scholarly journals Influence of Past on Present: A Naturalistic Study of Ghosts

The Batuk ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Arjun Dev Bhatta

This article analyzes and evaluates Henrik Ibsen’s most controversial drama “Ghosts” from naturalistic point of view. Naturalism views human life in relation to internal and external environment. It insists on the effect of the past that shapes the present life of human beings. Based on this philosophy of life, this article examines how the life of the leading characters Mrs. Alving and her son Oswald has been influenced. Mrs. Alving’s present values and views on life have a concern with conventional and religious past whereas Oswald’s philosophy of life is guided and governed by his dead father. This article also shows heredity and genetic transformation are biological facts that affect human life. Thus, the object of this article is to explore how human beings are controlled by the inescapable past.

Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Help towards understanding the human and religious functions of tradition comes from such sociologists as Peter Berger, Anthony Giddens, and Edward Shils. Tradition by Shils continues to illuminate how, although human beings modify inherited beliefs and change traditional patterns of behaviour, the new always incorporates something of the past. Shils takes a global view of tradition; it embodies everything individuals inherit when born into the world. It is through tradition that new members of society begin to identify themselves. The bearers of tradition may be not only official but also ‘learned’ and ‘ordinary’. Shils dedicates many further pages to changes in traditions and the forces leading to these changes. What sociologists like Giddens say about globalization also affects theological reflection on tradition. Surprisingly, the very few theologians who have published on tradition have ignored the sociologists.


Author(s):  
Daniel Statman

The recent development of unmanned technology—drones and robots of various types—is transforming the nature of warfare. Instead of fighting against other human beings, combatants will soon be fighting against machines. At present, these machines are operated by human beings, but they are becoming increasingly autonomous. Some people believe that, from a moral point of view, this development is worrisome, especially insofar as fully autonomous offensive systems (‘killer robots’) are concerned. I claim that the arguments that support this belief are pretty weak. Compared with the grand battles of the past, with their shockingly high toll of casualties, drone-centered campaigns seem much more humane. They also enable a better fit between moral responsibility and vulnerability to defensive action. Drones and robots may well be recorded in the annals of warfare as offering real promise for moral progress.


2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Harvey

AbstractThe practices, habits and convictions that once allowed the inhabitants of Christendom to determine what they could reasonably do and say together to foster a just and equitable common life have slowly been displaced over the past few centuries by new configurations which have sought to maintain an inherited faith in an underlying purpose to human life while disassociating themselves from the God who had been the beginning and end of that faith. In the end, however, these new configurations are incapable of sustained deliberations about the basic conditions of our humanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology provides important clues into what it takes to make and keep human life human in such a world. The first part of this essay examines Bonhoeffer's conception of the last things, the things before the last, and what binds them together. He argues that the things before the last do not possess a separate, autonomous existence, and that the positing of such a breach has had disastrous effects on human beings and the world they inhabit. The second part looks at Bonhoeffer's account of the divine mandates as the conceptual basis for coping with a world that has taken leave of God. Though this account of the mandates has much to commend it, it is hindered by problematic habits of interpretation that leave it vacillating between incommensurable positions. Bonhoeffer's incomplete insights are thus subsumed within Augustine's understanding of the two orders of human society set forth in City of God.


2015 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-481
Author(s):  
Curtis J. Evans

Writing a biography challenges us in fundamental ways as scholars of religion, as historians, and as human beings. We are forced to reckon with the implicit and explicit theological commitments of religious persons, the ways they inhabited the world, the sometimes “strange country” that is the past, and the varied ways in which our subjects took for granted things by which we find ourselves and our age so troubled. While we may eschew “taking sides” in our attempts to be good scholars and under the noble goal of not wanting simplistically and reflexively to impose our contemporary moral judgments upon figures from the past, we cannot avoid discussing the moral choices historical actors made, assessing their prominence in their time, their influence on their broader surroundings, and their legacy beyond their times. All of these factors have great bearing on how we narrate the lives of historical figures and how we represent them in the present. James Baldwin's impassioned claim that it is with “great pain and terror [that] one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is, and formed one's point of view” might sound a bit overly deterministic, but it is worth remembering when thinking self-consciously about how we critically assess and evaluate those about whom we write. Grant Wacker's new biography of Billy Graham, America's Pastor, invites the reader along to grasp more fully what this looks like as Wacker, a self-described “partisan of the same evangelical tradition Graham represented,” masterfully evokes and unfolds Graham as a shaper of public consciousness and a spokesperson for millions of “ordinary Americans.” This work possesses the virtues of the careful and considered reflections of a seasoned historian's analysis of the life of a famous religious leader who is deeply admired by many Americans. It is about the closest we will get to a full appreciation of Graham the man and Graham the icon.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-157
Author(s):  
Dhanesh M.

This paper aims to look at one of the fundamental factors of human beings—the appreciation of things. Calling it ‘the aesthetic faculty’ this paper tries to see how it is inevitable to the way human beings as a species function. This paper aims to propose this idea of an ‘aesthetic faculty’ as a potential basis for our community life in its diverse operations in terms of cultural spaces and their semantics. Viewing the socio-systemic life from the point of view from the aesthetic faculty reveals how appreciation and evaluation are inevitable to human life and how an ideological ground cannot actually affect life without addressing this basic human faculty. This paper tries to take the term ‘aesthetic’ vis-a-vis ‘appreciation’ to a different semantic world altogether so that it is no longer a matter of artistic engagements alone, but something more fundamental and formative than that.


