2010. Should Time End and Begin? The Asmat Temporality in a Changing World. Asia-Pacific Forum [Special issue: Christian Polymorphism in Oceania, Astrid de Hontheim (ed.)]: 50-70. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Religious Philosophies of Time
Time has always perplexed humanity in one or the other way. What is eternal and what is temporal? Where from we began and what will be our end? These are the questioned which almost all the religions and philosophies of the world have tried to grapple with. Science is still wrestling with this giant-concept and has got stuck within the conceptions of "singularity" and "the big-bang". Saint Paul says that what is visible is temporal and what is invisible is eternal. According to Islam God Himself is Time. For all Abrahamic religions there will be a definite end; temporality will doom giving way to the eternity. While in the great Indian religions i.e. Buddhism and Hinduism, time is cyclical and divided into kalas or yugas. There may be certain discrepancies in the concept of time among world religions but there are many similarities too. All of them have a firm faith in an idyllic beginning and a belief in a fatal and disastrous end; be it kalayuga, qayamat or the day of doom. In my paper I shall compare the concept of time in different world religions and try to reach a harmonious conclusion. As this study will be incomplete without the scientific version of this bewildering entity, I shall also try to tackle the question in the light of science.
Journal of Global History, 2008
ABSTRACT What is time? How does our sense of time lead us to approach the world? How did the peoples of the past view time? This book answers these questions through an investigation of the cultures of time in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and the Australian Dreamtime. It argues that our contemporary world is blind as to the significance and complexity of time, preferring to believe that time is ‘natural’ and unchanging. This is of critical importance to historians since the base matter of their study is time, yet there is almost no theoretical literature on time in history. This book offers the first detailed historiographical study of the centrality of time to human cultures. It sets out the complex ways in which ideas of time developed in the major world religions, and the manner in which such conceptions led people both to live in ways very different to our contemporary world and to make very different kinds of ‘histories’. It goes on to argue that modern scientific descriptions of time, such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, lie much closer to the complex understandings of time in religions such as Christianity than they do to our ‘common-sense’ notions of time which are centred on progress through a past, present and future.
Medieval Worlds, 2016
The conference Making Ends Meet took place from 24 to 26 September 2015 in Vienna, Austria. It was organized by Vincent Eltschinger, Directeur d'études/ École Pratique des Hautes Études (Section des sciences religieuses, Paris) and Veronika Wieser, VISCOM co-ordinator/ researcher, Institute for Medieval Research (Austrian Academy of Sciences) in line with the SFB F 42 VISCOM (›Visions of Community. Comparative Approaches to Ethnicity, Region and Empire in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, 400-1600 CE‹). 1
Contemporary Pragmatism
In his insightful essay »Prophetic Religion and the Future of Capitalist Civilization« Cornel West fervently addressed a question of our abilities to imagine a more empathetic, more compassionate, and also more hospitable world, in which we could foresee, or perhaps already lay ground for a future community where the word religion would simply mean that we live our lives in the consciousness of our finitude and thus in an existential and cognitive humility. This kind of religion (not far from Dewey’s or Rorty’s ideals) would enable us to see beyond the margins of any narrow-minded religious ideology or any violent incarnation of religion. Based on these initial thoughts, we first wish to discuss two basic concepts of contemporary political theology – community and vulnerability. We shall argue that we need to offer in contemporary political theology a basic ethico-democratic response, infused with our imaginative capacity for remembrance (Benjamin, Metz) and future hope (West, Dewey...
The intensifying global spread of apocalyptic forms of Christianity, now well established in Papua New Guinea, has popularised readings of the Bible that stress a cataclysmic end of the world from which only the faithful will be saved. This paper examines the way that this apocalyptic discourse is being embraced by the Lelet of central New Ireland, taking the case of an earthquake that occurred during the year 2000. Apocalypticism is increasingly the operative explanatory framework for unusual events that are seen as signs. However, recourse to it varies between individuals. Signs are very carefully examined and various theories, new and old, are considered before an explanation is finally accepted. I argue that the acceptance of new beliefs does not always depend on the existence of prior similar beliefs, and neither are older beliefs simply displaced by the new.
Fulton Adventist University College Journal of Theology, 2024
Seventh-day Adventists, a community deeply committed to Sabbath observance, face unique challenges in the South Pacific Division. The manipulation of the International Date Line (IDL) has led to calendar discrepancies, raising pivotal questions about which day Adventists should observe as the Sabbath in these regions. Focusing on Tonga, this paper offers guidance firmly rooted in biblical teachings to ensure worship practices align with divine commandments. The principles discussed can potentially benefit all Pacific islands impacted by IDL variability. This research is crucial for maintaining doctrinal uniformity and fostering a collective identity among Adventists facing these unique challenges.
Introduction to Part I: Time and its Transformations from the Old World to the New
Religion and the Arts, 2014
The four articles in Part I, Time and its Transformations from the Old World to the New, suggest that as Christianity was transmitted to the New World, this transmission necessitated new ways of conceiving of time and history. The articles thus point to new ways of thinking about the legacy of Christianity in Latin America. They also lead to a re-envisioning of the wider history of the Christian faith, a vision similarly expressed by artist Robert Graham on the doors of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.