Indigenous Religions of the World Essay -- Religion

Indigenous religions exist in every climate roughly the world and exhibit a wide range of differences in their stories, language, customs, and views of the afterlife. Within endemical communities, religion, social behavior, art, and music are so intertwined that their religion is a significant part of their stopping point and virtually inseparable from it. These religions originally developed and thrived in isolation from one another and are some of the earliest examples of religious use and belief. The modern world however, has taken its toll on these groups and many of their stories, customs, and beliefs have been lost to, or replaced by, those brought in as a result of popular culture and the missionary work of Christians and Muslims. The survival of autochthonic religions has been faced with many challenges. In addition to the rapid spread and Christianity and Islam, a number of other factors affect their survival, including struggles associated with the maintaining of local anesthetic indigenous worldviews, languages, and environments (McKinley, Elizabeth).The spread of popular culture from increased travel, television, radio, and the internet is a source of threat to the cultural views of indigenous people and their religious practices. Traditional indigenous clothing is being replaced with business suits and baseball caps and traditional styles of building are being replaced with the international style of architecture (Molloy, Michael). Science and technology is providing explanations for naturally occurring events that indigenous people have historically related to the will of the gods and indigenous artifacts originally of religious nature are being downplayed simply as indigenous working of art. For indigenous culture... ... - Survival International. Survival International. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. .4)McKinley, Elizabeth. Locating The Global Culture, Language And Science Education For Indigenous Students. International Journal of Science Ed ucation 27.2 (2005) 227-241. schoolman Search Premier. Web.19 Apr. 2012.5)Molloy, Michael. Experiencing the Worlds Religions Tradition, Challenge, and Change. New York McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print6)New Zealand Culture - Maori. New Zealand Travel and New Zealand Business. Tourism New Zealand, 2011. Web. 23 Apr. 2012. .7)Wilford, John Noble. Worlds Language Dying absent Rapidly. Www.nytimes.com. The New York Times, 18 Sept. 2007. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. .