In the medieval ruling catholic time the church walls was swarmed with programs of pictures with religious motives there the animal figures rich symbolics was significant first and foremost for the illiterate. Principally the inspiration comes from the antiquitys pagan world of fables and bestiary Christian world of symbols with the bible as the essential source. The essay describes six of the most common animal symbols who occur; dragon, the sneak in the Paradise, mouth of hell, lion, the fox as a preacher and the devil.To attain to a discussion about why just animals are used as symbols for human characteristics in the medieval church art instead for human beings as it's actually be about, I have studied bestiary and other literature about medieval churchpainting to get an understanding about the history of ideas about the thoughts of the time and about symbolics of animals, worth and how the Christianity have had an influence on the pictures.I have used Johannes Rosenrods church pictures from Tensta church in Uppland from 1437 as an exemplification but also mentioned other unknown painters who used similar animal codes and motives.It's plausible that the purpose of the animal figures was both religious and political, which was used by both the spiritual and the worldly authority so they could keep their dominance over the peasant. The figures was simple to read and remember and they made a deep impression on the people together with the sermon. The churchgoer get so to speak a sound- and image experience, a medieval reality who impress their world of ideas.When it's about the artistic formation of religious expression and characteristics it was undoubtedly a great advantage for the artists to use an animal code like a schemata.

In this essay I have chosen to write about graves, settlements and historical, important central places during the late Iron Age and the introduction of Christianity in the east of Blekinge. The reason why I have chosen to write about this is because the area has many ancient monuments and not much have been written about the area. The main question is who where the people who lived there and why did they choose to settle there..

This thesis is a study of how Norse religion and early Christianization is presented in three Swedish museum contexts. Empirical studies of the exhibitions relating to religion have been conducted at The Historical Museum in Stockholm, The Museum of Gotland and Östergötlands Museum and interviews with the museum staff compliment the empirical data. The concept of religion has been problematized to facilitate the analysis. The result of the study is that there are tendencies to make a hierarchical order between the different religions and that Christianity is an organized religion while the Norse religion is semi-organized..

 AbstractA walk at Karlstad's cemetery and burial - grounds is like a strolling in an architectural park with trees, bushes and flowers. But these parks are different; they are filled with dead people, their memorial stones and their life stories. This world is full of socially, economically and culture differences from different times from 19th century till today's society. The cemetery - and burial - grounds in Karlstad can tell you about 19th century influences just by looking at the stones and where they are placed. Influences from the religion, the Christianity, which symbols for example is the cross, the birds and the sun that rises or falls, but also phrases that is directing to the bible.

This paper discusses runic inscriptions from the middle ages on Gotland and how they portray social structure. It focuses on three themes: (1) fixed time and space, (2) women and the nuclear family and (3) profession and social status/structure. It also discusses changes brought on by a more structured and established Christianity, as well as differences between medieval rune stones on Gotland and their predecessors Viking Age rune stones in the Mälar Valley..

This study examines how yoga is presented in a Swedish journal called Sökaren. Sweden is often presented as one of the most secular states in the world, and for that reason it is interesting to examine the Swedish way of religiosity by looking, in this case, at the depiction of yoga. I compare two periods of time, the first one from 1964 to 1974 and the latter from 1998 to 2008. I will thereby be able to examine tendencies and changes in the presentation of yoga. For a further understanding of the context around the elected periods this study introduces religiosity in Swedish society, such as Christianity and the New Age movement.

In this essay I want to investigate how the Viking aristocratic warrior elite in Scandinavia used religious mythology for the construction of their identity. The essay also takes up the concept of honor, which was important for the warriors. Honor was central to all people during Viking age and for the warriors it was absolute. In the religious myths, the aristocratic warriors justify their position in society and legitimate their acts of war. Religion continues to have importance to the warrior elite even after the arrival of Christianity.

