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Example research essay topic: Supernatural Beings Closely Connected - 1,214 words

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is reinforced when backed by supernatural authority. Thus one's neighbor may be exercised from his or her community when a behavior is seen as socially unacceptable or inappropriate. Examples of this in the Jewish-Christian community would be the breaking of the Ten Commandments such as stealing, committing adultery, or murdering. Another social function of religion is to "enable people to express their common identity in an emotionally charged environment" (Ferraro 308). Group solidarity is intensified for those who practice it. When members of a religious group come together to practice religious beliefs, they often bond by participating in other non-religious activities as well. (Ferraro 308) People find religion an easy way to identify with one another.

Religion helps to form community, schools, and even government. People who are 'more' religious tend to hold more conservative attitudes on sexuality and personal honesty. They are also likely to hold more conservative attitudes about family life, being more likely, for instance, to support the use of corporal Vaeth 2 punishment in disciplining children. Strongly religious people also tend to be more accepting and satisfied with their lives and marriages. This is perhaps because they do not question what is unknown. It is perhaps merely accepted upon faith. (Brinkerhoff, White, Ortega 295 - 305) Religion also plays the role of reducing stress and frustrations that often lead to social conflict. (Ferraro 308) For example, in some societies people attribute famine, disease, or other natural disasters to the evil deeds of people in other villages.

By practicing religious rituals to protect themselves from these evildoers, such disruptions as war might be avoided. (Ferraro 308) Religion also serves certain psychological functions in society. Religion can be psychologically comforting, because it helps to explain the unexplainable. Religion provides answers to such questions as, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Answers are based on supernatural authority. (Ferraro 309) Religion helps people cope with stress and anxiety that often accompanies illness, deaths, and other such misfortune. People in all religions perform religious rituals to ask supernatural beings to exhibit control over that which they have no control. (Ferraro 309 - 310) In cultures worldwide mankind creates ways to give life's experiences a higher meaning. "Anthropologist use the term worldview to refer to the results of such interpretive efforts... " (Lavenda, Schultz 66) "Worldviews establish a framework that highlight certain significant domains of social experience while downplaying others. Religion is a worldview in which many people personify cosmic forces and devise ways to deal with them that resemble the ways to deal with powerful human beings in their society. " (Lavenda, Schultz 66) Vaeth 3 Myths are an important necessary feature of the personification of cosmic forces. Every society no matter how small or complex contains myths that portray religious truths, as well as providing explanations for the other wise inexplicable.

Myths also contribute to the validation of essential beliefs, values, and behavior patterns of a culture. A culture's mythology is closely connected to its moral and social order. .".. The importance of myth from an anthropological perspective is that the narrative reflects, supports, and legitimizes patterns of thought and behavior. " (Ferraro 307) The myth of origin is one of the most common forms of myth, and provides answers to questions about how life began. These myths tell of the origins of the gods themselves, and how the universe and human life were created. Religion, a worldview, relies heavily on the way people personify their gods. (Lavenda, Schultz 66 - 76) Religion provides its followers with moral rules. The god (s) "may monitor human behavior and send punishment to those who violate moral rules, but if human beings approach them in the proper manner, they may use their power to confer benefits. " (Lavenda, Schultz 66) An example of this is the popular Christian myths of heaven and hell.

If one follows the morals set by Christianity and believes in Jesus Christ, he or she will be rewarded in the also mythological afterlife, heaven. However, if one goes against the Christian morals and the church, he or she will be damned eternally in the pits of hell. A ritual is a repetitive social act. (Lavenda, Schultz 70) People perform religious rituals as a way of invoking supernatural beings to control the forces over which they feel they have no control. In contemporary Christianity, rituals are used to mark events such as births, deaths, Vaeth 4 weddings, Christ's birth and resurrection. Christians worldwide celebrate such very popular rituals as Christmas and Easter annually, bringing its believers together. Rituals are everywhere in everyday life. " Anthropologist use the term ritual to identify any repetitive social practice, many of which have nothing to do with religion. " (Lavenda, Schultz 70) A repetitive social practice, a ritual, can be as simple s meeting a friend for dinner every Tuesday at seven o'clock, or celebrating a birthday every year.

Rituals occur so frequently they often remain unnoticed. Religious rituals are "composed of sequence of symbolic activities, set off from social routines of everyday life, recognizable by members of the society as a ritual, and closely connected to a specific set of ideas that are often encoded in myth. " (Lavenda, Schultz 70) Religious groups called congregations participate in prayer and sacrifice both as a form of ritual. (Lavenda, Schultz 70) The rite of passage is another religious ritual, when one or more members of a society are ritually transformed from one kind of social person into another. Examples include passage from boyhood into manhood or when girls pass into womanhood. Births, deaths, funerals, baptisms, and marriage are also examples of rituals that mark the "so-called life-cycle transitions." (Lavenda, Schultz 71) Another form of ritual is magic. " Magic refers to ritual practices that do not have technically or scientifically apparent effects but are believed by the actors to have an influence on the outcome of practical matters. " (Lavenda, Schultz 71) Many believe magic can save lives, promote healing, contribute to the growth of plants, help find lost objects, and even control the weather. (Lavenda, Schultz 71 - 71) Native Vaeth 5 Americans would perform rain dances to bring rain to their thirsty crops.

Magic is practical in a variety of ways and in a variety of religions. Rituals are usually practiced within a group of people, many times forming a community such as a church. Going to service every Sunday is a ritual. Meeting a group of friends every Friday night after work for a drink is a ritual. Rituals are spiritual and nonspiritual, religious and magical. The core elements of religion, belief, ritual, and myth bring people together just as much as they divide them into groups.

Religion helps people find personal identity and fit into a community. Being divided into groups is not necessarily a bad thing. It is human nature. If mankind isn't divisive over religion, it's over politics, if not politics, then something else. In my perspective, it is not religion that creates the division; it's the people. According to Ferraro, (322) "religion has played an important role in global social change through liberation theology (whereby Catholic priests and nuns work for social reform and justice for the poor) and religious nationalism (whereby religious beliefs are merged with government institutions). "


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Research essay sample on Supernatural Beings Closely Connected

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