Animal Attributes in Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism

Term Paper Instructions:

Assignment:
Submit a paper of about 6-8 pages in length, in which you select one typical characteristic of supernatural agents (invisibility, shape-shifting, access to hidden knowledge, etc.) and explore how this characteristic appears in (at least) 3 different traditions (e.g., Daoism, Hinduism, Christianity).
Steps:
1) Select a typical feature of supernatural agents that you find interesting. Among the many possible characteristics are, for example, invisibility, flight, shape-shifting, mindreading, access to hidden knowledge, animal attributes, control of natural processes, control of history, and others besides.
2) Identify at least three distinct religious traditions — such as, say, Confucianism, Shinto, Judaism — in which this attribute appears. You may choose more than three, but too many will make for an unmanageable paper, and you must choose at least three. Pay careful attention to the treatment of sub-divine supernatural agents in the tradition, such as ancestor spirits, angels, demons, jinn, etc. It is perfectly appropriate to focus on one or more supernatural agents which are not gods, strictly speaking.
3) Using class materials — lectures and the textbook — identify how the attribute in question appears in the different traditions you’re focusing on. That is, identify the entity or entities in question (e.g., angels in Christianity, or God in Judaism, or jinn in Islam, etc.), and identify how they embody the attribute in question. You may deal with more than one being in any given religious tradition. For example, say your attribute is flight, and you’re dealing with Christianity (as well as two other religions): you could indicate that angels appear to fly with wings, but that Mary and God, though they resided in heaven, are not typically presented as winged.
4) You may, if you find it helpful, use outside sources for additional information on the beings you’re dealing with, but you absolutely do not have to. It is perfectly fine to stick entirely to course material. If you do use outside sources, you must cite them properly (see further below on citation).
5) Summarize the similarities and differences between the various figures you have discussed. Try to draw some conclusions about the pattern of similarities and differences that you have observed across the different religions. Is there a set of core ideas about, e.,g., flight in supernatural agents that are the same across cultures? Are there features that are unique to one tradition? What does these similarities and difference mean, or how would you explain them?
6) Write a paper that presents the results of your inquiry.
• While this assignment will not be graded on its word-count, your paper should be
about 7 pages long.
• The paper may be organized around a central thesis or argument. If it is, the thesis
should be stated explicitly in the last line of the introductory paragraph. You may, however, instead organize the paper more as a report, providing information and analysis, but not necessarily a single argument.
• The paper must have a title page, as described below. Format:
• All pages must be numbered at the top right, and double-spaced. The title page is not to be numbered and does not count as page 1.
• The paper must use a 12-point font throughout. The choice of which font to use is up to you, although Times New Roman is generally professional-looking.
• The first line of each paragraph should be indented. There should not be an extra line between paragraphs.
• Any Information from the textbook must be cited, including page numbers (parenthetically as “(Bond, 87)” or the like); information derived from lectures should not be cited. Anything directly quoted must be enclosed in quotation marks and its source given, even if it’s from one of the lectures. No bibliography is required if you stick to these sources. If you wish to use external sources beyond the class material, then you must accurately cite the source and page number of any information you derive from such sources, and you must include a bibliography at the end of the paper with full bibliographic information on all sources used. You may use any style of citation, if it is consistent, and provides full information about the source.
• Use of unacknowledged sources is plagiarism, and will be seriously penalized.

Term Paper Sample Content Preview:

Religious Traditions and Attribute
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Religious Traditions and Attribute Introduction Animals are unique forms of nature that co-exist with human beings on different ecological systems. Evidence demonstrates that they all have subtle significance to the earth due to the roles embedded in them. Varying religions see animal attributes differently, which means their elements, meaning, symbolism, and attachments are distinctively set. Caruana SJ (2020, p. 8) indicates that animals appear in practically every significant aspect of religious expression, including stereotypes and scripture, visual arts, ethics, food, and cosmologies as symbols and attributes in most religious contexts. Religious traditions impact most populations' unconscious and conscious minds and moral inclinations when it comes to animals. Several methodological and theoretical concerns in religion studies have reached some level of agreement. They include the significance of paying attention to actual animals, a religious component to human-animal connections, and human-animal relationships in Daoism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism considerations. Thus, animal attributes have significant theoretical, mythological, and symbolic impacts on various religions across the globe. Animal Attributes in Daoism Daoism is a complex system of religious practices. It is a robust and broad word for a wide range of beliefs connected to various interpretations of the Dao. It is a profound and unexplainable impersonal power supposed to have created all elements on the planet and is seen as a morality facet that rules the cosmos (Bond et al., 2016, p. 98). Animals in the Dao religion have significance in food and exercise. People use their actions and gestures as inspiration for training. According to Daoists, Animals exist in the open air, move about constantly, and have access to clean water, essential for good health. The religion indicates that humans should mimic animal actions, such as walking, hopping, and running, like deer, monkeys, and cheetahs, respectively (Bond et al., 2016, p. 103). As a result, the attribution of human health to animal actions and living is based on the fact that they live on the planet as the mentors of good physical health. In traditional Chinese Daoist medicine and religious physiology, animal spirits as residents in the essential organs were a feature of the Daoist vision. Animal spirits described the specific activities of the organs, expressing a sensitive link between biological function and emotional emotion in their elemental nature (Qicheng & Dear, 2020, p. 389). For instance, the lungs symbolized a lion, the spleen a phoenix, the heart a scarlet vermilion bird, the dragon by the liver, the gallbladder by the guise, and a tortoise and serpent intertwined the kidneys by a deer in Daoist alchemy. These ideas greatly influenced both medicine and Daoism. The animal beasts were chosen on the theoretical basis of physical resemblance, image character, and direct correspondence. Animals are frequently used in Daoist literature as metaphorical beings, resemblances, and themes for teaching stories. Domesticated horses, like all hu...

Updated on January 26, 2024

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Animal Attributes in Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism

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