R-Economy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-195
Author(s):  
Mariam Voskanyan ◽  

Relevance. The world will certainly remember 2020 as a serious challenge in all aspects of human life. At the same time, while developed countries, despite the severity of the economic crisis, have sufficient reserves to help their economies go through the recovery growth, developing economies turned out to be the most vulnerable. This article describes the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the Armenian economy from the point of view of the most critical factors that have determined the country’s economic development over the past decade. Research objective. The key goal of the study was to try to identify and assess the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Armenia. Data and methods. The study surveys macroeconomic indicators in Armenia over the past six months. The analysis is based on the statistical data characterizing the economic situation in Armenia and takes into account the key sectors of the economy as well as its weaknesses. Results. Some sectors of the Armenian economy will be very vulnerable to the crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion. The main conclusion of the study is that at the moment the economic system of Armenia is at the stage of stagnation and, in the light of the pandemic, will move to the stage of economic recession in the medium term.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Mrs. Khafidhoh

Human life has always been dealt with various disasters from earthquake,  tsunami to volcano eruption. In the past, as listed in the Qur’an, a lot of stories depicted the vanished people of unbeliever. While the cases of unbeliever referred to the punishment of Alloh, the query is whether the disaster happened to the Believer served as the Divine punishment. Two questions are discussed in this research: (1) How Quraish Shihab interpreted the verses of disaster?, and (2) What is the theology of disaster in Quraish Shihab’s Tafsir al-Misbah? The research shows that natural disaster occurred, in Quraish Shihab’s view, due to the imbalance of environment. Alloh has created harmonious environment, but human being tends to conduct chaos and destruction. Disaster could be concluded into three: (1) disaster that denoted collective destruction, (2) disaster that related to the destruction of meaning, and (3), disaster that dealt with the danger. The cause of disaster could be categorized into three, namely, (1) disaster due to the will of God (2) disaster due to human error (3) disaster due to the wickedness of human. Pertaining to the ethics facing disaster, one couldrefer to istirja’, patience, learning, the obedience to Alloh. The lesson learned from the disaster are among others, (1) individual aspect : (a) increasing the degree of faith, (b) supporting one’s proximity to God, (c) realizing the love of God, (d) situating one’s faith and (e) supporting one’s humility and (2) social one, building solidarity among human beings.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 332
Author(s):  
Mark Roosien

This article identifies the upheaval of many people’s experience of time during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a larger phenomenon of the 24/7 temporality that can be seen to contribute to the environmental destruction and social fragmentation typical of disaster capitalism. It then proposes liturgical temporality as an alternative to 24/7 temporality, framing it as a fitting context for the cultivation of solidarity between human beings and between human beings and the natural world. It argues that modern Jewish and Christian theologies of Sabbath-keeping as a mode of liturgical and ethical praxis have articulated a liberative vision for shared liturgical temporality but have not paid sufficient attention to concrete, collective modes of liturgical time keeping that could contend with the all-encompassing reality of 24/7 life. It concludes by discussing three ways that a more robust spirituality and praxis of liturgical time could support the cultivation of solidarity: a sense of the present that is mindful of the past and future, the invitation of practitioners into a shared story, and meaningful repetition toward the appropriation of a vision of redemption and liberation for human and non-human life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-82
Author(s):  
K. Maheswari

The aim of this paper is an attempt that Indian cultural values should be revised meticulously and   accurately leaving behind western impact and the paper rides on a new pride, as a revival of inspiration, a recuperation from centuries of British domination of India in which Hindu dignity was systematically undermined through the Macaulay education system and the invasion of Mogul. Values are what human beings live by. The value-system of any given culture determines the sense of fulfillment and degree of happiness of its members. Indian value system had been misinterpreted from the point of view of the west and imposed  on the psyche of Indian women  through new education. The new education has gradually made her conscious of futility or emptiness of the various long-preserved notions and taboos about the woman, and she has started opposing and breaking them. And this crusade at times makes her feel alone  and alienated. Their conscious had been colonized according to the impact of western. Nevertheless, it is high time that contemporary Indian women are in position to realize their roots, meaning of life and great value system of India. Hence, tradition is the best of the past that has been carried forward for the future.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kustiani

Education is important aspect for human beings. Education can be done formally or informally. In Buddhist point of view, education should be done as long as the life of a person. It is done throughout the samsaric journey until someone becomes an enlightened one, becoming a non learner (asekha). In the modern education, various facilities are provided to produce a very good graduate. However this easy access is challenged by the emergence of bad habit of students i.e. copying and pasting data from internet without doing analysis.The solution to this bad habit has to be found because it will cut off the analytical thinking of students. The lack of analytical skill makes student become unproductive in many aspects. As the result, they are not having the ability to think comprehensively, and not having the ability to raise a new idea or to solve the problem correctly. That is why many students are just keeping silent in the class without able to rise or to answer question Human is a being with a higher mind than animal. Human being is called manussa in Pali term. Literally, manussa means “higher mind”. It means that a human being has special ability to understand matter relating to the past, present and future by comparing and contrasting well. This definition also indicates that the mind of human can be developed until its maximum capacity, intellectually or spiritually. This article try to explore some alternatives ways in managing modern education to obtain maximum intellectual and spiritual goal for millennial generations.


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