scholarly journals Christian Platonism and the Debate about Afterlife

Scrinium ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 242-260
Author(s):  
Dirk Krausmuller
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Christian Platonism ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

In the sixth and seventh centuries the belief in an active afterlife and its corollaries, the cult of the saints and the care of the dead, came under attack by a group of people who claimed that the souls could not function without their bodies. Some defenders of the traditional point of view sought to rebut this argument through recourse to the Platonic concept of the self-moved soul, which is not in need of the body. However, the fit between Platonism and traditional notions of the afterlife was not as complete as might first be thought. This article focuses on two Christian thinkers, John of Scythopolis and Maximus the Confessor, who were deeply influenced by Platonic ideas. In his Scholia on the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius John states clearly that after death the souls of ordinary human beings are inactive whereas the souls of the spiritual elite have entered the realm of eternal realities, which is entirely separate from this world. The case of Maximus is more complex. One of his letters is a spirited defence of the posthumous activity of the soul. However, in his spiritual writings he outlines a conceptual framework that shows a marked resemblance to the position of John of Scythopolis.


Matrifilia – scriitura ca limbaj afectiv

Transilvania ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
Diana Ilie
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Female Authors

This study aims to depict women’s authorship and their contribution to literature, while taking into consideration the genesis of female identity at the intersection between motherhood and feminism. I intend to do a neo-feminist exploration of the collective volume “Povești cu scriitoare și copii” [Stories with Women Writers and Children], coordinated by Alina Purcaru, an example of writing the self using poetry and affection – in other words, l’écriture féminine. Given the fact that the main goal of this study is the investigation of motherhood, while focusing on specific issues such as the body, agency, autonomy, alterity, and their relation to the patriarchal norms, the result is a compassionate approach to writing from the point of view of female authors. To create and procreate become the epitome of this study, in a field ever so dynamic as the ethics of birth and literature.

An Islamic Conceptual Framework of a Well-balanced Personality

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Nik Rosila Nik Yaakob
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Spiritual Development ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Curriculum Content ◽  
Human Personality ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge

The aim of this article is to highlight a conceptual framework of a well-balanced personality in the light of an Islamic point of view. The article begins with an explanation on the nature of human beings as the underlying concept on which the entire assumption of human personality is based. Further discussion will focus on the types of personality ‒ that is, nafs al-ammārah, nafs al-muţmainnah, and nafs al-lawwāmah. In this regard, the spiritual development process is about thecontinuous effort of the animal soul to subordinate itself to the power of the rational soul.1 Meanwhile, the educational process ‒ in particular, its methods and the curriculum content ‒ is discussed as an element of intervention in developing good personality traits. The exposition of this article’s writing is derived from scholarly and original sources of knowledge ‒ that is, the Holy Qur’ān and the tradition of the Prophet (ṢAAS), as well as the writings of Muslim scholars to verify and elucidate some of the relevant matters.

scholarly journals Vormt moderne antropologie een probleem voor het Christelijk geloof?

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luco J. Van den Brom
Keyword(s):  
Social Insects ◽  
Physiological State ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Communion Of Saints ◽  
Theory Of Everything

Does modern anthropology pose a problem to the Christian faith? Contemporary scientific anthropology proposes a naturalistic conception of human personhood because of humankind’s place somewhere in the larger evolutionary process of life. Some authors use the theory of biological evolution to explain phenomena in other areas as well, and due to its success suggest it has universal application in cultural and religious studies too, as if it were a theory of everything. Darwin’s idea of a common origin of all life undermined a supposed superiority of humankind. It signalled the end of an Aristotelian metaphysical notion of classification and constituted a real blow for classical individualistic anthropology. Dawkins explains religion in terms of empirical immanent biological processes in the human brain. He views religious ideas as ‘memes’ that act like an infectious virus in mental processes. His hypothesis seems to be a relapse into the old Aristotelian pattern. Michael Persinger interprets religion as an internal physiological state of an individual brain and reduces the language of mental concepts to physiological states of a material brain. Persinger’s, and also Dennett’s, materialistic view presupposes a God’s Eye Point of View as an Archimedian perspective outside the world. If a God exists, the neurologists Newberg and d’Aquili argue that he needs a point of contact within our brain: the God spot. Sociobiologists Edward Wilson and David Wilson consider religion a form of group adaptation, because cooperating individuals show the primary benefits of cooperation and altruistic behaviour, just as social insects. Religion is an evolutionary support of altruistic instincts and creates a social infrastructure to benefit a cooperative society. However, social insects merely act on their instincts whereas human beings can act intentionally even against their primary instincts, because of motives for altruist practices inspired, for example, by the narratives and concepts of a Christian tradition. The communion of saints does not take place merely because of a social instinct, but because of the shared motive of the community as a whole, that is, the body of Christ, which acts altruistically irrespective of persons, including outsiders!

