Mormonism

1.   Briefly describe the historical context of the emergence of the religion (where, when, who, why?)

Mormonism was a religion started by Joseph Smith on April 6^th 1830 in Western New York. Looking for forgiveness for his sins, Smith prayed and asked which church to join. Smith said the Lord instructed him “not to join any of the churches”. He then claimed an angel had directed him to a buried book. Smith translated this book and in March 1830 he published ‘The Book of Mormon’. It drew many converts to the church.

2.   
What are the main distinctive beliefs of its adherents now?


Mormons have a fairly open idea about religious text, and generally anything spoken or written by a prophet is considered to be the word of God. The Book of Mormon is said to have been written by ancient prophets, and is seen as a ‘companion’ to the Bible. They believe in a God who ‘governs’ the universe, and that he has a plan for each of us. They think that every person who lives on earth will be resurrected, and most will be received into ‘kingdoms of glory’, but to be accepted into the highest kingdom, one must fully believe in God. They believe in the ten commandments. They also believe that the father, the son and the Holy spirit are three seperate gods who are make up one. They believe that God is a man with flesh and bones, and that he has a wife that we were all born from. They teach that God the Father had a father whom he followed, just as Jesus had followed him.

3.   For adherents of the religion, which is more authoritative; spiritual leaders alive now, sacred texts, individual perspectives?

For Mormons, they believe in a God, Jesus Christ (they believe in the second coming of Christ) and modern day prophets (e.g. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism) who help prepare people for eternal life and the second coming of Christ. Mormons have the Bible, the Book of Mormon, various Doctrines etc, where Christians just have the Bible.

4.   What aspects of the religion do you find attractive and why?

I like the fact that in Mormonism, you get a second chance when you die and are resurrected, whereas with Christianity, you do not get a second chance.

5.   
What aspects of the religion do you disagree with and why?

I do not like the fact that only if you believe utterly, completely in god, are you able to be accepted in the highest level of the ‘Kingdom of Glory’, because not everybody believes in God, so that means that even if they are good people with good Christian values, they will not be accepted.

6. How well do the TOK ways of knowing handle the approach to knowledge within the religion?

It is hard for someone like myself to answer this question, as I do not really have a religion, nor am I sure completely about the existence of God. So I don’t think that anyone has ‘reason’ to believe in a God, because I do not feel that there is any real evidence that we can prove 100%. However, followers of Mormonism gather knowledge from language in their Doctrines, the Bible and the Book of Mormon, as well as from the modern day prophets. 

Piece of Art

A fish that I made when I was in Year 6

Week 23

Papa New Guniea seems to be one of the most densely concentrated in the world. From prior knowledge, I know that it is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world and has over 850 different languages spoken there. If I am not mistaken, this comes down to the number of traditional societies and villages that still exist there today. This is due to Papa New Guniea being one of the least explored places on earth, and therefore the outside world has not had an influence as to changing or effecting these traditional societies, and they therefore still have their languages.
I notice how places like America and Russia, who's land has been absolutely explored and discovered does not have very much diversity in language. This is due to the absolute lack of diverse traditional societies in these places, and therefore hardly any range of culture or language.
I think places in Africa like Nigeria that are still diverse with language have the highest risk of 'language death' as they are surrounded and encircled by countries on their continent that are not culturally diverse, and therefore these countries will eventually have an effect on the culturally diverse ones.
One possibly reason for a decline in human languages, is the increase in travel, moving to different speaking countries, and are therefore not carrying on their ancestors language or culture. Or just generally, the world is dominated by English speaking people, and this is a language that is nor important for most people to learn.

Week 21

ARGUMENT 1

PASSAGE FROM http://www.1421.tv/extract.htm

"For the past fifty years debate has raged over where the Maori came from. Some say China (Taiwan), others Indonesia. Events have recently taken a startling turn. Adele White, for the ABC television programme Catalyst (broadcast on 27 March 2003), used mitochondrial (female line) DNA to trace Maori origins back as far as mainland Asia. But where in mainland Asia? The answer came from a surprising quarter - by looking at the gene for alcohol. Adele`s supervisor, Dr. Geoff Chambers, found a match between one of the variant genes for alcohol with people from Taiwan, so it seemed the original homeland of the Maori people was Taiwan. Or was it? When Dr. Chambers` team studied the Y (male) chromosome, they found a different story. While the females came from China, most of the men came from Melanesia.

