What are the “ends of man” in Hinduism?
The “ends of man” are the four basic goals of Hinduism:
Dharma. Religious Duty
Artha. Earthly Gain
Kama. Physical Pleasure
Moksha. Spiritual Liberation
Yes, Jews can be excommunicated. The Hebrew word for excommunication is herem. it involves the cutting of all religious, social, and business ties with someone considered dangerous to the community. One of the most famous cases of herem involved the seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Spinoza.
These personifications of war, the Four Horsemen, appear in the Book of Revelation 6:1-8. They are: Conquest, Slaughter, Famine, and Death, riding horses that are, respectively, white, red, black, and green.
As described in Leviticus 16:1-27, part of a Hebrew ritual on the Day of Atonement involved the presentation of two male goats at the altar of the tabernacle. After lots were cast, one goat was sacrificed to the Lord; the other, the scapegoat, was set aside for Azazel, an evil spirit of the wilderness. The…
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that cleanliness is next to godliness. It came from John Wesley (1703-1791), the British theologian who founded Methodism.
The official name of the celibate sect the Shakers is the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Derived from the Quakers, the “Shaking Quaker” sect was established in America in 1774 by Ann Lee and reached its height, in the 1840s with a membership of 6,000. Shaker refers to the involuntary movements made…
Nirvana is not a place but a state of bliss to which Buddhists aspire. In Sanskrit it means the “going out” of a light. Early Buddhists used the word to describe the extinction of the fires of cravings. Valhalla, in Norse mythology, is the heavenly hall of slain heroes. It also represents a state of…