scholarly journals Analysis and Discussion Concerning Death

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (Issue 4) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Joshua Juma Mugane
Keyword(s):  
Blood Pressure ◽  
Body Temperature ◽  
Pressure Pulse ◽  
Vital Signs ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Chronic Pulmonary Obstructive Disease ◽  
Supernatural Power ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Unpleasant Smell

The analysis and discussion concerning death as intended by the Researcher depicts that death is an irreversible condition or state encountered by beings (all living creatures), due to a total dysfunction of the body organs. Such an irreversible condition is an enemy of human beings, which supersedes humanity, causing unexpected changes in life. It came as a punishment of abusing the supernatural power and finally it became a fact of not living forever. By the use of different literatures, Interviews and Documents, the research explored diverse concerns of death and drew its conclusion. Some of those concerns are “how is death detected? What are the causatives of death? Does death have its remedy? Where are dead people? Why do we bury the dead? And what is next after death?” The findings reveal that Doctors prove death by assessing and measuring the vital signs such as Blood Pressure, Pulse Rate, Respiratory Rate and Body Temperature. Moreover, the causatives of death include chronic pulmonary obstructive disease, ischemia, stroke, dehydration, infections and pain as well as old age. Those who encounter death are laid in the graves because God commanded it to be so and they produce unpleasant smell and stink. The remedy of it depends on the supernatural power that is believed to have ability of restoring the lost lives at consummation. That’s why Christians believe that on the second coming of Jesus Christ, all the dead shall rise. Hence, human beings have to be kin enough in lifetime, so that they may prolong a bit their lifespan through observance of health principles and guidelines.

scholarly journals Narrative Metafiction in Jaishree Misra’s Ancient Promises, Tanushree Podder’s Escape from Harem, and Ashwin Sanghi’s The Krishna Key

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 159
Author(s):  
Thamer Amer Jubouri Al-ogaili ◽  
Manimangai Mani ◽  
Hardev Kaur ◽  
Mohammad Ewan Bin Awang
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Self

This article focuses on the representations of metafiction in Jaishree Misra’s Ancient Promises(2000), Tanushree Podder’s Escape from Harem (2013), and Ashwin Sanghi’s The Krishna Key(2012). More specifically, the article will tackle metafiction in these works from a narrative point of view. The study will generally deal with metafiction as self-reflexive genre dealing with narrative devices, including the work’s comments on itself as a work of fiction. In this respect, the study is going to approach the narrative elements of the selected works to examine the effect of metafiction in the context of the selected works and how they provide the reader with their complex narrative fabric. Therefore, three main metafictional devices are going to be utilized in the study i.e., the self-reflective devices, the mimetic devices, and the narrative devices. These devices will be elaborated in the light of Patricia Waugh’s metafictional arguments. Consequently, a narrative conceptual framework will be followed to analyze the selected works’ plots. 

Human

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale B. Martin
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Human Sexuality ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament

The Bible, taken in its ancient historical context, says little explicitly about the nature of the human being, certainly not in any kind of scientific or philosophical way. It provides no explicit “theological anthropology.” Yet the New Testament, if read with care and creativity, may be seen to teach that the human person is a product of social and cultural construction; that the body, though a unity in some sense, is also made of various parts; that the self is social. The New Testament may help Christians accept the necessary finitude of human beings as a good, not as a flaw of human existence. It may come as a surprise to many people to see what may be learned from an innovative reading of the Bible about human sexuality and desire. Moreover, the value of some very traditional doctrines not popular with most modern people, such as the doctrines of original sin and predestination, may also be rediscovered for our time. And certainly the New Testament is rich for imagining the meaning of salvation and the resurrection of the body—even the “deification” of human beings—for Christians in the 21st century.

scholarly journals The Significance of Ramana Maharshi's Self-Enquiry for Meditation

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
DAYEONG PARK ◽  
SURESH L. BARNAWAL
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Aspect ◽  
Practical Aspect ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Core ◽  
Crucial Part

Seeking happiness has become a crucial part of human beings due to a consistent rise in anxiety and stress over the passing years. As a result, the importance of Indian meditation practices has risen worldwide. Especially, Ramana Maharshi's Self-enquiry is one of the significant meditation practices found in India. The purpose of this paper is to show that Mokṣa (liberation), where one is free from suffering, can be attained by the practice of Self-enquiry, which is simple but powerful because it immediately pierces to the core, the Self. Ramana is the ancient traditional master in India, and he is also known for using silence in the instruction of his disciples. The essence of Self-enquiry is that it is not to realize something anew but to abide as the Self, in the here and now with aware affirmation "I am already Thou." Ramana's life, the experience of his great awakening, the Self, 'I'-thought, the body, the theoretical aspect of Self-enquiry as meditation by Ramana and the practical aspect of Self-enquiry as meditation by Prof. Kim Kyeungmin are presented to illustrate the significance of this method. It is pointed out that Maharshi's Self-enquiry is more valuable and productive than other meditation techniques.

