Akbar or Elizabeth?

Akbar the Great was more impressive with his solution to religious conflict than Elizabeth I. Akbar was thinking logically and about his empire.  He thinks ‘outside the box’. “Recognizing that hatred among the various religious groups threatened to undermine the empire, Akbar, himself a  Muslim, promoted racial tolerance and religious freedom under the policy of ‘universal tolerance” or “sulahkul.'” Akbar was also sensitive to all faiths and tried not to start a war. He was all about peace and equality. Akbar married a Hindu and abolished taxes levied against both Hindus, and non–Muslims. And since he welcomed visitors of all faiths, Jains, Jesuits, Hindus and Zoroastrians, he developed his own believe called ‘divine-faith’  that sought to transcend the disagreements and conflicts of the world’s religions. Elizabeth I, on the other hand, was very different, in fact, next to Akbar, she stunk! She just basically said, “here are your robes, you are Christian.” She didn’t do a very good job of keeping the Christianity’s from conflicting with one another. In the textbook it quotes, “Elizabeth’s constant need for money would lead to bitter conflict”, I think that is foreshadowing for the next chapter because she is always in need of money and any small conflict that happens will at some point end up in a big fight, or even a war. That is why I think that Akbar was a better leader within the two empires; because of his acceptance about different faiths and his ideas of keeping things peaceful.

Trace of Evolution

The Evolution from the beginning to the end of the Han Dynasty was shown in religion, governance, and economics. First, Han Emperor Liu Bang was a peasant in China, his philosophy was Daoism, it meant to keep taxes low, live simply, maintain a decent army for defense. He lived in peace, and thought that simplicity was the answer. Following that, fourth Han Emperor Wu took on Confucianism. He hired men to work for the government who were specialists in Confucius’ philosophy. He thought the only way to please heaven was to be kind to their people. “A good ruler bends people to his will like a breeze bends the grasses. Confucianism was China’s “religion” for the next 2,000 years. This means the Mandate of Heaven will be the main political idea of China. It states what a “good ruler” should do. Liu Bang made the eastern half of China feudal, he trusted his high generals in the revolution to rule the east but still obey his orders. He made the western half like Qin’s empire, ran by a bureaucracy centered in the capital, and appointed governors to rule the other regions of China yet still under his ruling. In Confucianism, the economical status was profited from scholarship, family, kindness, No luxury: “A gentleman understands virtue, ritual, and study; a low man understands profit.” Daoism didn’t require a lot of money because they lived simply, and enjoyed nature; they took what was needed, not wanted. It was about being like an animal, shelter yourself, feed yourself, and cherish your family and sleep. The evolution of religion, governance, and economics of the Han was greatly increased.

 

Major Economic, Political, and Religious causes of Christianity

– LEVEL 7: Undetermined Number of Sentences – Opinionated topic sentence (i.e., argument), three different points with specific examples, secondary information, specific dates/key figures, primary source evidence, manipulating key primary source information so that it is weaved into your own words through ellipses and/or brackets, specific vocabulary, appositives, insight, natural transitions that link to previous sentence, thoughtful conclusion.

What were the major economic, political, and religious causes of the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire?

In the Roman Empire, Christianity had begun to grow in economics, politics, and religion. During the 2nd century A.D., the Roman Empire’s economy fell because of the empire’s large expansion and failure to create a good budgetary system. When the Pax Romana ended, the Roman government had to raise taxes because of trade routes that the pirates had taken over. Constantine had slaves rebelling, angry citizens complaining about their patriotism, and economy falling apart. The Christians were always the low class people in Rome, and then finally Constantine made Christians basically “part of Rome” and not be killed, because Rome believed in Paganism. Then slowly the Christians began to become more popular and started getting jobs. Constantine favored Christianity and the Plebeians liked it because it made them “blessed” that Christianity became popular in Rome. Constantine and Plebeians contributed to wealth of the church and they made money. After the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 A.D Constantine allowed Christianity to be practiced freely in 337 A.D. With the Roman Empire’s triumph over Christianity, economy, religion, and politics were changed.

Matrix and Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”

In the movie Matrix, Neo was living his life in a dream.

The Cave story was linked to the Matrix in a way.  In the Matrix, Neo was playing the role of one of the people in the cave that could not move. Because he was shaded from the real world, and had no idea that there even was a real world out there. The shadows represented the dream he was in, because he always thought that that was the real world to him, until he was exposed to the *real* world.  The people in the cave thought the shadows were the real world, when there was something else. Morpheus represents the man who led (let’s just call the man he led Person A) Person A outside to see the *real* real world.

