delenir
Member
From: Bridgewater, NS
Registered: 2006-07-26
Posts: 18
Am I the only one that feels there is some obvious Christian/Biblical influence in Remembering the Kanji? There are several that use references or even praise of the Bible in the mnemonics... I find it to be a great book aside from that.
EuPcsl
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2007-04-18
Posts: 57
delenir wrote:
Am I the only one that feels there is some obvious Christian/Biblical influence in Remembering the Kanji? There are several that use references or even praise of the Bible in the mnemonics... I find it to be a great book aside from that.
The bible or RTK? 
Well, it is not weird as "James W. Heisig (1947-) is a philosopher who has specialized in the field of philosophy of religion. He has published several books, their topics ranging amongst the notion of God in Jungian psychology, the Kyoto School of Philosophy, and contemporary interreligious faith. He currently resides in Nagoya, Japan, where he continues to conduct research in the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture."
vengeorgeb
Member
Registered: 2008-12-22
Posts: 308
Being an atheist I felt silly using these kind of stories but later I realized they worked wonderfully. Like most people I was raised favoring one specific religion. In my case that was Christianity so I find biblical stories and religious references very useful because I am familiar with them just like, for example, I am familiar with Spiderman and love using the character as a primitive for making stories with the Kanji for "thread".
So considering most people is familiar with this stuff it was a good idea to use biblical references.
Last edited by jorgebucaran (2009 May 04, 1:04 pm)
sethg
Member
From: m
Registered: 2008-11-07
Posts: 505
yukamina wrote:
In cases where it doesn't affect you negatively. Like Heisig stories.
I haven't really noticed it in Heisig, but I can understand the sentiment of being angered by constant mentions of religion. It can bring up some really bad feelings, emotions, or memories, depending upon your background. This is not to be taken lightly, either, ya know? I mean, some may say, "Oh please, bad memories... you weren't alive when people were really dying because of Christianity.", but many African Americans weren't alive when their ancestors were being whipped and kept as slaves, yet certain inappropriate words can really make someone feel terrible.
Dragg
Member
From: Sacramento, California
Registered: 2007-09-21
Posts: 369
The Bible has had an enormous impact on world, whether you believe for bad or good. At least a few of my own stories use biblical themes and I'm not even Christian. That just goes to show you how pervasive Christianity is in Western culture, not purely as a religious phenomena anymore. I don't intend to propagate the religion, but the stories are a part of me now since I saw them in the media growing up, and deliberately avoiding them is like refusing to look in the mirror. Why should I or anybody else self-censor a written story? Political correctness is really just avoidance; if your angry at Christianity, channel that energy into critical essays instead of forcing your standards on others. I'm just as offended by pointless whining as others are of biblical stories. 
You can never appease everyone.
You can choose to get upset about how people interpret the stories or how fundamentalists take them so literally, but it's utterly pointless to get mad at the stories themselves. There is no way Heisig is a Christian fundamentalist hell-bent on converting you; in fact, I doubt he's even Christian at all, based on some of his other writings.
Last edited by Dragg (2009 May 04, 6:49 pm)
igordesu
Member
From: Wisconsin USA
Registered: 2008-09-22
Posts: 428
Actually, when I went through RTK1, there were a lot of random keywords that I wasn't familiar with...I can't seem to remember any right now to give as examples, but whatev.
Anyways, now I randomly encounter some of these off-the-wall words in my literature classes in college. And, not surprisingly, it turns out that much of literature in the English language over the past 1000+ years has been immensely affected by Christian tradition and the Bible. Like, I remember reading The Faerie Queene--a major work of Christian literature--and coming across like 3 or 4 Heisig keywords that I never thought I would ever have seen. I'm sure Heisig is familiar with this tradition of literature in the English language, so I'm thinking that's probably where he got many of his weird keywords.
Man, this thread came at a convenient time for me, considering I just ranted on the topic of political correctness and RTK stories the other day on my blog and still have plenty of rant juice (or, perhaps, sauce) left in me. Really, though, I think Dragg absolutely nailed it.
Also, consider that RTK stories are a deeply personal thing - while one story will glue that kanji in mind for the rest of one person's life, it may be next to useless for another. Religious imagery in a book meant for those in western culture makes all the sense in the world, considering the vast majority of those raised in (for example) America are familiar with images of Jesus carrying or crucified on the cross (by far the most obvious mnemonic images I can imagine for 憂). As religion is also a highly personal thing, the marriage of the two doesn't seem very outlandish to me. Anything that makes remembering all 2000+ of these kanji easier can and should be utilized to the fullest, after all.
Besides, altering Heisig's stories or elements ("mandala" quickly became "hipster" in my book) is key to success in this marathon. Ultimately, it's up to your creativity and imagination to make it to the end, and complaining about a trivial handful of religious references by Heisig isn't going to make the trek any easier - if you don't like it, change it to suit you, by all means.
Why do people get so touchy about religions they don't believe in?
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