To Kill A Mockingbird

Sun Tzu: The Art of War

Translated by : Samuel B. Griffith

Foreword by B.H. Liddell Hart

Religion

By: Myrtle Langley

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Copyright, 1996

Art History

By: Marilyn Stokstad

Revised second edition

Copyright 2005

Kim Glenn

Civilizations

Paper Due: 3/23/05

The Differences and Similarities in Egypt, China, and India's Religious Cultures

According to the Bhagavad-Gita:

"Ethics and religion are not different. The summit of ethical experience and the height of spiritual illumination are one and the same, which is realization of the basic truth of our personality." (10)

This quote is very self explanatory it is basically saying that ethics and religion are the same thing and most likely whatever you or your family believes in you are going to be affiliated with a religious group that share the same beliefs or views that you or your family may have as well.

For instance in Egypt, China, and India's religion when you die they believe that different things happen. For instance In ancient Egypt the Egyptians believed that the place of judgment is when the dead crossed the Duat and has to go through a final test set in the Hall of Two Truths where the dead person's heart was set on a balance against the feather of truth. If the heart was heavy then the person failed the test was eaten by the monster Ammit (Eater of the dead, a terrifying female Egyptian demon with a head of a crocodile, the torso of a leopard or lion, and the backside of a hippopotamus), but if the heart was light the person passed the test and was presented to Osiris (supreme god and judge of the dead) .

But when you die in India the Hindu's don't look at it the same way they believe that when you die it's just a "transition." "For Hindus, death is nobly referred to as mahaprasthana, the "great journey." When the lessons of this life have been learned and karmas reach a point of intensity, the soul leaves the physical body, which then returns its elements to the earth. The awareness, will, memory and intelligence which we think of as ourselves continue to exist in the soul body. Death is a most natural experience, not to be feared. It is a quick transition from the physical world to the astral plane, like walking through a door, leaving one room and entering another. Knowing this, we approach death as a sadhana, as a spiritual opportunity." So basically they don't really hate death they celebrate because they believe that you are put on this earth for a certain reason and that when you have served your life on earth that death is then an expected thing and not a thing that should be feared.

In China the Chinese that practice Daoism believe that there are no good or bad people. "Death and transformation are a key element of the Chinese culture and psyche. Along with marriage, death is the most important event in the life of the family and individual. Death marks the transition from life to another world. It allows the family to express its strength and solidarity by coming together to share in the funerary rites of passage." I think that the people that practice Daoism basically believe in similar things that the people who practice Christianity.

As you can see in the three religions that they all believe that when people die they all believe and handle the death in different ways and manner. So if a person believed that when people died that you should be sad and that you should try to avoid death then they wouldn't believe in Daoism because people that practice that religion believes that death should be something you look forward to and not something that you try to forget about.

The Similarity that they all have in common is that they all believe in reincarnation which is when you die and return in a different body but your soul remains the same like the Egyptian believed that they should embalm a dead body so the body would be able to accompany the soul into