Religion and Australian National Dialogue Essay

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Animism

Animism refers to a belief system that focuses on the belief that a living soul is in plants and inanimate objects; essentially everything on the world has a sprit. Typically animistic views are held in traditional and native cultures established well before the creation of structured and organized religion. As these religions become more promenade and powerful eventually animistic religions have been over ruled and are now struggling to continue and to sustain traditional beliefs and practices. The two most common animistic religions in today’s society globally would be Hinduism and Buddhism.
The core beliefs that are common through most animistic cultures, they include: * Belief in spirits * Belief that these spirits interact and connect with physical objects and beings * These spirits are believed to be neutral, neither good or evil * Living beings experience a life after death * Ancestor veneration, meaning that ancestors are essentially respected * Both animate and inanimate objects are anthropomorphized, they are described as being given human features and personified * High respect and appreciation for animals
Animists also have specific practices and traditions: * Exorcisms is a strong and common tradition with animists, this is the process described as releasing or expelling the evil from a person, place, object etc. * Banishing also is promenade, this is a punishment of an individual that has broken a law or rule and it leads to the individual being forced to leave the community and in most cases not permitted to even contact the rest of the group or tribe * They also believe in spiritual healing, opposed to physical health care * They also often celebrate the spirits by holding rituals in which extremes are gone to in order to display the existence of sprits. Many costumes and much make up is used in these celebration as a tradition * Rituals and other gatherings are also participated in when a sprit dies or comes to an end, this could be any form of spirit
Although many of these beliefs and practices were dominate many years ago their part in modern societies, especially western civilization, is often questioned and mocked. A key factors that is important when understanding the way in which traditional civilizations and tribes practiced their animistic beliefs was the fact that they never defined it as being animistic. Even when religions and cultures collided it was never categorized as animism that allows these tribes to connect with each other, even though they are very different. This term and concept, animism, become popular and common in the 19 century. As other cultures become more prominent and colonized wider across the world it was made obvious that the tribal and aboriginal culture and religion were very different to the English and European. As the Europeans, genially English took control and dominated many of these tribes their religion, beliefs and practices were lost. In this process the countries that colonized made a mockery of the preexisting beliefs and enforced their own religions, even in today’s society many follows are seen as somewhat of outcast, at least in a religions stand point. Many efforts have been made to regain this connection to land and spirits but for many cultures they have gone too far to return to their original culture, this is all speaking typically as each culture are different and so is the continuity of the religion. This may be why the majority of the culture is struggling to sustain and grow over time but it may also be associated with the fact that countries either have or are beginning to industrialize.
Industrialization is the process of countries moving away from agriculture and creating manufacturing markets, this involves a lot of infrastructure being build and the destruction of many sacred sites and sprits. Faith has been lost due to many of the individuals that believe in animism have bared
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