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Philosophy and Religon Essay

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The 16th century was a time of culmination. A time during which the fundamental forces of civilization that shaped the world thus far, came together and accelerated their pace. Religious, cultural, intellectual, and economic transformations took place. New civilizations arose, only to be destroyed by imperialistic invaders. Old cultures converged and conflicts arose. New and old, east and west were unified, if only fleetingly and superficially. The religious beliefs of any society during the 1500s were taken very seriously and were tremendously important. At the time, entire empires were built on the simple principle of religion. It was the central unifier, the Europeans under Christianity, the Ottoman Empire under Sunni Islam, and the …show more content…

Their philosophy was derived from their religious beliefs. Their God was not a removed entity that controlled the world but did not have a role in the life of the individual. Their God was everything and without him, there was nothing. God was salvation and eternal life. Their main reference was the Bible. It was studied extensively by Catholic theologians and, from it, created a central ethical system was developed. The Chinese on the other hand had an ethical system based on the individual. Confucianism was not a religion. It was not based on a deity and strict codes of conduct found in Catholic tradition did not exist. However, an overall sense of order was decidedly central to its philosophy. Virtue here was found introspectively, through thought and study. Another interesting facet of Confucianism was it’s veneration of ancestors, an extension of honoring one’s parents. These two ethical systems differed so much that fundamental concepts (right, wrong, sinful, virtuous) were not completely equateable. Confucianism viewed people as fundamentally good. In the Great Learning, a fundamental Confucian text, described human nature as “being universally good” and that the “original substance of the mind is correct.” This gives us important insight into how they would classify an act as immoral or sinful. If each person is fundamentally good, then any act he does would also be good. And any act that he does that goes against his “innate knowing…of right and

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