What might have happened is that a small number of Melanesians settled in New Zealand about two thousand years ago; it was they who brought the rats whose bones have been carbon dated. Zhou Man`s fleet arrived from the Antarctic (Campbell Island) in 1422/23. They landed in substantial numbers in South Island and some ships were wrecked on North Island (Ruapuke Beach). The fleets carried Chinese Tanka concubines. The Melanesians murdered the Chinese men and took the concubines as their wives. If this was the case, evidence of the Chinese visit to South Island should be there. Thanks to Cedric Bell, to whom I am indebted, that evidence has been found. We have carbon dating of wood, mortar, stone and slag as evidence that the Chinese lived on South Island and mined her minerals for five centuries before Captain Cook `discovered` New Zealand."

ARGUMENT 2

PASSAGE FROM http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Maori.html

"According to Maori myth, not only did the Maori people come from Hawaiki, but human life was created on Hawaiki. These two myths were created by the Maoris to explain the origin of man. The first myth tells the story of how the first "human being" was made by Tiki, a man himself, from the soil of Hawaiki. Tiki made the first man look like himself and breathed into it in order to give it life. This event is re-enacted every time a child grows in a woman's womb, so according to myth, each Maori comes from Hawaiki. The second myth is the myth of Tura, who has a special role in the initiation of childbirth. Tura teaches the people of Hawaiki how to use fire and sets in motion the birth cycle, thus establishing the human biological cycle and the customs relating to birth. In these two myths, Hawaiki is the source of human life. The illustration in these myths of how human life has been spawned on Hawaiki shows how valuable the myths of Hawaiki are to Maori cultural traditions."

PASSAGE FROM http://www.maori.info/maori_history.htm

Many believe that it was this revered cultural centre that was 'Hawaiki', a place much venerated in tradition as the 'homeland' of the Maori people, for it is plain that Maori culture derives from East Polynesia.
The concept of 'Hawaiki', of a 'homeland' from which the forbears of each migratory group had come, is found throughout Polynesia and is applied to differing areas both within and without the region. It may simply have been a general way of describing the area from which the last movement had been made in the course of the settlement of the island groups throughout Polynesia.
To some Maori tribes 'Hawaiki' is a reference to the Cook Islands, possibly because their ancestors came to New Zealand from the Society Islands by way of the Cook group. Maori in the Chatham Islands have even referred to the South Island of New Zealand in this way.
It was on the base of Polynesian culture that the intricacies of Maori culture were structured. Indeed, throughout Polynesia there are common elements in language, legend and place names.

MY OPINION

In my opinion, the first argument is the strongest. This is largely due to the facts, opinions and theories have been backed up by strong scientific evidence, particuarly the information about DNA and chromosomes that scientists have actually researched, and then have been able to write about their findings, tracing this DNA back to Melanesia. This to me is a much stronger argument than a Maori myth or legend. There is no scientific or researched evidence that backs up the second argument, and I think this is where it falls down. The first argument is also much more realistic and believable, as apposed to making man out of soil as proposed in argument 2. For me to be able to believe something, I have to be able to read sensible, researched information to the point of being almost proven, and certainly the stories and tales that the maoris talk about in their argument does not fit into this category.

Reliability - Week 9

Reliability has to do with the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its processes and functions in routine situations, as well as unexpected circumstances. It also has to do with the quality of measurement. In its everyday sense, reliability is how consistent or repeatable research and measurements are. We often speak about a machine as reliable, for example 'I have a reliable car.' Or, news people talk about a usually reliable source. In both cases, the word reliable usually means dependable or trustworthy. When we speak of a dependable measure, we mean one that is both reliable and valid. A measure is considered reliable if it would give us the same result over and over again. We cannot calculate reliability - we can only estimate it. It's not possible to calculate reliability exactly. This effects how we gain knowledge, as unreliable information will make us draw false conclusions, leading to gain false knowledge. With this inaccurate knowledge, this could lead to making mistakes with decisions, for example testing a new product that includes unreliable information could have serious consequences. In such scientific experimental situations, information and data have to be confirmed to be reliable so that their results will be accurate.

Term 2 Week 7 - Observing and Studying Behaviour

I was part of the observing/studying group. My focus was to look at the laughter in the other group during the 15 minutes of preparation and the presentation of their assignment. I think this was incredibly interesting to look at something like this, that you don't really take notice of when you are doing it. The three main reasons for laughter was to a) break the tension after tense situations like group arguments, if a member of the group's mind wanders, they will usually start talking about something funny they saw/heard, and also at the beginning when the group first realized we were observing them, awkward/nervous laughter was heard as they were not sure what was happening. I found people like Sam and Hannah to be people who make others laugh, but also can laugh at other things, with Maddy laughing the most (she was quite giggly) and Kasun laughing the least. This also related to how much input each member was having in the group - Maddy was involved the most and Kasun was involved the least.
I am not fully sure whether these results would be valuable for a scientist, as the other group knew they were being examined (what was not sure) and so I am uncertain they were acting naturally. If they were unaware of the examining, it would be a lot more accurate.

TOK Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BRTrEX9rcw