Blog Post #6

A practice I found odd for the Brahmin religion is to bathe before any meal. I love to take showers myself and to be clean but I don’t know if I would necessarily want to before every meal. This is more or a ritualistic practice and is more commonly performed by wealthier men who have quite a bit of leisure time on their hands. While this practice of the Havik men is evident, the reading mentions that during some seasons it can’t in fact happen often, depending on if that individual should return to work. Then, another bath would be a requirement before another meal.

Chapter 2, Secular Defilement from the book Purity and Danger, also mentions the concept of pollution existing in food. Making sure food is not contaminated or diseased before being consumed. This chapter goes on to list different practices of the religion and ways food can and cannot be kept sanitary and free of diseases or pollution. One of the examples used is, when talking about what type of food has more contamination between cooked or uncooked food. I was surprised to find out that cooked food does have a higher chance of being contaminated. The reading does not explain why this may be the case, but I thought it might have to do with that fact that cooked food is usually passed around and touched by many people for consumption, while uncooked food still can cook off anything thing that may not be sanitary. And food that can be tossed into the mouth for consumption has that greatest chance to avoid pollution then food that has to be bitten into because of the contamination saliva carries.

Blog Post #5

Cesar Ruiz

Religious Study 1

Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification

The first thing Weber writes about in chapter one, is about is his observation of religion he makes both empirical and theoretical claims. He points out that according to what people have as their occupation it can determine their religious standing. Initially, I thought this was really interesting because it more so seemed like was sectioning and stereotyping people based off very little information he knew about them. He then goes on to write about his observation, he stated that people such as high skilled labor workers and even business leader more typically Protestant and those who do not fall under these categories are more likely going to be Catholic. He does not really give an explanation as to why this may be the case, but the only evidence he has, is the fact that it may be due to historical evidence and any conversion that may have happened along the way. It is of significance because of the time people decided to convert. During the Protestant Reformation is when areas were most financially stable. The conversion of lots from one religion to the other was not necessarily caused entirely by the Reform, it was more so cause by the fact that one religion had more on an influence than the other, and this is what stuck with people the most and that is ultimately was ended up causing the switch.

            Another thing Weber mentions is how their children’s education changed as well as their religious up bring. Due to the fact that Protestants were more affluent, Protestant children inherited lots of money and allowed for more access and opportunity. This allowed for children of these Protestant families to go into the industry while Catholic children stayed in handicrafts. Weber writes, that this type of “access” then went on to influence what occupation the child would chose. He refers to Catholics as “otherworldly” and this is his explanation for why Catholics tend to do what they choose to do- they are indifferent to the material gain.

Blog Post #4

Carl Jung’s reading “On the Psychology of the Trickster figure” talks about a specific type of figure that came about in cultural and religious literature. These figures are called “archetypes” and there are many that exist, however, Jung focuses on the “trickster” in this particular writing. All the figures said to have existed were psychological and are called a product of the collective unconscious, which means they could not been seen with the human eye and were sort of that bridge between human beings and cultures around the world. With name like trickster that automatically makes me think there is some negative attachment to this character. A trickster is usually someone or something that is up to no good. They cause harm to other individuals and Jung explains that that was exactly what this character was like.

I think having archetypes was a pretty interesting foundational concept for culture and for people. I’m not entirely sure if these are still “used” in psychology because I have heard of them throughout my schooling so far. One of the things I found pretty interesting is how these archetypes were “universal”. They were able to be applied to all sorts of religions no matter what belief system that religion had. They existed in every religion and shared quite a bit of similar characteristics. One article I found online, mentions how a lot of the tricksters in religion were always a male figure and had both a human form and an animal form. In addition, tricksters were best viewed by their personality.