The Purpose of this essay is to seek an answer to whether or not a conflict exists between priests of the Assyrian Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church in contemporary Swedish society, as well as to examine the environment between the three. The theological dissimilarities will be studied (from a historical standpoint), along with the interviewed participants views on the division in Christianity which will be presented also. I choose to interview six priests/chorbishops who live and work in Sweden, and the result was analyzed according to the senior professor of peace- and conflict, Peter Wallensteen?s theories on conflict and conflict resolution, where important issues are laid out to identify the core problem, and theological differences are discussed and compared from a union perspective.The result of the interviews illustrate a clear response that the participants experience a lack of functioning collaborations (from the Assyrians Church view, a collaboration is absent from the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church, and vice versa) and most of the participants experience negative consequences from the divide in churches, as they strive for unity in Christianity as a whole. The theological differences between the churches proves not to be as significant as expected, the actual predicament lies partly in language-and phrase division along with a general rejection of each other?s interpretations.

My study focuses on how heterosexuality became, and still is, the norm for sexuality in Namibia. My aim is to through interviewing young academics from University of Namibia and by using discourse analysis, queer- and postcolonial theory, try to find out how these young academics perceive sexuality. My findings are that my respondents perceive heterosexuality to be natural, normal and given by god, and that they perceive homosexuality to be ?a big no-no?. There are certain institutions in the Namibian society that regulates how the Namibian people thinks about sexuality, and my findings are that these are Christianity, culture, family, government, and the traditional picture of a good man and a good woman.

This thesis aims to investigate and discuss the possibility for women in the early Christian church to make music, which in the ancient Roman society was something complicated. Afemale musician was looked upon as decadent and dissolute. This idea, in combination with the music ideals of the church influenced by the Neoplatonic movement, and the Pauline statement (1 Cor. 14:34-36), cast women to be completely prohibited in participating even in the psalmody during the service. My purpose is to discuss how this was looked upon in different Christian regions, using the church fathers as the main material source, since this has not previously been well documented or studied..

This study examines how yoga is presented in a Swedish journal called Sökaren. Sweden is often presented as one of the most secular states in the world, and for that reason it is interesting to examine the Swedish way of religiosity by looking, in this case, at the depiction of yoga. I compare two periods of time, the first one from 1964 to 1974 and the latter from 1998 to 2008. I will thereby be able to examine tendencies and changes in the presentation of yoga. For a further understanding of the context around the elected periods this study introduces religiosity in Swedish society, such as Christianity and the New Age movement.

This paper deals with the late Viking age/early medieval grave field in Björned, Torsåker parish, Ångermanland County in northern Sweden. The grave field in Björned is rare because it has all the signs of being Christianized before the surroundings. This awakes questions such as if the people of Björned came from another place and brought the religion with them or if someone else did that for them. To find these answers I have analysed the stable isotope ratios [delta]13C, [delta]15N and [delta]34S in human bone collagen. Through these stable isotopes we can not only see what the people consumed but also where their food had its origin.

The purpose of this study is to examine how different religious traditions are portrayed in teaching materials based on news reports. The main question concerns the way in which religious practices and holidays are described and in which contexts religion is presented. The method includes a both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The study concludes that certain religious practices are presented in a way that describes the practitioners as more faithful and homogenous than others. This was especially prominent among Muslims and to a certain extent Hindus.

Denna undersökning handlar om ifall kristendom kan ge upphov till ökad empati. Det bygger kring tanken att kristendom uppmanar till tolerans och förståelse, men frågan är om det verkligen stämmer. I undersökningen användes enkäter med en svensk översättning av C. D. Batsons (1994) empatiskala tillsammans med en berättelse i två versioner där huvudpersonen antingen framstod som elak eller snäll.

European identity is a topic constantly debated around Europe. There are many takes on whether there is a European identity and what the European identity consists of. In the European Union the Commission has worked towards developing a common European identity since the middle of the 1970?s. The development of a European identity is an important part in the commission?s quest to tie the union and its people closer together.