scholarly journals Universalities and Idiosyncrasies in Self-Concept: East-West and North-South

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolando Díaz Loving ◽  
María José Baeza Rivera ◽  
Ilse González Rivera ◽  
Michael Harris Bond
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Orientation ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Syndromes ◽  
Many Instruments ◽  
South Axis ◽  
East West

Self-concept has been crucial to the description of human beings since ancient times. Different authors have offered definitions and approaches to the study of the self. Many instruments have been developed to measure this multi-faceted construct. However, there is great difficulty in using definitions and instruments developed in one ecosystem to describe the peoples from different cultures. In order to include the universals and idiosyncrasies of the self, a model that takes culture into account is needed.  The purpose of this article is to compare the cognitive, emotional, and motivational aspects of the self-concept in different countries representing the east-west and north-south axis, such as Mexico, Peru, Japan, China, United States and Chile, from a psycho-socio-cultural point of view. The paradigm for this purpose included descriptions and comparisons based on Hofstede´s cultural syndromes, as well as an overview of some instruments that have been used to measure the construct. The discussion focuses on the importance of considering culture to understand the meanings of this construct, placing emphasis on the methodological tools derived from the theoretical orientation and the attentions that must be had when making cross-cultural comparisons, be it Between countries and even within the same country. This means that we must not forget the aspects shared by cultures in the relationship with oneself (etic), but we must forget about the particular aspects (emic) or idiosyncratic aspects, which are what are finally given by the particularities to self-concept.

Lazarus and the Sickness Unto Death: An Allegory of Despair

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 486-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon D. Podmore
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
Religious Symbolism ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Raising Of Lazarus

AbstractThis article explores the religious symbolism of death and resurrection in works by Dostoevsky, Holbein, Kazantzakis, and Kierkegaard, examining the imaginative correlation between the death of God and the sickness of the soul. Exploring the symbolic analogy between the death of the self and the death of God evoked by these works, I offer an existential reading of the death and raising of Lazarus as an allegory of despair over the possibility of salvation. I illustrate this existential dis-ease via a symbolic reading of two artistic depictions of death and resurrection. Beginning with reference to Nikos Kazantzakis’s account of the death of Lazarus in The Last Temptation, and proceeding to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s famous description in The Idiot of Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521), I endeavor to articulate a constructive existential and psychological analogy between the death of the self and despair over the death of God (interpreted as an expression of the loss of hope in salvation). Finally, by reading such despair with imaginative-symbolic reference to Lazarus, I return to Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death in search of hope in the “impossible possibility of salvation.”

scholarly journals The Lymphatic Pump Technique for the Treatment of the Lower Limb Lymphedema

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 12-18
Author(s):  
A. Bergna ◽  
L. Panigada ◽  
F. Benussi ◽  
F. Buffone ◽  
C. Caruana ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lower Limb ◽  
Lymphatic System ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Invasive Technique ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Complete Decongestive Therapy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mean

Lymphedema is a condition occurring when the lymphatic system fails to efficiently transport the lymph, thus creating a fluid accumulation in the interstitial space. As of today, the rehabilitation treatment for lymphedema relies on the principles of Complete Decongestive Therapy (CDT), a series of treatments designed to favor the reabsorption of the lymph by the lymphatic system and to restore the functionality of the affected limb. From an osteopathic point of view, interesting results have been obtained through Lymphatic Pump Technique (LPT), a series of oscillatory techniques applied to different areas of the body such as chest, abdomen and feet. A few LPT studies on animals have shown a significant improvement not only in the lymphatic system efficiency (an increase of 271% in lymph flow) but also in the immune system. Aim. From the scientific evidence derived from such studies, in this paper we propose a clinical trial aiming to demonstrate the benefits that this technique can bring to human beings in a specific rehabilitation process following a lower limb lymphoedema. Material and methods. An indirect volumetric measurement of lymphedematous limbs according to the segmental technique was performed on six subjects having a history of CDT treatments with different clinical histories, age, gender, work and sport characteristics.The results of the study group treated with the LPT were compared to the results of the same subjects who previously underwent CDT treatment only. The LPT was applied in 8 sessions for two weeks, i.e. for the period of time scheduled for normal physiotherapy rehabilitation including CDT. Results. The average volume before CDT was 9470.6 ml while after treatment was 8429 ml. The mean volume before CDT associated with LPT was 9608.5 ml, whereas after treatment the mean was 8267 ml with a significant reduction in lymphoedema. Conclusions. Despite the small number of cases examined, the treatment described in this project has led to positive and statistically significant results, in terms of absorption of lymphedema, especially reducing the volume of the limb. LPT is safe as it is a non-invasive technique, performed with the application of light forces, and integrates perfectly with the CDT.

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