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Religionis the belief in, and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
THE ABORIGINES The Dreamtime is the Aboriginal way of understanding the world, of its creation, and its great stories.
The Dreaming world was the old time of the Ancestor Beings. They emerged from the earth at the time of the creation. Time began in the world the moment these supernatural beings were "born out of their own Eternity". The Earth was a flat surface, in darkness. A dead, silent world. Unknown forms of life were asleep, below the surface of the land. Then the supernatural Ancestor Beings broke through the crust of the earth form below , with tumultuous force. The sun rose out of the ground. The land received light for the first time. The supernatural Beings, or Totemic Ancestors, resembled creatures or plants, and were half human. They moved across the barren surface of the world. They travelled hunted and fought, and changed the form of the land. In their journeys, they created the landscape, the mountains, the rivers, the trees, waterholes, plains and sandhills. They made the people themselves, who are descendants of the Dreamtime ancestors. They made the Ant, Grasshopper, Emu, Eagle, Crow, Parrot, Wallaby, Kangaroo, Lizard, Snake, and all food plants. They made the natural elements : Water, Air, Fire. They made all the celestial bodies : the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. Then, wearied from all their activity, the mythical creatures sank back into the earth and returned to their state of sleep. Sometimes their spirits turned into rocks or trees or a part of the landscape. These became sacred places, to be seen only by initiated men. http://aboriginalart.com.au/culture/dreamtime2.html |
Bendigo Gold, people have different ways of looking at the world around them. Can you pick out the similarities and the differences between the ways? Alkira was an Aborigine, Emily was a Christian, Mei Ling was a Taoist and they were friends. Should religions link people or separate people? Explain. CHRISTIANITY TAOISM
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