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SUMMARY:The Influence of Central Eurasian Religious Beliefs on the Culture
 s of the Periphery
DTSTART:20120424T070000Z
DTEND:20120425T170000Z
DTSTAMP:20260501T222843Z
UID:Eurasianbeliefs2425042012_de-236@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Flyer\nThe Central Eurasian Culture Complex\, the set of cultu
 ral features typical of peoples in Central Eurasia well into the Middle Ag
 es\, is focused around the God of ‘Heaven\, the sky’ (in Proto-Indo-Eu
 ropean ‘Sky-Father’\, or ‘Heavenly Father’)\; a shared ‘national
 ’ foundation myth in which the founder-hero prince is the son of this 
 ‘Heavenly God’\; belief in the prince’s heavenly or ‘divine’ blo
 od\; a hierarchical ‘feudal’ social structure binding everyone ultimat
 ely to the God of Heaven\, including the ruler\; and the belief that the r
 uler went to Heaven after his life on earth\, and that the ruler’s oaths
 worn comitatus warriors\, his ‘friends’\, went to Heaven with him. It 
 is hypothesized that when migrating Central Eurasians introduced their cul
 ture\, including their socioreligious belief system\, into the homelands o
 f peripheral peoples\, they contributed to the formation or development of
  some of the most dominant and widespread philosophical-religious systems 
 of Eurasia. Besides Confucianism and Zoroastrianism\, which are to some ex
 tent accepted cases\, the systems in question include Buddhism\, Taoism\, 
 Brahmanism\, Judaism\, Christianity\, and Islam. Traditional approaches to
  the origins of these belief systems rest on the assumption that they have
  arisen locally and independently without significant influence from elsew
 here\, the main exceptions being Judaism\, Christianity\, and Islam. This 
 forces anyone studying one system either to deny the existence of ‘influ
 ences’ proposed by the adventurous few or to argue that the systems are 
 similar because of some universal teleology\, e.g. the idea that Central E
 urasian-type monotheism (a system with one overwhelmingly dominant God in 
 Heaven) is more ‘advanced’ than other belief systems\, and therefore i
 t is natural for humans to adopt monotheism as they become more ‘advance
 d’. In addition\, it is a normal academic approach to argue that identif
 iable similarities\, no matter how unusual\, are merely universals\, but i
 n these cases it must be asked if the impression of universality is not ac
 tually an unexamined assumption arising out of the domination of the devel
 oped world by the very same ‘world religions’. In order to look into t
 hese and other questions\, it will be necessary to ‘think outside the bo
 x’ and call into question many received views. While doing so\, we hope 
 to discover unexpected things both about the ‘world religions’ and abo
 ut Early Central Eurasians’ beliefs.The core socio-religious features of
  the Central Eurasian Culture Complex include belief in the God of ‘Heav
 en\, the sky’\; in a national foundation myth in which the founder-hero 
 is the son of the God of Heaven\; and in the ruler going to Heaven after d
 eath accompanied by his oathsworn warrior ‘friends’. It is hypothesize
 d that migrating Central Eurasians introduced these beliefs to peripheral 
 peoples\, contributing to the formation or modification of the dominant so
 cio-religious traditions of Eurasia. Among other issues\, the papers will 
 consider whether these traditions are local variations of a single system 
 introduced by Central Eurasians over time\; whether there was a difference
  of kind between this monotheism and the ancient religious systems they re
 placed\; and whether the identifiable similarities are merely universal id
 eas\, or the impression of universality has arisen from the domination of 
 the modern world by the very same ‘world religions’.
URL:https://khk.ceres.rub.de/de/veranstaltungen/Eurasianbeliefs2425042012_
 de/
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