Comparison Between Greece, Mesopotamia, and the Jews

In Mesopotamia, women have the same amount of power as men do. They can be a rulers or goddess’. For example, the goddess of love was Ishtar. The Mesopotamians do not have a problem with women having equal power as the men. The next one is the Greek, they didn’t have as much power as in Mesopotamia, but they still had some. Hera was the Greek goddess of marriage; they were still allowed to be goddess’. Women were looked upon but weren’t discriminated against. The last is Jewish. Jewish women didn’t have much power at all. They were created by god to serve the men, in other words, ‘go make me a sandwich’. They were always stated as a man’s woman.  A woman must never be independent in their society. “In childhood a female is subject to her father. In youth a female is subject to her husband. When her lord is dead, she shall be subject to her sons.” This shows that the women had to always belong to a man in a way. She must do whatever she is told and the husband/father can punish or even kill the woman without being at fault.

Gods are just like humans. I think that the Greeks would come first.  “Never has such a lust for goddess or mortal woman flooded my pounding heart and overwhelmed me so.” (Iliad pg. 380), Gods from Greece have human personalities; they feel love, anger, jealousy. It makes it easier for the people to connect and make them their idols. I mean, would you rather follow some God who was so different and you couldn’t relate to anything? Or would you rather have someone who could have theoretically gone through something that you might be going through. Gods weren’t some almighty creatures that were amazing and you must base your life on them. They were more of a topic of story, and something to think about. They were friendly creatures with powers. Greek people became more independent and started to civilize by themselves, working more actively. By working like that, Greece became the best civilization out of all three. Meanwhile, Mesopotamia seemed to have a nice thing going on, with them thinking that the goddess Ishtar making the mankind become more civilized. It would’ve been awesome if that really were the case. But the creation myth kind of brings all the civilized factors down. “The god Marduk defeated the first mother, the primordial goddess, and cut her in half to form Heaven and Earth: “He stilled himself to observe the corpse of Tiamat/ . . . He divided her like a shell- fish into two parts:/He threw one half to the heavens and called it the sky/ . . . he formed the firmament below.” (Enuma Elish) I think Mesopotamia is second because they believe Gods are their motivation to become civilized. Jews look at gods like the almighty idol. Which might be considered good, but considering how he punished Adam and Eve and their descendents for the small mistakes they made, he punished them as if they set a bomb over the whole world. All they did was eat an apple. “I will terribly sharpen your birth pangs, in pain shall you bear children. And for your man shall be your longing, and he shall rule over you” (Genesis page 13) The God makes very selfish rules – in my opinion. He causes a huge flood among all these people because they are bothering him. But then he says “no, wait, you give me food, so come back, cook for Me.” Then he makes one of his disciples, who trusts and lives for God, to kill his son. Sure, he stopped him right before, but still, was that a cruel trick to test how much people cared for him?
The men and women in the Iliad, the Genesis, and Gilgamesh, I think the Greeks were the best for moral goodness of nature, the body, and love. “Zeus who gathers the breasting clouds replied, ‘that is a journey you can make tomorrow. Now come, let’s go to bed…Never has such a lost for goddess or mortal woman flooded my pounding heart and overwhelmed me so.” (Spong pg 380) Zeus was praising how amazing Hera looked after she put the band between her breasts, the love potion, the braids and the body oil. “Not even then, when I made love to Ixion’s wife, who bore me Pirithous. rival to all the gods in wisdom … not when I loved Acrisius’ daughter Danae-s-marvelous anklesand Perseus sprang to life and excelled all men alive … not when I stormed Buropa, far-famed Phoenix’ daughter who bore me Minos and Rhadamanthys grand as gods … not even Semele, not even Alcmena queen of Thebes who bore me a son, that lionheart, that Heracles. and Semele bore Dionysus, ecstasy, joy to mankind…” (Spong pg 380) Even though Zeus is speaking of all these woman, Hera still goes on to sleep with him. They find that sex with many people is normal. I feel that Greeks express moral goodness of nature, the body, love much more than the Jews and Mesopotamians. As for the Mesopotamians, they still did have sex but not as much as the Greeks did. ‘There he is. Now, woman, make
your breasts bare, have no shame, do not delay but welcome his love. Let him see you naked, let him possess your body.’ (Spong: the coming of Enkidu) When it says ‘have no shame’ it makes me think. If he is telling her to have no shame, she must have used to have shame. So maybe women are more conservative then the Greeks. “And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves and made themselves loincloths…” (Spong page 12: genesis) Instead of having sex, and making love, they immediately covered themselves up and were embarrassed of their bodies. So I think that the Greeks were much more intact with nature, and love and their bodies.

