.... empowered by hereditary status² (Clearly). He felt that this could be achieved through education and the unification of cultural beliefs. He believed that a nation would be benefited by citizens that were ³ cultivated people whose intellects and emotions had been developed and matured by conscious people² (Clearly). He felt that those born into the feudal system were had a personal duty to excel socially by means of power. Those who were of lesser class should also seek out education to better themselves. All purposes for betterment of man and society as one whole is known as Li. Li means ³the rationalized social order² (Yutang). Confucius fe .....

.... that are prevalent today are, in actuality, forms of cults. Although most of the practices and elements common to cults are legal, they are, at best, suspect. The following should constitute the line of telerance society should not cross. Firstly, what distinguishes cults from religions is the manner in which they operate. Cults are designed with a view of insulating the individual from the rest of society. Once a member of a cult, in most cases, the individual is removed of most (if not all) of their personal autonomy. Most decisions are made by the cult leader, access to the outside world is often denied, and all information about the outside world is di .....

.... for the tree that contains the knowledge of good and evil. Satan (disguised as a serpent) told Eve that she would not die from eating that fruit, that her eyes would be opened, knowing both good and evil. But at the time Eve made her decision, she did not have the knowledge of good and evil. Eve did not know the serpent could be Satan incarnate, nor did she know that her desire to become a goddess would be a sin. The main reason Eve eats the apple is because she wants to become a Goddess. The serpent said that he was a beast and after eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil he became more human like. Eve was enticed by the words of the .....

.... VIII of England. The Lutheran and Calvinist Reformations were very similar in principle, although the Lutheran Reformation was less widespread. Luther and Calvin held that not mere abuses of the Roman Catholic Church needed correcting, but that the Catholic Church itself was wrong in principle. Luther’’s cause for reformation of 16th century European religion came from his unnatural paranoia that he was damned. He had problems convincing himself that his spirit was pure and that he would go to heaven; internal distress raged within him about the awful omnipotence of God, his own insignificant existence in comparison, and his apprehensiveness of the devil. His .....

.... and Ancient Egyptian beliefs. For example, The Odyssey begins with a scene containing a conversation among the gods. The goddess Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, is discussing the matter of Odysseus with Zeus, the head god and god of sky (Homer 10). Of course these are not the only Greek gods and goddesses. Other examples of Greek gods and goddesses are Apollo, god of music, poetry, medicine, archery, and young unmarried men and Hestes, goddess of the home. As you can see, the Greeks believed in many gods unlike the people of the Jewish fate who believed in one god. The Jewish god does not have an emblem that which it is represented by. The belief .....

.... eternal damnation. Clergy members were often consulted to figure out what would be a suitable penance. " The Church itself still frequently imposed pilgrimages as a penance" (Campbell p.14). A pilgrimage to the Holy Land was not an easy task to say the least. The road to Jerusalem was jagged. On the way to Jerusalem, pilgrims were often murdered by thieves. They were defenseless and often did not return. Some pilgrims did return from the Holy Land. They came back with tales that planted the seeds for a Crusade. "The pilgrims that returned from the Holy City of Jerusalem recounted tales, often grossly exaggerated, of the horrible pollution of the sacred .....

.... Europe and Colonial Salem who were charged with killing babies, celebrating “black masses,” and having sex orgies with Satan. The modern Wiccan; a practitioner of the religion known as Wicca, Witchcraft, or simply The Craft; resembles these “Witches” as much as a straw broom resembles the Dirt Devil Upright. The Craft is a religion based on the worship of a supreme divine creator, the practice of magic, and a reverence for the earth and all her inhabitants. Deity Concepts and Worship Practices "All religions are structures built on reverence of Deity. Wicca is no exception. The Wicca acknowledge a supreme divine power, unknowable, ultimate, from .....

.... Ireland were being threatened and eliminated by the Puritans. The typical Irish lifestyle came to an abrupt halt during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Lewis 9). In 1641, the Norman-Irish, who were worried that their lands would be lost, and the native Irish, who were forced to accept an unfamiliar culture, rebelled (Lewis 9). In 1649, Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Parliamentarians in the English Civil war, lead the Puritans into a bloodbath against the Catholics (Lewis 9). "He did it brutally, massacring the Irish without mercy and called the large scale killing ‘the righteous judgements and mighty works of God'" (Meyer 78). Thousands of Catholi .....