commerce, culture,christianity

Looking through this first chapter I immediately compare the culture of commerce to how we have progressed over the years. It was that, then we relied on these worn paths between continents to provide us with exotics from far; spices, silks, fragrances all set up along the roads or shipped in and set along the harbors. We’ve come a long way since then. Using such commodities as currency as well, could you imagine trading a lamb for a dress for your wife?

These roads meant that merchants had to let their goods speak for themselves and it was truly buyer beware at this point. A man could claim the lamp he was selling contain a mystical powerful genie that would grant you three wishes and it was on the buyer to take that risk. Given today’s technological advances, you can confirm that claim with a few amazons’ reviews, albeit possibly negative for the false advertisements.

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the Chinese culture. More so for the china of lore rather than the modern version. To be a part of the early Buddhist lifestyle would be a welcomed treat from our currently iLife. I do feel the western influence of lifestyle has tarnished the great view I have of china, although, its more within places such as Hong Kong, which until recently was still under British rule. Of course I don’t know how I would fair with life in Mainland China.

The biggest part of European Christianity I have learned in my lifetime, was the creation of the bible. When it came to creating the new testament bible many of the things that made the old testament were omitted in order to show a different side of god, the kinder, gentler all accepting god, through this process many of the controversial stories and accounts were omitted. Also it became first come first serve. If you got your story in by the deadline, the chances of you getting into the bible were higher, thus the bible became more of an advertising tool than it did the truth. The reason I bring this up is that during this postclassical era Christianity had to be able to relate to a wide variety of people in order to gain popularity through recruitment.

Although its hard to deny that through these efforts the eastern, more sophisticated thought process one over the western views of Christianity, even though both were subscribing to the same goal, strength in numbers through the eyes of god.