Adam and Eve Comparison to Genesis

Adam and Eve’s story seem to be very different to the Story of the Genesis. Adam and Eve’s story was a lot more… chill. God, the ONE God, made an ocean, then he made sea life, then he made trees, then plants, the animals, then Human. And Human was made to love, and multiply. But in The Genesis, The SIX Gods had a battle and then made human to serve the Gods. To me, this battle was pretty pointless. I mean, why would you be so bothered on people going back and forth in the water??? That doesn’t seem very nice, and calm, and chill as Adam and Eve’s.

Adam and Eve

Eve was named woMAN. She was made from a man, she was made from the rib of a man. My thinking, is that she was made for man. The same as in the story with Shahmat and Enkidu, woman were made to please men. That was the only thing they were good for.

And to the human he said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree that I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat from it…'” This sentence sounded a lot like he said ‘listening to the voice of your wife is wrong.’ God made it seem that you aren’t supposed to take the opinion of your wife and you should not listen to her……. right?  A lot of the time in the story. it is written “…for the human and his woman” that is another reason I think that woman were made for men. if there was something else to satisfy the needs of a man, the a woman would not exist.

In  the days of Adam and Eve, sex was only wanted to have babies, and and children. But in the story of Enkidu and Shahmat, they only had sex for pleasure. Similarly, women were both put into each story to please the man. Eve was there to fill the spot of a companion for Adam, and Shahmat was there to show Enkidu to Gilgamesh.

The character of God was quite different in each of the two stories. In the story of Enkidu and Shahmat, their god was a woman God. But in the story of Adam and Eve, their God was a male. Why was that? What had made it change? I can’t answer it. I don’t know.

The value of life in The Story of Eden was all happy-go-lucky. The two were just two people who loved everything. They were friendly and lived in this beautiful garden with fruits and animals. Then when Eve bit into the apple, she realized that she was a woman, and that she was ashamed. Her eyes OPENED. The value of life in Uruk was about who was the toughest, and how Gilgamesh could take down any person with his buff mad skills. Then this guy that was part animal, part human challenges him. The two values of life were very different.

What was Discussed in Class

In this class we were talking about how first, this goddess, a female goddess, created Enkidu. She pinched a piece of clay from a river and created this Man/Beast thing (2/3 animal, 1/3 human). Then almost 1500 years later, Adam and Eve showed up. But this time, a god, male god, created Adam. Then he took one of Adam’s ribs and created Eve. Why did this change? Why is it that back when Gilgamesh was, A female goddess created man, and then 1500 years later a male god created man. TIME

World History Gilgamesh and Sexism

God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept and God took one of his ribs. When this was stated in the book it made me realize: woman are like the spare parts put together to ‘make me a sandwich.’ Even though ribs aren’t spare parts, it’s like a medaphore that the ribs represent something unneeded and something you could live without. I do not agree with this because you could not live without a woman. You need women to give  birth to babies.

In the story Sins all women were treated poorly. A woman must never be independent in their society. “In childhood a female is subject to her father. In youth a female is subject to her husband. When her lord is dead, she shall be subject to her sons.” This shows that the women had to always belong to a man in a way. She must do what ever she is told and the husband/father can punish or even kill the woman without being at fault. This connects to my life, because I am Persian. The laws for Iran aren’t very strict, but they still have stronger rules against women than men. A woman in Iran must wear a Roosari (head dress) over her hair so it is covering her hair. A woman must wear long sleeves, and long pants. That isn’t the worst. Arabic woman have it worse. They have to walk behind a man, they can not drive, they should not leave their house without a man, some shops do not allow women to purchase items, and man is allowed to punish another man’s wife/daughter. The rules have changed since then till now, but still this goes on.

Gilgamesh seemed to be more of an evil guy rather than the hero. Then this man/beast named Enkidu comes and he is supposed to be the evil guy. Except a woman came and had sex with him and make him into a good guy. Then Enkidu and Gilgamesh get into a fight. And now to think, who is the real hero in this story? Gilgamesh was the one to take the virginity away from each and every woman. He must be the toughest and the strongest man. 

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