The Reciprocal Relationship of Syncretism and Fundamentalism from the Early History of Religion to Modernity

2000 ◽  
pp. 23-35
Primitive Man ◽  
1929 ◽  
Vol 2 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
J. M. C.

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Serafim Seppälä

The first Church father writing in Arabic, Theodore Abu Qurrah, and the first Muslim author to compose a systematic refutation of Christianity, ʿAbd al-Jabbar, both apply the historical argument in order to prove or refute the truth of Christianity. Both agree that the first followers of a religion represent an ideal way of following their religion. Abu Qurrah argued that Christianity is the true religion because its first followers were persecuted, poor and non-violent; ʿAbd al-Jabbar argued to prove that Islam is the true religion because its first followers had the divine authority to conquer and plunder. However, he had to reconstruct the history of early Christendom thoroughly to prove that it is a violent, immoral and thus a false religion. At times, Abū Qurrah and ʿAbd al-Jabbār look at the same facts from opposing perspectives; at times, they appear to have a similar perspective, but to be looking at different facts.


Nuncius ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Keller

A new, illustrated source, “Drebbel’s Description of his Circulating Oven,” sheds light on the thermostatic oven of Cornelis Drebbel (1572-1633), a Dutch alchemist, engineer, and philosopher active in Holland, Zeeland, London and Prague. The “Description” survives in two German copies. It describes two new inventions, a “Judicium” (which we might call a thermometer) and a “Regimen” (which we might call a feedback control mechanism). It thus engages longstanding debates concerning the invention of the thermometer. More fundamentally, it engages the relationship of artisanality and philosophy. The “Description” highlights the entangled origins of both instruments, which emerged through combined concerns of alchemy, engineering, philosophy, and natural magic. In the early seventeenth century, the term “thermometer” indicated an object with a more expansive role than it later would. The later emergence of a distinct scientific instrument industry, separating previously entangled roles, has colored subsequent views of such instruments and their makers.


The multi-authored volume reviews the early history of international legal thought and considers it to be a project that highlights the intimate relationship of philosophy and law in understanding the present models of global order. The interplay of system and order serves as a leitmotiv throughout the book and helps to link historical models to today’s discourse. It also explains the particular relevance of the period from Machiavelli to Hegel for this framework. In the first part of the book, individual chapters cover thinkers from Machiavelli to Hegel—including Vitoria, Suárez, Bodin, Gentili, Althusius, Grotius, and Spinoza, amongst others. The second part of the book is devoted to horizontal themes that open the opportunity to test old authorities against present-day approaches. Their analyses deepen the understanding of international legal thinking by pointing to often neglected elements, scrutinizing the knowledge-creation of the subject as we know it.


1887 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 159-193
Author(s):  
Ernest A. Gardner

The last year has been most fruitful of results to the archæologist. Excavations on many Greek sites have supplied abundant material for new work and speculation. But important as may be the gains to other branches of archæology, none are so brilliant as those that have so greatly increased our knowledge of the early history of Greek sculpture. It must be many years before archæologists are agreed on the exact position and import of the new statues in relation to the early history of art; longer still before all that those statues can teach us shall have been learnt. In the present paper no attempt can be made to criticise and discuss fully the many difficult questions to which their discovery has given rise— much less to assign finally to each of them its place in the history of religion and sculpture. Many of the early chapters of that history must be reconsidered and in part rewritten before all the statues we now possess find their due place in a recognised and unbroken series of monuments of various ages and of various local schools. Meanwhile it may be well to indicate the directions in which the influence of our newly-acquired knowledge is likely to be felt, and to endeavour to estimate the meaning and the importance of the new material that the science of archæology has acquired.


1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 203-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Fyfe

It is argued that sociology lacks an adequate conceptualization of the museum/society relationship. It is further argued (1) that the museum is an agency of classification; (2) that it is a relationship of cultural interdependence and (3) that museums have an internal relationship to modernization. The institution of the museum is shown to arise out of the indeterminacies of modernization. A dispute in the early history of London's Tate Gallery is explored as it illuminates that institution's organization of the contradictions of modernization. Pace Bourdieu and Elias, a key contradiction is seen to arise from a differentiation of the field of power and the cultural field. It is argued, against essentialist accounts of museums, that the Tate produced its point of view through the medium of this contradiction.


Author(s):  
Francesca Coppa

This paper argues that the practices and aesthetics of vidding were structured by the relationship of Star Trek’s female fans to that particular televisual text. Star Trek fandom was the crucible within which vidding developed because Star Trek’s narrative impelled female fans to take on two positions often framed as contradictory in mainstream culture: the desiring body, and the controlling voice of technology. To make a vid, to edit footage to subtext-revealing music, is to unite these positions: to put technology at the service of desire. Although the conflict between desire and control was particularly thematized in Star Trek, most famously through the divided character of Spock, the practices of vidding are now applied to other visual texts. This essay examines the early history of vidding and demonstrates, through the close reading of particular vids made for Star Trek and Quantum Leap, how vidding heals the wounds created by the displacement and fragmentation of women on television.


Author(s):  
Laura Quick

This study considers the relationship of Deuteronomy 28 to the curse traditions of the ancient Near East. It focuses on the linguistic and cultural means of the transmission of these traditions to the book of Deuteronomy. The author considers a broad range of materials, including Old Aramaic inscriptions, attempting to show the value of these Northwest Semitic texts as primary sources to reorient our view of an ancient world usually seen through a biblical or Mesopotamian lens. By studying these inscriptions alongside the biblical text, this study aims to increase our knowledge of the early history and function of the curses in Deuteronomy 28. This has implications for our understanding of the date of the composition of the book of Deuteronomy, and the reasons behind its production. The ritual realm which stands behind the use of curses and the formation of covenants in the biblical world is also explored, arguing that the interplay between orality and literacy is essential to understanding the function and form of the curses in Deuteronomy. Ultimately, this book contributes to our understanding of the book of Deuteronomy and its place within the literary history of ancient Israel and Judah, with implications for the composition of the Pentateuch or Torah as a whole.


Paleobiology ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 146-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Oliver

The Mesozoic-Cenozoic coral Order Scleractinia has been suggested to have originated or evolved (1) by direct descent from the Paleozoic Order Rugosa or (2) by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the anemone groups that probably have existed throughout Phanerozoic time. In spite of much work on the subject, advocates of the direct descent hypothesis have failed to find convincing evidence of this relationship. Critical points are:(1) Rugosan septal insertion is serial; Scleractinian insertion is cyclic; no intermediate stages have been demonstrated. Apparent intermediates are Scleractinia having bilateral cyclic insertion or teratological Rugosa.(2) There is convincing evidence that the skeletons of many Rugosa were calcitic and none are known to be or to have been aragonitic. In contrast, the skeletons of all living Scleractinia are aragonitic and there is evidence that fossil Scleractinia were aragonitic also. The mineralogic difference is almost certainly due to intrinsic biologic factors.(3) No early Triassic corals of either group are known. This fact is not compelling (by itself) but is important in connection with points 1 and 2, because, given direct descent, both changes took place during this only stage in the history of the two groups in which there are no known corals.


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