issue207

PrudenceUID: 2286952

207. “Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of whom they are.”

Rituals and ceremonies, usually traditional as formed in the long human beings’ history, are of great help to define a culture. Just as the speaker says, without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are.

In the first place, when it comes to defining a culture, no body can deny the important role assumed by rituals and ceremonies-in term of defining a culture, they help people to find out who they are. On this issue there is a typical example can be employed to prove it-that is baptism. In Christianity, baptism, symbolized by the pouring of water on the head or by immersion in water, is the sacrament of admission to the church, which is usually accompanied by the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” All Christian have to experience this ceremony which means their resurrection, after which they will begin to live in the big family of Christianity, and when they live they will keep eulogizing the good deed of God and introducing the Good News of Heaven to others. In some Christian’s viewpoint, baptism is their rebirth; while some others believe, they get married with Jesus by the ceremony of baptism. What ever, one fact cannot be denied is that baptism give a Christian another identity, which helps him/her to redefine whom they are.

In the second place stands another example which is also representatively prove that people losing their rituals or ceremonies would have a diminished sense of who they are-that is sky burial. In Tibet there is a common ritual practice called sky burial which involves a priest’s cutting the human corpse into small pieces and then placing it on top of a mountain and expose it ritually, especially to such birds of prey as vultures. This ritual of disposing a human’s corpse is not, as some believe, one to honor the birds of prey or just one more ecologically friendly way to disposing corpses without causing pollution, but one to honor the Buddhism, which teaches rebirth after death. Majority of Tibetans have their faith in Buddhism, which teaches them how to be virtuous people, what they should do, and so forth. Thus, this ritual of sky burial gives them different value of life, money, and world, and of which the most important is to help them to find out who they are. However, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the government of China regards this ritual is barbaric and tried to prohibit this ritual. However, what followed this forbiddance is the lost of the most Tibetans. Thus, they showed their protest to the government. Finally, in the 1980’s, the government realized that this forbiddance which destroy the traditional ritual of Tibetans is not proper, and allowed this ritual again beginning.

To sum up, from what we have discussed above, we may safely draw a conclusion that in the respect of defining culture and helping people to keep sense of who they are, rituals and ceremonies indeed play an important role.