. Well for those who added constructive advise: Thank you. To those who welcomed me: Thank you. For those who asked me to defend myself or decided to pick appart the notes with out offering any constructive advice: Please do something better with your time. Was just looking for more examples : (

People asked you to substantiate your claims because, as I'm sure you are aware, that is what you HAVE to do in a paper. I sincerely hope your comment about not going back to the books to find the exact pages was only referring to here for this thread and not your paper, or you'll soon be learning a pretty costly lesson in the importance of referencing when you hand in your paper. People don't often 'make stuff up' - there is simply an understanding that if evidence is cited and claims made, other members can check their veracity. Much like in life. I imagine those members who asked you to cite your sources were merely concerned that you were planning to hand in a paper with a bunch of points that you found in the literature and did not acknowledge.

Anyway good luck with your paper. However instead of asking people on a forum for more examples, I would recommend doing some more research of your own. Two books is really not enough for a substantial argument to be made. And while you say you're not making any claims or making any points - you must! Your thesis will either be religion and geography interact with each other, and here's why, or they do not, and here's why.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Erin 13: It sounds like you must have alot of ppl making stuff up on this forum. For one person to ask "substantiate the claims" is one thing. But. WOW! alot of ppl do. We simply want to see you succeed. For the guy who thinks I am not even a theology major. I take classes at University of Illinois - Chicago. And I am still as student so I don't presume to know it all, but I am in 200 and 300 level classes for theology. You'd be surprised by what I've seen, both here and in the off-line world. Namely, I have seen other people pretend to be something they aren't. Based on what I was reading in your post, it seemed as if you had an anti-religious bias; I apologize if my sometimes cautiously skeptical nature misread your writing. Well for those who added constructive advise: Thank you. To those who welcomed me: Thank you. For those who asked me to defend myself or decided to pick appart the notes with out offering any constructive advice: Please do something better with your time. Your instructors will ask you to defend yourself, especially if you compose a thesis for graduation, whether at the Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctorate level. They will be much more "nit-picky" than I could ever be.

At this point, I realize that Judith Martin must be tapping her foot rather impatiently at me. How rude of me to ignore common courtesy...

Welcome to Ironworks, Erin 13. [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img] Don't let my less-than-personable first impression drive you away. Azred hands himself a yellow card, sits down, and shuts up.

[Faceman]

Joining in rather late, sorry.
1. a little nitpick: The Grimm brothers didn't create fairy tales. They simply collected and edited folk tales/fairy tales. So the Grimm's fairy tales are a collection of folk tales, published by the Grimm brothers.
On another sidenote: The main opus of the Grimm brothers never were their fairy tales. They wrote the first comprehensive German dictionary, which is in fact their greatest achievement. The fairy tales only made them popular, but this makes them important scientists.

2. For a very modern example of religions effect on geography try the separation of India and Pakistan. This was made purely out of religous reasons.

[Stratos]

A little late as well, but...

Welcome to Ironworksforum, Erin 13!

Erin, perhaps you should narrow down the paper to a single question or a selected few. Religion is already a huge topic as it is. As several people already mentioned, you need an outline and a thesis to follow or a question to be answered. To put it simply, you need a reason to write this paper other than that your teacher told you so.

Even religions effect on geography is a fairly large topic. Perhaps you should narrow it down to a specific area, there's bound to be enough material even on that. HOW did religion affect the area and WHY are good questions to answer.

Again, arguments or questions are essential for a paper or essay since those are the very reasons you write them. You should have those figured out before you start looking for information and material, otherwise you'll drown in the sheer amount of info. You can always change/modify them later if you need to.

Good luck!

[khazadman]

Some of your assumptions are wrong. Christianity did not cause the fall of the Roman Empire, the Empire was doomed from the start, as are all empires. Look at the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, French, and British Empires. They fell, not because of religion, but because they met a stronger group (like Egypt falling to Rome), or from political changes within (the British Empire). After all, the Roman Empire went on in the east with Christian rulers for hundreds of years after the collapse in the western regions.

[ 11-16-2003, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: khazadman ]

sorry, i dont mean to chase this off-topic a bit (but that rarely stops me)... khazadman, i thought the british empire went into decline because they overstretched their foreign affairs relative to their economic ability to sustain the efforts. i always thought the political change was in response to that circumstance (which they got themselves into, of course...)...?

[Timber Loftis]

And, where exactly is Erin? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]