Cultures

Cultures and Their Beliefs

  Culture: way of life for a group of people who share beliefs and similar customs  Nuisance: an obnoxious or annoying thing, person, condition, or practice  Buddhism: religion where people are trying to achieve enlightenment and nirvana  Judaism: religion that uses the teachings of the Torah  Hinduism: religion that has no agreed set of teachings  Diffusion: to spread or scatter widely or thinly Vocabulary

  Hierarchy: organized body of officials in successive ranks or orders  Monetary Policy: regulations on the supply of money  Secularism: worldly views/ideas not involving religion  Nationalism: belief in the right to be an independent nation, having pride in ones country Vocabulary Continued…

 Cultures  People develop cultures over time  Cultures shape the way people live  Characteristics change depending on the region and people

 Regions on a Map  Cultural traits tend to explain the different regions  Language  Religion distributions  Ethnic characteristics  Folk and popular culture

  Through language people communicate information and experiences passing on cultural values and traditions  Language is one of the strongest unifying forces in culture  There can be some differences in dialect throughout a culture (slang, location, family) Language

  Religion varies significantly across the globe  Religion enables people to have a sense of identity  Strongly influences aspects of daily life  Holidays, festivals, arts Religion

 Islam  Monotheism  Believe that Muhammad was the last Prophet  Ultimate goal is the “Pilgrimage to Mecca”  5 Pillars of Faith

 Buddhism  Monotheism  Worship Buddha (enlightened one)  Read a text called Ripitaka or The Three Baskets  Goal is to understand a sense of Enlightenment and achieve Nirvana  Total peace, end of suffering

 Christianity  Monotheism  Follow the teachings of the Bible  Worship God and Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior

 Hinduism  Polytheism  Very broad subject with no set teachings  3 Basic Gods  Shiva – creator and destroyer  Vishnu – preserver  Devi – protecting mother

 Judaism  Monotheism  Use the teachings of the Torah  Torah involves the 10 commandments and 613 other commandments  The land of Israel is a part of every Jews world view

  Culture is not static  It can change over time  When ideas diffuse they have the potential to transform cultures  This can happen in a positive or negative way Changes

  Predict how a culture can transform when it goes from not allowing women to vote to allowing women to vote in all elections.  Would this be a positive transformation or negative transformation? Why? Checking

  A culture can be as big as a country or as small as a school. If a school hired a new principal that did not care about discipline, how can this transform the culture of that school?  Is this transformation a positive change or negative change? Why? Checking