Chapters 2,3,4,&5
Religion
You need to consider the following
• How does religion influence the different
developing cultures?
• How does cultural tie into what we have already
learned about politics?
• Did the culture of these places affect the fall of
the empire?
Diverse Forms of Worship
• Older forms of worship persisted in this time
period, especially in less-advanced societies
▫ Usually these were based on veneration of the
spirits (shamanism and animism)
• Ancestor worship remained common in many
societies such as China, Africa, Mediterranean
▫ Funeral practices
▫ Sacrifice, etc.
Is it a religion or a philosophy??????
Culture and Politics
• Key: Religion/Culture is a major component to
the political landscape
• Obedience to the State rather than to a god.
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Harmonious earthly life
Balance
Ceremony
Tradition
3 Major Religions develop
Confucianism
Daoism
Legalism
Confucianism
• Confucian ideas
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Fundamentally moral and ethical in character
Restore political and social order; stress ritual
Government is an extension of family relationships
• Primarily a system of ethics
• Gave bureaucracy a common belief system
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Emphasis on individual virtuous behavior both
by the ruler and the ruled
• Education:
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accessible to all talented and educated members
of society
Confucius (Kung Fuzi) 551-478 BCE
• Founder
• If people could be taught to emphasize personal
virtue a solid political life would naturally result
• Respect for one’s superiors
• Wrote: The Analects
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Principle of Jen:
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“Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to
you”
• Mencius▫ promoted Confucius’s teachings and slightly modified
them
5 Relationships of Confucianism
1. Father and Son
2. Elder brother and
younger brother
3. Husband and wife
4. Older friend and
younger friend
5. Ruler and subject
Daoism
• Arose about the same time as Confucianism during
the Zhou dynasty
▫ Prominent critics of Confucian thought
• Laozi (Lao-tsu)- furthered Daoism
• Embraced
▫ traditional Chinese beliefs in nature’s harmony
▫ added a sense of nature’s mystery
▫ General conditions of the world unimportant; harmony
with nature is more important
• Han rulers persuaded Daoist priests to stress loyalty
to the emperor
Legalism
• The doctrine of statecraft
▫ Promoted a practical and ruthlessly efficient
approach
▫ No concern with:
 ethics and morality
 the principles governing nature
▫ Discouraged art, and literature
• Doctrine used by Qin dynasty
• Called for harsh penalties even for minor
infractions
• Disdained Confucian values in favor of an
authoritarian state ruled by force
You have how many gods?????
Vedic and Epic Ages
• Aryans (Indo-European) migrants- hunting and
herding peoples originally from central Asia
• Vedas- sacred books of the Aryans
▫ Rig-Veda- 1028 hymns dedicated to the Aryan
gods
▫ Mahabharata- India’s greatest epic poem
▫ Ramayana
▫ Upanishads- epic poems with a more mystical
religious flavor
• Encouraged tight levels of village organization
• Indian caste system takes shape- partly because
Aryan invaders saw indigenous people as
inferior
Hinduism
• Unlike all/most other world religions
• Can encourage both political/economic goals
and worldly pleasures
• No founder, no central figure so it unfolded
gradually
• Very tolerant of different religions
• Provided several channels for the good life
• Supplied some unity
• Allowed people to hold on to some older rituals
Buddhism
• C. 563 BCE Siddhartha Gautama was born
▫ Buddha is divine
• Started as a rebellion against Hinduism
▫ It was a threat to the Hindu way of life
• Argued for the individual and went against the
caste system and the priests
• Wasn’t able to hold a strong portion of India
ultimately
• The Four Noble Truths + Noble Eightfold Path =
Religious goal of Nirvana
The Spread
Hinduism
• Allowed many people
to keep old beliefs
• Gave lower class
people hope of a
better life through
reincarnation
• Eventually all of India
but not strong
anywhere else
Buddhism
• Unlike Hinduism
Buddhism
travelled out of
India
▫ Monks
▫ As it spread it
adopted many of
the local beliefs
(syncretism)
Syncretism
• This is the ability of religions to morph and
merge with other religious/cultural beliefs
• By being flexible religions could attract more
followers
• This process was central to the spread of many
of the world’s major religions
Jainism
• Believe in Karma, Dharma and Moksha
• Expected to following five principle of living:
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Non Violence
Speak the truth
No stealing
Only one spouse
Avoid excess
From Polytheism to Monotheism
Religion of Greece and Rome
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Both were polytheistic
Gods used to explain nature and human action
Rome borrowed from the Greeks
Christianity is going to develop during the
Roman Empire
• Christians would not put the emperor before God
• Didn’t create a Formal/Significant World Religion
Judaism
• Monotheistic faith takes shape in this era
• Exile of Jews from homeland begins Jewish
Diaspora
• 400 BCE Jewish doctrines and customs
formalized
• Dietary and marriage restrictions
Christianity
• Jesus of Nazareth (ca. 4 BCE- 29 CE)
• Teachings proved popular among the poor but
authorities soon persecuted him
• Roman law made Christianity illegal
• Apostles tried to spread teachings
▫ Tried to widen its appeal by allowing some changes,
such as not having to observe Jewish dietary
restrictions- this helped convert Greeks and Romans
• Caught on among poor, slaves, noncitizens
• 313 CE Constantine legalized Christianity in Edict of
Milan
Culture is more than religion
• China’s culture evolved with very little from the
outside world
▫ Surrounded by barbarians with little to offer
 Didn’t want much from them anyway
▫ Didn’t want to teach others their culture
• HOWEVER
▫ China did receive some cultural from the outside
 Buddhism
Art in China
• Art was created in a detailed, proportional, and
balanced manner
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Nature was emphasized
Often very decorative
Jade, pottery, ivory, bronze, and silk
Calligraphy
Science in China
• Many innovations
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364.5 days per year
Movement of the planets
Seismographs
Advanced medical knowledge
Acoustics
Architecture
Inventions
 Paper, compass, water mills, porcelain, silk, plows
Cultural Developments in India
• Some great pieces of literature were written
▫ Common themes of love and heroics
• Science and Math
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One of the worlds 1st university
Sterilization and clean
Small pox vaccine
Number system still in use (0)
• Art
▫ Stupa: spherical shrines to Buddha
Greek Philosophers
• Socrates: one of the founders
of Western Philosophy, virtue,
justice, and piety. Question
•
Plato: student of Socrates,
Teacher of Alexander the Great,
founded the first higher learning
institution in the western world.
Understand true, good and
beauty. The Republic
• Aristotle: student of Plato,
wrote about many subjects
such as politics, logic,
music, biology, ethics etc.
Math and Science in the Mediterranean
Pythagoras and Euclid:
Geometry
Galen: Anatomy
Ptolemy: Sun around the
Earth
Art and Architecture in the
Mediterranean
• Great achievements in Architecture
▫ Columns, Aqueducts
• Theater:
▫ Drama and Comedy
Japan
• Seemed to have skipped the Bronze age:
▫ Stone  Iron
• Shinto
▫ Provided for both worship of political leaders and
natural spirits
The Americas
• Olmec
▫ Beginnings of major artistic developments in the
Americas
▫ Polytheistic